A review of the use of computers in education in South Africa: Tertiary education

Abstract

This informal review is based on personal discussions carried out within the last year with various experts in the field on the current use of computers in tertiary education, particularly at universities. An attempt has been made to obtain information on the type of use being made of Computers - here this generally means: ''Which academic departments are involved and what aspects of their teaching are they attempting to use Computer-Assisted Instruction (CAI) for? "Also of importance are the hardware and authoring languages or authoring systems used, and any interesting research or social responsibility programmes in progress. The present economic climate has resulted in any advances in the use of CAI at universities depending largely on sponsorship from private sources. The urgent need for ways of reducing the drop out and failure rate of students in first year, particularly in the Science, Engineering and Medical faculties remains, however. There is a very real economic necessity for improving the productiveness of teaching at universities in Southern Africa.