The Gauteng Education Department is preparing to reboot its R17 billion digital classrooms project, having ‘beefed up’ security measures.<\/p>\n
It follows a number of thefts which left the smart schools paperless education project in tatters, with tablets and laptops having to be recalled from township schools in Gauteng.<\/p>\n
The first recipients of the tablets and laptops were seven schools in Tembisa, east of Johannesburg.<\/p>\n
Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi said that all matric classrooms will get interactive blackboards, while each matric learner in a no-fee-paying township school will receive a tablet.<\/p>\n
Teachers and each subject adviser, meanwhile, would receive a laptop by July 21, following new security measures put in place.<\/p>\n
Having launched in January, the project was halted in May following a number of thefts and school robberies, which saw more than 3,000 tablets stolen out of 88,000 distributed.<\/p>\n
“This prompted the MEC to temporarily retrieve them for the installation of\u00a0 additional security features,” the department said.<\/p>\n
The education department said that of approximately 6,200 tablets that were originally fitted with tracking devices deployed to the seven schools, 11 tablets were stolen\/lost and five were subsequently recovered.<\/p>\n
Six tablets that have not yet been switched on since going missing, have not been recovered, it said.<\/p>\n
“On the retrieval of tablets, there is remarkable progress. Schools that have tight security measures and utilisation plans did not have to return the tablets,” Lesufi said.<\/p>\n
“Security is being beefed up in the schools, and prior to issuing the tablets for circulation, installation of tracking devices in all the tablets, is currently underway,” the MEC said.<\/p>\n
Lesufi aims to have all high schools in the province paperless by 2019.<\/p>\n
Gauteng withdraws 88,000 tablets from schools because of theft<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Gauteng smart school project launches<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Gauteng launches R17 billion digital classrooms project<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n