More than half a billion rand set aside by the government to fund a programme to supply laptop computers for teachers in public schools, has run out of cash.

The R550m allocated among all nine provinces in the 2009/10 financial year has instead been used to pay teachers’ salaries, The New Age has learnt. This has brought the teacher laptop initiative to a grinding halt and left teacher unions fuming.

The initiative was launched in 2009 and was due to be implemented in phases over three years, benefiting 352000 teachers.

“Due to the delays in the implementation, the funds initially allocated for the allowances for the teachers’ laptop initiative were used to address other financial pressures arising from the settlements of the occupation specific dispensation (OSD) and annual improvements of salaries,” said the Basic Education Department spokesperson, Panyaza Lesufi.

The initiative had also run into trouble after it emerged that 40% of SA’s teachers were not creditworthy and would have been unable to benefit from the programme. The initial plan was to subsidise teachers with a monthly amount of R130 over five years to enable them to buy packages from service providers that included software, laptop and internet connections.

The teachers were expected to pay the difference between the subsidy and the actual cost. It is understood that once service providers realised the number of blacklisted teachers, some pulled out of the deals.

The New Age reported recently that the national Treasury was in talks with the department to purchase the laptops on behalf of teachers. But this has stalled over a failure to agree on an acceptable funding mechanism.

National Professional Teachers Organisation of South Africa president Ezrah Ramasehla expressed deep disappointment at the slow progress in implementing the laptop initiative. “We expected that we would have all the laptops in our hands by now.

It’s another case of good idea by the department but failure to implement,” Ramasehla said.

http://thenewage.co.za/Detail.aspx?news_id=29465&cat_id=1007&mid=53

lesegom@thenewage.co.za

http://www.teacher-laptop.co.za/