South Africa has a powerful vision for education for all in the 21st century. There are clearly leaders at every level that know how to bring about profound pedagogical change and the mechanisms required to bring that about. The backdrop is the Outcomes Based Education programme (Curriculum 2005) which in so many ways has as its essence features that we see at the cutting edge of UK and European thinking in education. For example, teachers are already encouraged to view themselves as lead learners, collaborative learning and blue sky thinking are actively encouraged. In the sphere of particular interest, that of the successful implementation of elearning, South Africa and the Free State in particular are in a very strong position. It has within its UK links at government level, through Her Majesty's Inspectorate to the might of the fellowship of Mirandanet (tm), the ability to engage in dialogue, consultancy and exchange to ensure that the expensive errors made in the past 20 years of elearning implementation are not made here. Within a short time of landing on South African soil, it became clear the Mirandanet fellowship had a great deal to offer and to gain through its association with this fast developing part of the world.

Fast Gains

Both parties realised that this was a short visit with a huge mission to breathe life into a profound Free State vision. There was a real keenness to ensure that 2004 would bring about some fast and measurable gains upon which to build in the future.

A basic infrastructure within the Educational Resource Centres and key schools was explored and advised upon.

The concept of teachers as lead learners and mentors allowed us to explore the bringing together, across all phases, ICT expert Fellows from Mirandanet with lead learners (teachers) in the Free State. Gatherings would take place perhaps as early as March/April 2004, in South Africa by way of workshops. These workshops would be visionary - underpinned by cutting edge pedagogy rather than a "drill and practice software" training approach, collaborative learning approaches and the like. South African Lead Learners would be encouraged to see their work as being part of a higher order training that might well lead to qualification at degree, masters or even doctrate level.

The impediments identified with regard to the implementation of this first leg of the Fast Gains process were as follows:

• Lack of staff time and administrative support.

• Succession of IT dept expertise; salary implications

• Lack of available project staff from Curriculum and IT

• Lack of ICT training capacity throughout the system

• Empty posts for the ICT programme start

• Lapa scanning staff and resources required

In tandem, a multimedia, multisensory, Mirandanet/Free State "Lapa" website (see above) would be constructed emphasising the developing links between the two. Pupils would tell us all about Free State, in their own way - music, poetry, stories etc. Updated news about the Lead Learner programme and Expert Classes, efacilitated discussion forums, information and links through to Company Partners would fall out from our Mission Statement of "Looking Through the Trees". A Free State artist would be commissioned to produce the Lapa watermark.

In summary it was felt that Mirandanet (tm) could look forward to helping the Free State implement the emerging elearning programme  in a number of ways. These were most notably in the areas:

• Holistic planning and project management

• Practice based research in communities

• Teacher educators and teachers ICT CPD

• Running funded projects

• Workshop and seminar programmes

• Artists in residence programmes

• Building communities of practice

• Community involvement in Citizenship

• Funding from companies and charities

• Practice based research

• Building web based knowledge bases

• Web spaces for companies and communities

• Formative evaluation and research

.....MORE TO FOLLOW AS THE PROJECT DEVELOPS IN 2004/05

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