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Date : 29/07/2004
Source: Mpumalanga Provincial Government
Title: T Makwetla: Launch of MTN Schools Connectivity Project


PREMIER TSP MAKWETLA AT THE LAUNCH OF THE MTN SCHOOLS CONNECTIVITY PROJECT, Empuluzi High School, 29 July 2004

Programme Director
MEC for Education 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 fulfilling experience. 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 in which the people actively seek to improve their own material circumstances, on the one hand, while government diligently continue to empower and support them by providing necessary resources.

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-80s 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.

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 divides of the industrial revolution.

This divide brings with it a social divide, an educational divide, a financial divide and many other disparities. 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 exist 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 the provision of basic telecommunications infrastructure development is challenge to all nations.

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 suffer outside of school.

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 ICTs in our country is the integration of the resources of all three spheres of government, national, provincial and local in ICT capacity building for optimal utilisation of ICTs. 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 ICTs 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 in our 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 all 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 are committed to undertaking a comprehensive and coordinated approach together with all stakeholders to avoid duplication of effort and to ensure complementarity of development initiatives.

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.

Issued by: Office of the Premier, Mpumalanga Provincial Government
29 July 2004

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