Empuluzi High School
Thursday 29 July 2004
Programme Director
MEC Siphosezwe Masango and
Officials from your department
Representatives from the sponsoring company MTN
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
You will agree with me that any occasion that has at its centre the well being of the community, is warmly appreciated. That is why it is an honour for me to be part of this event that is aimed at improving the quality of education and increasing access to Information and Communication Technology in rural schools.
What is particularly pleasing to us is that this project is a clear indication that our call for a partnership between the people, government and the corporate world, is indeed taking shape.
You will remember that during the 2004 general elections, we called on the nation to forge a people’s contract to create work and fight poverty. The people’s contract we spoke about represents a relationship of trust and mutual commitment between government and the people of South Africa. This contract is a dual pledge whereby the people, on the one hand, pledge to act in unity in the pursuit of a society that embraces common nationhood, while government on the other pledges to advance the emancipation of the people and continuously empower them towards sustainable livelihoods.
The people understood this call. That is why they gave us an unambiguous mandate to advance the transformation programme aimed at improving the lives of ordinary people in a qualitative manner. They did that because they know that our approach at improving their lives is grounded on the needs and aspirations of the impoverished. On a daily basis our people acknowledge that in the past 10 years we had done a lot to alleviate their plight.
Today, South Africa has a caring government, with housing programmes for the poor; with social security grants for pensioners, young children, people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups; with programmes to redistribute land; with quality education open to all and other new opportunities for the youth; with clinics being built close to where people live; with households being connected to water and electricity and with more people having access to telecommunications.
TECHNOLOGY
Ladies and gentlemen, like the entire world South Africa is in the throes of
an information revolution. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are
revolutionising the way individuals communicate with one another, the way
businesses do business, and the way governments interact with citizens.
As the United Nations Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan once stated “ … today many people cannot imagine daily life without the use of increasingly sophisticated information and communication technologies, from television and radio to the mobile telephone and the Internet”.
Technological change has virtually left no area of our lives untouched, including schools. Today ICT plays a crucial role in our continued struggle against poverty, ignorance and diseases. ICTs allow for more efficient agricultural production, diversity and distribution. They offer the possibility of delivering basic health services to those in dire need living in areas with little or no access to healthcare facilities. They can extend the reach of educators allowing them to bring knowledge to the most remote corners of our country.
According to the International Telecommunications Union, access to information technology can boost the creation of small companies and groupings of artisans in the poorest and most isolated areas of the world and help them join the mainstream of national and even global markets.
Information technology makes it possible to leapfrog poor infrastructures so that distance from markets is no longer a drawback and poor distribution channels a thing of the past. Given their enormous power to improve people's economic, social and cultural well-being, ICTs must be at the centre of any development strategy.
Indeed we have made great strides in the advancement of technology. But let us step back a little. In the mid-80’s the International Technology Union established a special Commission to look into ways of bridging the gap between those who had access to basic telephone services and those who did not. The aim was to bring a telephone within walking distance of every citizen of the world, by the turn of the century.
While we are all aware that some progress has been made in achieving this objective, many of you here will attest to the fact that there are many people in our province and country who have never seen a telephone, let alone made a telephone call. In fact half of our population do not make a single telephone call during their lifetime.
One would have expected that the advent and convergence of new technologies would really narrow what is now known as the “digital divide”. The gap has widened and continues to widen with each passing day. The frightening fact is that the effects of the digital divide could be much more devastating than the industrial divides of the industrial revolution.
This divide brings with it a social divide, a democratic divide, an
educational divide, a financial divide and a religious divide. This is because
this divide knows no boundaries. It is spreading faster than a wild fire as new
services and technologies are being introduced in industrialised countries.
While we acknowledge that there have been many previous attempts to "bridge
the gap" between developing and industrialised countries, it must also be
recognised that most of these have fallen short of their stated objectives. The
problems occurred mainly because of lack of resources to provide the necessary
infrastructure.
All of us are agreed that once we build this highway bridge and close the gap, great opportunities arise that can propel the development of the economy in our province and our country. While it is increasingly recognised that information and communications technologies are powerful engines of economic, cultural and social development, access to ICTs is virtually impossible without a workable telecommunication infrastructure. I believe that basic telecommunications infrastructure development must become one of the first priorities of a nation.
