PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCY

Challenges

Most Gauteng schools have access to the networked computer facilities

for teaching and learning. Training was done to at least 50% of educators
for basic ICT integration into teaching and learning. The challenge that
schools are faced with is that educators have skills to demonstration an
understanding of the concepts related to ICT, file management, working
within the word processor, saving documents, how to log on to a network ,
access various drive on the system and printing. The problem is that the
educators cannot integrate their skills into the curriculum in their specific
learning areas. Schools have also illiterate educators in ICT who lacking
love, interest and the buy-in from the educators. Some educators are not
even willing to enhance themselves in being trained on the use of ICT in
their teaching and learning. This situation has posted a huge gap
especially to underperforming schools. According to (White Paper on e-
Education 2004) every teacher and learner in General and Further
Education and Training must have access to ICT infrastructure. In Gauteng
(2002) 88.5% of schools have computers and 45.4% are used for teaching
and learning .The challenge was the rolling out of ICT infrastructure
according to Africa‘s specification to suit them.

The critical elements that schools are facing are security and effective
utilization of ICT to enhance effective teaching and learning in the
classroom by the educators. The cost of technology resources (hard and
software) is still a challenge. Since the installation for computers in the
schools a significant progress has been made in boosting the confidence
of managers and educators in presenting their administrative work. The
introduction of Gauteng On-line as an ICT tool has made strands in the
development of different software to deal with the poor performance of
learners in the township schools. Educators are able to design the learning
programme and planning lesson plan more neatly. Teachers need support
in the following skills, such as power point presentation, teaching with
data projector, use of network tools and more advance spreadsheets.
School administrators most of the time owns the schools computers they
do not share with the rest of the staff.

Improvement plan

Firstly do an audit for curriculum specialists of the entire school per

subject and grade. The school management needs to make more
intervention in order to motivate teachers to be willing to have an interest
in using ICT in their teaching. Training of educators should be based on
their level of competency. Educators must be in the position to identify,
organize the class when using ICT to achieve learning outcomes in their
learning area. Encourage teachers to enroll on ICT education programmes
such as ACE, PGCE Bed Hons & Masters programmes in ICT Educator,
Ensure that ICT based curriculum and administrative tools are available,
that teachers have the appropriate ICT skills. Each educator need the
knowhow of the ways in which they and their learners can use computers
to assist with teaching and learning in class. Laptops should be given to
all teachers, exposure and the appropriate use of laptops. Educator must
be also trained on software packages in the laptops.

Activities to correct

According to (White Paper on e-Education 2004) the achievement of the e-

Education policy goal, says that every learner in the further education and
training bands will be ICT capable by 2013. MS office training to all
educators