School groups have welcomed the Department of Basic Education’s move to formalise coding and robotics as subjects in South African public schools but have warned that the initiative will have little bearing as long as funding, teachers and capacity remain problems.
Fedsas deputy chief executive, Riaan van der Bergh, flagged three main challenges with the new curriculum that need to be addressed for the programmed to prove successful. Namely: Education non-profit, the National Youth ICT Council, echoed this sentiment, flagging potential issues with the rollout of the curriculum in rural parts of the country especially.
In terms of capacity, the Fedsas executive said that the education department should lean on the private sector to assist it in ensuring support for the subjects in schools. For example, he noted that “the buzz and hype around artificial intelligence ” presents the opportunity for the department to open the discussion on the responsible use of AI in education.