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Research and Development Service Centre

SA must welcome intl aid in IT initiatives

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 12:35

Deputy Minister of Education, Andre Gaum has expressed appreciation at the international support South Africa has received in the vast field of information and computer technology.

Speaking at the opening of the Research and Development Service Centre at the Belgian IT Varsity in Pretoria, the deputy minister said South Africa can make much better use of technology to empower individuals and to promote economic growth while reducing inequality.

"To make better use of technology we have to expand internet access and the spread of internet technology, commerce, and communication," he said.

The Belgian College is a private and non- profit institution which contributes to the development of education and Information Technology (IT) in South Africa.

The deputy minister said the opening of this new service centre was a positive development for the Belgian College and also a positive development for the private higher education sector as a whole.

"Having benefited from this centre, the Belgian College graduates will be better equipped to solve many IT challenges that the employment industry will offer each day.

"We also hope that the research done here will not have a much wider impact only in the Gauteng province, but also countrywide," said Mr Gaum.

He said private universities and colleges play a key role in widening access to higher education, and government has a particular soft spot for those private colleges.

Deputy Minister Gaum said prior 1998, private tertiary education was not regulated, and as a result excesses were evident in a number of institutions where there was poor quality in instruction, and a lack of accountability to students.

"I am now pleased that we have transcended many of those problems through effective regulation and to date, we have 81 registered and 13 provisionally registered private tertiary education institutions in the country offering a total of 320 programmes, including four doctoral programmes," the deputy minister said.

He added that this meant that there were far more private than public higher education providers.

Mr Gaum said, however, this does not mean that the majority of students are in the private higher education sector, adding that most of them are in the public and not the private sector.

- BuaNews