Public-private partnerships in managing the ICT infrastructure in public secondary schools in Tshwane West district

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the ICT infrastructure management in under-resourced public schools through public-private partnerships. In 2017, the Telkom Foundation launched the ‘Connected Schools Project’ that provided state-of-the-art ICT infrastructure and services to enhance technological teaching and learning in certain under-resourced public schools in the Tshwane West district of Gauteng province. This study aimed to discover how Telkom Foundation and the recipient schools collaborated to manage the ICT infrastructure to enhance teaching and learning. The theoretical framework for the study is Edward Freeman's 1984 Stakeholder Theory (Freeman, 2010). The research was located within an interpretivist paradigm, employing a qualitative research approach and case study design using individual interviews. The study took place in four under-resourced public secondary schools in the Tshwane West district of Gauteng Province (the beneficiaries of the Telkom Foundation's ‘Connected Schools Project’). The two other study sites were the Telkom Foundation office complex and the Gauteng Department of Education (GDE) office complex. The study participants were four principals and four ICT coordinators, one Telkom Foundation official in charge of the ICT infrastructure in the schools, and one GDE official who oversees the collaboration between Telkom Foundation and the schools. I used an inductive data analysis technique to analyse the data generated from the interviews to i) determine how the public-private partners in the study understood their role in managing the ICT infrastructure in the under-resourced public secondary schools, ii) explore strategies the stakeholders in the partnership employed to manage the ICT infrastructure in the under-resourced public secondary schools iii) examine the rationale behind the strategies the stakeholders used to manage the ICT infrastructure in the under-resourced public secondary schools, iv) explore the lessons the stakeholders learnt while managing the ICT infrastructure in the under-resourced public schools, and v) the challenges the stakeholders encountered and strategies they devised to overcome them. The study findings revealed how stakeholders comprehended their role in the partnership as a support structure and how they played the role as a team and liaison role players and collaborative engagement with all entities. The findings further revealed that the stakeholders had varied perceptions of the ICT infrastructure. The Telkom Foundation's concept of ICT infrastructure included both the physical ICT equipment and the supplementary programmes the Foundation provided to enhance the ICT infrastructure. Conversely, the rest of the stakeholders understood the phenomenon from the physical ICT equipment alone. The varied perceptions led to the underutilization of the supplementary programmes for the benefit of ICT integration in the schools that they intended for. Furthermore, the stakeholders demonstrated a high sense of responsibility and proactiveness in managing the ICT infrastructure through i) the unique management strategies each employed in managing the ICT infrastructure, ii) the collective strategies they employed in managing the ICT infrastructure, and iii) the effective collaboration among them in managing the ICT infrastructure. These three factors enhanced the effective management of the ICT infrastructure in the schools and thereby enhanced technological teaching and learning. Likewise, the existing ICT infrastructure management structure in the schools pre-Telkom Foundation project provided a conducive atmosphere for the ICT infrastructure management, thereby positively impacted the management of the Telkom Foundation-supplied ICT infrastructure. Additionally, the management approach differences between the public and private partners led to regular clashes between the stakeholders, which negatively impacted the ICT infrastructure management and teaching and learning. Finally, the stakeholders encountered challenges in managing the ICT infrastructure but were proactive in solving them. Therefore, their proactiveness in handling the challenges impacted the ICT infrastructure management positively because they did not allow the obstacles to ground the ICT infrastructure. A new model of ICT infrastructure management through PPPs emerged from the study: The ICT Infrastructure Management Ecosystem in Education. Key Words: Public-private Partnership, Under-resourced schools, Stakeholders, Information and Communication Technology (ICT).