80% of schools in South Africa do not have access to the internet for teaching and learning!
Why do we care?
“Technology for teaching and learning offers huge opportunities to transform education.”
- The International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity.
Most educational technology and digital resources are delivered through the internet. But with most schools having no-, or slow-, connections they do not have access to the “huge opportunities” technology has to offer.
The edly CookieJar
The edly CookieJar gives fast access to an ever-growing list of educational resources to schools no matter where they are or what internet connection is available to them!
Why should you care?
"[The technology] skills gap will stunt growth in the global economy.”
- McKinsey Global Institute at McKinsey & Company.
As our world embraces technology more, people need higher levels of technological skill to achieve economic success, i.e. to get a job. Children sitting in classrooms today that are not getting the advantages of technology will inevitably cause the economic-pie that you and your children want to get a slice of to be smaller.
The rising technological skill tide lifts all boats.
Why not just wait for the internet to become faster?
"Broadband speeds … [are] rising …. [But] the acceleration is concentrated towards the top end: [those with faster connections] are improving more quickly, with those towards the bottom end ... verging on stagnation."
One reason for this is when mobile operators buy expensive new mobile technology, they install it where they can make the most money, i.e. the metros. The older metro tech is moved to suburban areas and suburban hand-me-downs move to rural areas. This is why the rural vastness of South Africa is covered by old 2G/EDGE connections (when last have you tried to watch your favourite … buffering… cat video on a 2G/EDGE connection?). This is one of the drivers of what is called the digital divide.