Why SA schools must embrace technology and active learning
Since the late 1800s, children have been taught in rows so that teachers could handle classes that increased exponentially and prepare them for the routine of industrial-era factory work. Despite huge leaps in technology, very little has changed.
Technology has long played a part in education. The chalkboard appeared in 1890, the pencil became widespread a decade later, followed by radio a century ago, the overhead projector in 1930 and the photocopier in the late 1960s. The computer arrived in the 1980s and mobile devices have since made it possible for learners to access content anytime, anywhere.
Covid-19 moved everything online almost overnight. Technologies that might have taken years to adopt became mainstream in months, normalising digital learning for teachers and students.
It was not a perfect system, as many children were left behind due to unequal access to technology, and the solutions implemented as part of lockdown were not systems that were designed to teach foundational skills remotely. But it challenged the production-line model of learning. Students had to manage their own schedules, learn independently, find information themselves and develop digital skills. And then most of them went back to sitting in rows.
World events shaped our use of technology
What the pandemic birthed was a rapid expansion of online schooling that showed learning can be interactive, engaging and creative. Children who are engaged with the subject matter are more motivated and retain more. Research backs this up and it is something I experienced first-hand when I developed foundation phase coding and robotics textbooks that integrated play into lesson plans.
Young children learn better through play because it fosters natural curiosity and actively engages the brain. When learners explore and discover through guided play, outcomes improve in areas such as mathematics and problem-solving.
One technique I used was drafting age-appropriate stories containing algorithms, which learners in grades 1 to 7 had to decode to find the hidden Easter egg. One group exceeded my expectations entirely as they looked up the spelling of words and then created their own stories around their algorithms rather than simply inserting them. That is higher-order thinking, not just reading, and is the kind of outcome that chalk-and-talk teaching rarely produces.
Interactive, technology-enabled learning is not out of reach in South Africa. About 80% of public schools now have internet connectivity and national penetration is almost 75%. Almost two-thirds of children in grades 4 to 11 owned a phone or tablet by age 10, a survey found, while a 2025 study of adolescents found that almost all participants had smartphones.
By this year, attackers were using AI to scale and accelerate cyber crime, which extends from generating code and automating attacks, to crafting convincing phishing and deepfake scams. The AI Incident Database lists more than 7 000 incidents in which AI was used as a hacking tool.