Subsidised laptops for teachers welcomed

This is an ongoing project (?!?!?!) by the DOE. The only issue is that teachers are only allowed to run M$ and have to purchase M$ Office at a reduced price. Like UNISA, its an incentive to push M$.

I don't object to using M$ but they DOE do limit the actual use of the laptop. The article is missing too much info and should have spoken to teachers that have already taken up the offer.
 
They tried it at our school, but after all the initial excitement subsided, the deal fell apart.

The teachers were not willing to pay in the region of R250/month of their own money for it over a period of five years, and take out their own insurance.

Although the intention is good, I believe that the trade union obviously are getting a kickback from this deal which makes them blind for some very possible pitfalls that could come with it.
 
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Having a notebook is only a start.
What the DOE turns out in terms of support for teachers is shocking. As an example, a feedback form to report the year-end promotions, in EXCEL format, requires one to duplicate the data entry and not a single cell is protected.

Downloadable templates for various tasks do not exist or their existence is not communicated effectively. I see the teacher in our family circle struggling to generate his own data capturing forms. To think that 1000's of teachers are doing the same, what a waste of time and resources.

The end result is that not only is the teacher out of pocket, but now has even more to do as s/he has to come to grips with the software at a sufficiently high level to use it effectively. Unless there is some substantial support from the DOE, or the unions, addressing these issues the scheme is bound to fail.
 
POTUS said:
They tried it at our school, but after all the initial excitement subsided, the deal fell apart.

The teachers were not willing to pay in the region of R250/month of their own money for it over a period of five years, and take out their own insurance.

Although the intention is good, I believe that the trade union obviously are getting a kickback from this deal which makes them blind for some obvious pitfalls with it.
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How certain are you? That's in the region of R15000.00 over five years.
 
Where's Ubuntu?

Where's the ability to package Ubuntu with laptops?

SADTU represents two-thirds of the country's teachers with union membership standing at 246,280 members.
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Yes, the Union sucks the worker dry again. Numbers game.
 
Yeah - we were quite interested in this when it first launched as well. A couple of stumbling blocks came up:

1) The DOE seemed very uncertain over what the deal actually was.
2) Only 4 teachers in our school actually qualified for the subsidy according to the DOE
3) Teachers would have to purchase the laptop outright and then apply for the subsidy
4) Initial releases by the DOE put the laptop price at around 14k IIRC (for a machine that could not have cost more than 9k)
6) Teachers would have to [strong]give a weekly report on what they used the laptop for[/strong].
7) There was no certain list of suppliers

Anyways, I received notice last week that the DOE has put it on hold indefinitely while they sort out the problems. Soooo we'll see I guess :)
 
I'm also not very positive about this.
When I heard it on the radio, first reaction was "you want the teachers to pay from their own pocket, for laptops to teach class?!"..... FAIL
I cant see many people willing to pay for a tool to do their job, surely the employer (gov, or school) should supply... hell our school fees are high enough, I also don't wanna pay for their laptop.
And wth is wrong with open source software?
Seems to be another oportunity by gov to empower people, thats doomed to fail.
 
Why don't the DoE think about paying their teachers a better salary first (to RETAIN the teachers in the country), then we can think about how to improve the teaching experience.

Why does a teacher with about 25-years experience, and a degree, with multiple other credits to their name, get about 1K or so more than a kid fresh out of teacher-college?

That's Fourways High, the same place that employs teachers without degrees and promotes staff (who happen to have been students there) above clearly more capable more qualified and more deserving staff. The clique of the clueless will prevail.
 
Doomed to failure

The last I heard this initiative was scrapped. The whole idea is flawed and would be detrimental to any teachers that fall for it.

Besides which, how many laptops survive 5 years without some form of costly maintenance - like a replacement battery?

If the government wants to support our teachers with laptops then they're going to have to do a lot better. This would include lots of training and support and I would think a lease based system would be better. Let the schools lease as many laptops as they need and if they break they get swapped out.
 
Back-to-front priorities.:sick:

Buying 20 tons of paper & pencils & books will help SA schoolchildren infinitely more.
 
This "initiative" is a load of horse****.

The teachers get completely screwed. Like was said above, they have to pay essentially 15-20k out of their own pockets for a machine that should cost around 8-9k. ALSO, they do not have a choice as to what software they are allowed to run. They have to run department of edumakashun dictated software builds.... on laptops that the teachers own.

Right.
 
How much is the subsidy? What's on the PC's? Is it MS or open source? What are the criteria to receive the subsidy? I got more information from this comments section than the, it seems to me, wholly unedited press release that got presented to us as "news". If you're going to publish press releases sans alteration, have the integrity to put "Minister of Communication's PR department" as author and not "Staff Writer".
 
bwana said:
How certain are you? That's in the region of R15000.00 over five years.
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Exactly.

I did forget to mention however that they could upgrade to a newer model after three years upon signing a new five-year contract.

The deal basically consisted of this machine:

http://toshiba.laptopdirect.co.za/toshiba-laptop-specifications.php?laptop=24673

With an entry-level inkjet printer, laptop bag and a 2GB flash disk thrown in. The machines would come preinstalled with MS Software.

It is possible that they negotiate the specs on a per-school basis, but this is how it was proposed to the teachers at my specific school.
 
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Laptops don't age well. To be stuck for 5 years into any laptop deal would be a pain especially if it is an entry level one. Once the teacher wants to put more advanced resource hungry software on in 3 years, they are going to start finding it getting really slow and annoying.
 
Better they fixed up teacher's salaries, then they could buy their own laptops for cheaper.

But first they need to fix schools, because there are schools that are very broken: absence of glass in windows, doors, fence and phone. Not very academic environment.

Otherwise, not approved. :sick:
 
Would be great if this materialised in any form. I might just get my laptop back, my wife took mine over a long time ago to do all her schoolwork on. Guess who's also sponsoring the training...
 
Laptops to competent teachers, perhaps

Jagtiger said:
Better they fixed up teacher's salaries, then they could buy their own laptops for cheaper.

But first they need to fix schools, because there are schools that are very broken: absence of glass in windows, doors, fence and phone. Not very academic environment.

Otherwise, not approved. :sick:
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I agree. Let us get some priorities defined. Some teachers misuse certain technologies as well. I have seen inappropriate "assignments" with little value given, conveniently directly copied from the net. I therefore think that there should be clear policies in place as to the use of the internet by teachers and pupils. About the laptop deal offered to teachers, I get the idea that it was just a money making ploy.
 
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