It is only by doing this that we would begin to ensure that technology is indeed accessible to the majority of our people, including those living in the remote areas of our province. As we launch this project today let us acknowledge that poor students lack computer access outside of regular school hours. We need, as a matter of urgency to address the limited access to technology that many students have outside of school.
We can do that. But we need to do that as we forge a partnership to narrow that divide. Closing the digital divide will also help close the achievement gap that exists within our schools.
These are challenges that we need to face if we are to succeed. The other
major challenge facing the implementation of the ICT’s in our country is the
integration of the resources of all three spheres of government, national,
provincial and local governments in ICT capacity building for optimal
utilisation of ICT’s. The integration we seek must, for instance, ensure that
when a school or a clinic is built, there must be a road to access it. It must
be electrified and supplied with water.
It must have the requisite personnel, qualified to meet the educational or
health needs of that particular community. When an ICT Centre is deployed in a
school, community centre, or clinic the end users of the ICT’s must be properly
trained on how to utilise the ICTs for the delivery of e-education, e-health,
e-business development of SMMEs and e-government services.
In the State of the nation address a few months ago, President Thabo Mbeki pledged to invest more than R100-billion in improving roads, rail and air transport as well as telecommunications and energy. He also pledged to encourage more investment in key economic sectors such as manufacturing, information and communications technology, mining, and business services.
This investment, we believe, will take care of the continued mass poverty and
deep inequalities based on class, race, gender and region. We must deal with the
class, race, and gender-based disparities that exist in the area of access to
Information and Communications Technologies.
As government we will work to ensure that modern information and communication
technologies are introduced in the poor areas of our province as quickly as
possible, to assist in all their developmental and governance efforts. We will
continue to work with the International Investment Council and the Presidential
Council on Information Society further to improve our responses to the process
of globalisation and our access to foreign direct investment and modern
information and communication technologies.
We in government have already started taking advantage of the benefits that information and communication technologies have to offer. Many of you may have heard about E-government. What exactly do we mean by E-government? For many, it means better governmental services through a one-shop electronic service. But for others, e-government is a way of modernising and even reinventing government. It tries to ensure that ordinary common citizens have equal rights to participate in governmental processes, making it possible for citizens no longer just to be passive consumers of services offered to them, but to participate actively in government decision-making processes.
We must make a firm commitment to ensure that our people really enjoy the fruits of a decade of freedom and democracy. Our experience over the last decade has taught us that state intervention is necessary in a number of areas if we are to achieve the objectives of creating work and fighting poverty.
We are, therefore firm in our resolve to forge ahead with accelerated delivery, which will breathe life to the people’s contract to create work and fight poverty. The people’s contract calls for unity of purpose and a commitment from every citizen to deal with all the challenges collectively. We must do our best to rise to the occasion and live to the expectations of the vast majority of our people.
In forging this partnership to improve the lives of all our people, the Mpumalanga Provincial Government will work with many in our society, who are ready to lend a hand in the national, provincial and local effort to build a better life.
As we continue on the path we defined in 1994, we similarly expect the various stakeholders in different sectors of our economy, including business, labour and civil society as well as individual citizens to come on board in addressing these and other challenges.
So let me appeal to more partners to join us in our quest to ensure that everyone in the community has the opportunity to fully benefit from all that the information revolution has to offer, including educators wishing to integrate technology into classrooms.
Give us your energy, give us your resources, so that we may build the
bridges. We realise that ICTs alone may not feed the hungry, eradicate poverty
or reduce child mortality, but they are an important catalyst for economic
growth, delivery of education, health and other government socio-economic
services.
By focusing on the deployment of information and communication technologies in
the under-serviced areas, MTN and all of us can play an important role in making
South Africa globally competitive. Remember affordable technologies, in the
hands of local communities, can be effective engines of change, both social and
material. Access to information and technological know-how is essential if the
world is to defeat hunger, protect the environment. But to harness this
potential, we need to forge global partnerships for development between
governments, the private sector and the civil society, as Kofi Anan reminded us.
The people’s contract calls for unity of purpose and a commitment from every citizen to deal with all the challenges collectively.
We must do our best to rise to the occasion and live to the expectations of the vast majority of our people.
In conclusion, Programme Director, allow me therefore to declare this centre open.
I thank you.