Education Minister Angie Motshekga recently faced a parliamentary question about whether her department had put any mechanisms in place to ensure that learners were not able to access pornographic content on their school-provided tablets.
This question, posed by the DA, followed a disturbing study by the Youth Research Unit of Unisa’s Bureau for Market Research which found that more than half of young South African children were regularly watching pornography online.
The alarming levels of porn addiction among young people are believed to be driven predominantly by their increasing access to smartphones and tablets.
According to the study − which is based on a survey of South African children under 18 years of age – more than 55% of those surveyed watched pornography regularly, while 10% watched it every day.
The research further showed that 35% of the children who watched pornography didn’t care whether it was illegal. Of those, 30% watched violent pornography.
According to the report, access to the internet was the biggest contributing factor to the growing scourge. An overwhelming majority of children accessed pornographic material via their mobile phones, with those in high school admitting to watching it at school using free WiFi, or sitting in restaurants that offered free internet access in instances where they had no data.
In a written parliamentary response, Motshekga said learners had access only to secured online portals such as Thutong Education, DBE Cloud, MTN Online School, Vodacom e-School, Lightbulb, Tswelopele, Woza Matric, and provincial online platforms on their department-issued devices.
Motshekga said the basic education sector had established online portals loaded with CAPS-aligned and enriched digital education content.
Furthermore, the basic education sector also developed, packaged and distributed digital materials to schools loaded on the off-line repositories, to be accessed by learners when the basic education sector had rolled out tablets.
“The department has also made strides in pushing for the use of technology to provide support to learners through virtual classrooms, broadcasting, video streaming, and online content resources,” she wrote.
In conclusion. Motshekga said that, as part of the auctioning of high-demand spectrum, her department would work together with licensees to provide learners with appropriate educational content on secured online platforms.