It is becoming ever so clear that South Africa’s plans to develop a knowledge economy and successfully harness ICT to drive economic growth and create employment are about as substantial as a fart in the wind.

Under the current administration, technology and innovation have long been getting their fair share of lip service, but many fundamental boxes remain unticked. For example, not only are we still waiting on government to finalise a national broadband policy, we are also watching with morbid fascination as a bunch of inept bureaucrats continue to fumble along with digital TV migration – a process that has been dragging along for almost a decade now.

The public ICT space is virtually littered with the skeletons of unfinished projects and unattained goals that have collapsed along the way, while Cabinet ministers, director-generals and other government pencil-pushers play musical chairs or, quite frankly, just don’t bother to do anything.

Sadly, many, if not all, of these unfi nished ICT projects and unmet goals represent missed opportunities, to say the least. At the other extreme, some of the more crucial ones are continually bleeding money and reaching critical phases – such as digital TV migration.

Indeed, these problems and challenges are not unique to South Africa, or our government. Many countries around the world are still trying to perfect their ICT strategies and are still getting to grips with the slew of technology and innovation that we have been bombarded with over the last decade or so.

It is understandable then that some countries may take another decade or two to reach the desired levels of ICT effi ciency, and future generations will utilise and incorporate ICT in their daily lives, the way we do breathing.

Unfortunately, if a recent probe by a government-appointed task team is to be believed, then our future generations may not have it quite that easy and really meaningful ICT implementation is in danger of not materialising in South Africa any time soon.

It recently emerged that minister of basic education Angie Motshekga" rel=tag>Angie Motshekga has “hinted” at a mathematics, science and technology directorate. This follows an investigation by the aforementioned task team, which found that – more than a decade after a strategy aimed at beefi ng up mathematics, science and technology skills at primary and secondary schools was implemented – the technology component has been left lagging.

It was also found that technology is not being used as an educational tool, mainly because teachers were not qualified to use or teach technology to learners. Other challenges uncovered by the task team included a dearth of funding that is hampering access to technology; as well as a shortage of resources to ensure quality tech-based education.

But maybe it’s a good thing that this has emerged now, while something can still be done about it and before we fall too far behind… Maybe.

Happy reading!

Martin Czernowalow