A Mind for Teaching

Mindset Network’s chief executive, Vis Naidoo, dreams of a developed South Africa with a technologically minded population. Naidoo, who was headhunted by the non-profit education organisation six months ago, believes that the best way to develop South Africa is by drumming technological skills into its youth. Now, the Durban-born chief executive wants to use his position at Mindset, where the mission is to use technology-based education to alleviate poverty, to do just this.

“If South Africa is going to move out of its developing world status into the developed world status, we as a country need to move out of being consumers of electronics to becoming developers of electronics,” he says. “We need to develop our youngsters to become quite comfortable in technology skills.”

For readers unfamiliar with the programme, Mindset Learn is a dedicated Further Education and Training (FET) channel offering free educational resource material for educators and learners. The materials are distributed on a mass scale in South Africa and in 16 other African countries

Mindset Learn is curriculum-based, available on television, DVD and video, in print and web format and covers English, science, mathematics, information technology and financial literacy. It delivers materials through satellite broadcast and datacast directly to schools and provides software, hardware, training and ongoing support to Mindset Learn schools. Materials are stored directly onto PC and are thus available for “on demand” access. They are sent regularly and updated via satellite.

A “sister” component, Mindset Health, is available at 150 sites in hospitals and clinics (with a further 80 sites proposed). It delivers health education – tackling critical health issues such as the Aids pandemic and HIV – on a mass scale in partnership with Mindset Network, the Department of Health and Sentech.

The programme aims to educate healthcare providers, patients and the general public to support positive health behaviour and to increase the success of the government/public prevention care, management and treatment programmes of HIV and Aids and other major diseases. In the same way it hopes to address inequalities of access to health education and communication by using satellite technology to reach rural areas. This channel targets healthcare workers, patients and the general public though broadcasts in South Africa, which can also be used to reach the rest of Africa. The “on demand” computer platform allows users to choose what to learn, in the language of their choice, in their own time.

Mindset Cabanga focuses on providing free Grade R-7 education content via video, multimedia and print directly to primary schools. And another programme, Mindset Livelihoods, aims to improve access to information and knowledge for various audiences, including budding entrepreneurs, unemployed youth, the rural poor, and employees of companies where sector specific programmes have been developed. It does so by providing free access to educational, computer-based multimedia content.

Naidoo believes that South Africa has a perfect opportunity to provide innovative solutions to the challenges of education and development. “Technology alone will not solve all the education challenges and problems, but together with a range of other interventions, it will be an important part of the solution,” he says.

In the past few years, Mindset has brokered partnerships with a number of other leading organisations to bring its vast network into schools, homes, clinics and hospitals.

A particular focus for Mindset is school education. One of the key challenges in the area is to provide training that makes the technology simple and user-friendly. Teachers and school managers must be taught to answer questions on how the technology can be used, Naidoo says.

Teachers can use multimedia and the internet to find the information needed to answer their pupils’ questions. Technology should be used as a mechanism of support for teachers, he says.

Pupils can also use the content and it could even be used as a tool for distance education. Mindset’s content is developed inside the organisation or is outsourced and influenced heavily by its policy and research. It is shaped by needs in the education and health spheres and supports the curriculum and health campaigns.

Naidoo believes that satellite technology is crucial for getting content to learners. He says South Africa is on an equal footing in the development of data casting and the use of on-demand content. In 2004, Mindset was identified as a model for India on how to provide quality educational content via a satellite.

“I hope the challenges faced by South Africa and Africa will inspire new, home-grown solutions. Therein lie the seeds and potential for innovation,” he says.

South Africa, however, needs an enabling environment before it can solve the challenges of education and development. “Policy must be developed to support a systemic approach which is vital to the successful integration of technology in the educational and health systems. We see ourselves as an important component of that.”

Naidoo has broad experience in the field of educational technology. Before joining Mindset he developed vast experience in education and educational technology policy. Between 1996 and 2000, he was the director of the Centre for Educational Technology and Distance Education. He helped shape the policy environment for distance education and technology-enhanced learning. He also implemented technology-based initiatives which used radio and television broadcasting and the internet to support different sectors of the education and training system in South Africa.

At that time, Naidoo was doing what he says was “groundbreaking work”. Much of what he developed then is now being used for the Department of Education’s e-learning initiative.

In 2000, Naidoo joined The Commonwealth of Learning in Vancouver, Canada, as a specialist in education technology policy and planning. He worked with Commonwealth governments and organisations to focus on educational technology policy and its potential impact on education and training systems in an open and distance-learning context.

Naidoo must keep Mindset sustainable. To do so the organisation might have to sell its content to recover costs. “In terms of our content, we will look to making it available on a cost recovery basis, but we will never sell it purely for profit,” he says. “Increasingly we’re looking at our intellectual property and our technology platforms and processes, as sources of income.”

This concept has been part of the basis for negotiating contracts with other countries. The content, given its intrinsic value to education and the health field, will remain available at little or no cost.

For Naidoo the major challenges facing Mindset are clear. Firstly, the major priority is to maintain and grow the momentum established in the past three years. Secondly, Mindset’s rapid and fast growth has brought organisational issues to the surface. So developing efficient workflow processes and an efficient organisational structure is key. Thirdly, it is difficult to measure impact since there are many factors that could influence the success of the projects. Finally, people are the most important cog in the wheel.

“The technology can be made available and the best content can be put out.” he says. “Unless healthcare workers, patients, educators and learners engage with it the impact is negligible.”

Mindset’s partners