The conceptualisation of e-learning at the South African public sector.

Abstract

The South African public sector is faced with many challenges and one of the major challenges is service delivery. This could be linked to not having government officials who have the necessary skills to carry out their duties. The skills shortage could also be a result of the public service having too many people to train in a short period of time. Training face-to-face has its challenges as employees have to be away from their day-to-day duties to attend training and this not only has an impact on productivity but also maximises costs. To deal with and to minimise these challenges the South African government has chosen to introduce eLearning in the South African public sector. This is aimed at ensuring that larger numbers of government officials are trained at minimum costs and ensuring that training reaches people with different responsibilities such as top management and people with families who cannot afford to be away from home or office for training for long periods of time. This study examined the advantages and disadvantages of the introduction of eLearning in the public sector; the importance of strategic planning for eLearning; the challenges faced by the public sector when it comes to training; how other organisations internationally have conceptualised eLearning, and; what the public sector is hoping to achieve by introducing eLearning. Even though eLearning has its disadvantages it is still seen by many scholars as an ideal way to train government employees and to build capacity. The gaps in the conceptualisation of eLearning in the South African public sector were identified and possible solutions including a paradigm shift from a reductionist way of thinking to a systems thinking way of thinking and doing things was recommended.