In my country, South Africa, it is surprising and sad that many teachers, especially teachers from the black community, are still largely computer illiterate. Many of them are at sea when it comes to the Internet or a website and its importance for research purposes. The largest teachers’ union, SADTU, the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union, has a membership of over 350,000 teachers. Fewer than fifty thousand of them have computers with an Internet connection. This is just depressing and sad. It’s depressing because the Internet is the most powerful tool any teacher can have to help them in the teaching profession.

Most teachers are simply unaware of how much they are missing out on by being computer illiterate, and this is inexcusable. Some would say that it is expensive to have a computer and an Internet connection. Having been a teacher for thirteen years and resigning in 2006, I say this is simply not true. Go to any mall at the end of each month and see how much teachers spend in restaurants with their girlfriends, wives or families. The money they spend on alcoholic beverages per month is more than enough to buy a computer -in cash- and have a pass-through Internet connection. They also drive the latest BMW and Mercedes-Benz sedans and wear designer clothes. What a pity!

Furthermore, you simply have to see the long queues at the points of sale of TV channel service providers by people who pay their monthly subscriptions. Most of them pay much more than they would for a monthly Internet subscription. The worst thing is that they almost never sit down in their diapers to watch the many channels they pay for each month. It is perhaps a status symbol for people to see a DSTV dish on their roofs. These are teachers who mentally live in the industrial age. We are in the information age and it is better that they wake up before becoming obsolete as professionals.

When you tell them to visit your website for information on a certain topic or any website on the web, they just gawk at you or sarcastically infer how smart you want to appear. The internet is full of free website builders that one can upgrade to paid sites once they are familiar with how a website works. I say that a teacher who is not computer literate is a curse on the teaching profession. Worse, if a teacher has a computer and does not have an Internet connection or a website, this is even the worst sin for the students.

Most black public schools do not have adequate libraries, so a computer with an Internet connection is a must. How a self-respecting teacher expects to increase his knowledge and research without this modern tool called the Internet is beyond me. However, I remain hopeful that this attitude will soon subside and when black teachers do wake up, it will be with a vengeance. It’s never too late.