Service providers ‘should offer free data for e-learning sites’ | Inside Education

Just like MTN, who had once committed to a free Twitter service, network providers should offer a similar service to e-learning websites, which would improve the quality of education among pupils in the country, according to an education expert by Inside Education.

The Competition Commission recently gave feedback on its data market inquiry, stating that network providers in South Africa continued to offer data at high prices.

But significantly reducing data costs over the long term would make digital learning more accessible to more South Africans, especially with government rolling out tablets to pupils.

The department of basic education was already rolling out free tablets to schools in certain parts of the country, as it was now a “basic necessity” since the “whole world has gone digital when it comes to learning,” education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga told The Citizen...

E-learning could relieve teachers in rural areas, who were forced to teach a subject they were not experienced in, Lamberti explained.

“You can take the best maths teacher in the country, for example, to get to teach the kids in the rest of the country online, while the actual maths teacher plays a supporting role. For those teachers, especially in the rural areas, who are not science teachers but are asked to teach science, e-learning would make it easier for them.”
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Source: Inside Education