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5 companies you’ve never heard of that will transform South African schools

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0B8d_n6uA

IT Schools Innovation

Like MIB, Pretoria-based IT Schools Innovation (ITSI) produces a software backend for delivering textbooks and lesson plans to teachers’ and pupils’ tablets. The firm has been around since 2006, and currently serves about 14 000 in 51 schools – although it’s expecting to grow fast this year as more schools get connected. Sales and marketing head Wikus Breetzke says that he’s aiming for more than 120 schools signed up with around 60-80 000 learners by the end of this buying season.

ITSI is currently in the shortlist for pwc’s Vision to Reality awards, and the easiest way to describe what it does is “iTunes U for Android” – if you’re familiar with iTunes U, that is.

ITSI curates content from online sources and CAPS-aligned textbooks in a similar manner to MIB’s web portal, but drops it all into a very sophisticated app interface. Without leaving the ITSI app, pupils can take notes and annotate textbooks, while teachers are able to set tests and push articles out to the whole class.

ITSI has some big names on board already, including newcomers in the private sector Curro SchoolsJeppes Boys High – Joburg’s oldest public school – is also a customer.

Breetzke says that the company’s mantra is “personalising education”, rather than pushing technology.

“From the onset we do not say that our system will give 2-5% better results,” says Breetzke, “What we do say is that we can put a lot more information in schools’ hands.”

Just like MIB, Breetzke says that the “school champion” is the best way to encourage teachers to use unfamiliar technology and get the most from it.

“The biggest problem is teacher adoption,” he says, “Teachers are afraid they are being replaced. A solution like this won’t work if it’s forced.”

While ITSI’s app is hugely comprehensive and a powerful resource for drawing up lesson plans and sharing information with both learners and parents, it does have a few distinct drawbacks compared to rivals. The key one is that teachers can’t directly see what’s on pupil’s screens while in class, unlike systems based on Moodle.

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