Huawei leverages digitisation for the future of SA education
The beauty of digital transformation, however, is that it can share educational resources, spreading these more widely, and thus narrow the education gap.
01 June 2024
The importance of digital technologies in education should not be underestimated, as it plays a crucial role in providing innovative new forms of support to not only teachers and students, but to the overall learning process as well.
Digital technology not only broadens teaching methods, but also enriches teaching resources and meets the needs of students’ individualised requirements. In fact, digital transformation promotes continuous innovation of teaching methods and concepts in higher education, which is helpful to cultivate students’ innovation ability, allowing them to dabble in various fields of knowledge.
Moreover, suggests Kim Jin Managing Director of Gauteng Region Huawei South Africa at Huawei, through the use of network platforms and distance education, we have broken through geographical and time constraints and provided more people with opportunities for higher education.
“Of course, there remain challenges, including ICT infrastructure of part universities are outdated or even lacks infrastructure, which cannot support digital transformation. In addition, Data of different systems cannot be interconnected, hindering modern teaching, efficient management services, and scientific research and innovation” says Kim.
The beauty of digital transformation, however, is that it can share educational resources, spreading these more widely, and thus narrow the education gap. Furthermore, it can promote innovation in teaching, through a combination of online and offline learning and virtual classrooms, which helps to improve teaching flexibility and diversity.
Multimedia learning
“We are also witnessing campus services evolving to help enhance the teacher-student experience. For example, technologies such as Wi-Fi 7 and the cloud have enabled the shift from traditional blackboard teaching to multimedia learning.”
“Key to the successful leveraging of digital technologies is the issue of data governance. Big data is the basis for refined management and service decision-making, allowing institutions to maximise the use of what would otherwise be an intangible resource.”
Of course, continues York Ning, Director of Enterprise MKT and Solution Business Huawei South Africa the student and institutional data used for such decision-making is vulnerable without the requisite levels of security, which is why it is vital to implement a complete protection programme.
“From a security perspective, Huawei positions network security as the first line of defence. It’s critical for organisations to have a robust and updated network security product, in order to prevent ransomware and other cyber-attacks, even before they happen.
“In addition, Huawei’s Network Interception module uses a combination of firewall, sandbox, and situational awareness, in order to block horizontal ransomware spread.
Detection and analysis of malicious ransomware is undertaken using a proprietary engine that is installed in the built-in container of the storage array, with the machine-learning algorithm used to analyse abnormal behaviour and file damage characteristics. It will then issue event alarms and provide the institution with information to track the source.”
Evaluation methods
Storage is the last line of defense, notes York Ning, as its job is to retain a clean copy of the data, so that the system - even if damaged in an attack - can still be recovered and the data restored. Huawei’s Ransomware Protection Storage solution is designed to provide a primary and backup storage combination. It also detects the attack and creates an anti-tamper storage ‘isolation zone’, as well as airgapping it from the production storage environment.
York Ning states that Huawei proposes five steps around how to implement digital transformation in universities. “Firstly, it’s about strengthening the construction of new infrastructure, such as information networks, platform systems, digital resources, smart campuses, innovative applications, and trusted security.
“Secondly, we need to promote the digitalisation of the classroom teaching process - moving away from reliance on traditional paper textbooks and exercise books, and, instead, utilising digital equipment and applying intelligent teaching tools. Thirdly, it is critical to develop new capabilities such as digital teaching skills, digital leadership and governance capabilities, enhanced digital awareness and to cultivate digital thinking.”
It’s also imperative that we use digital technology to reform the evaluation methods of the education system, formulate data collection standards, formulate comprehensive quality evaluation systems and standards, and promote the building of new abilities for students.
“Lastly, we must form a culture of sustainable development and multi-sectoral synergy mechanisms. Digital transformation should establish a mechanism for multi-sectoral collaboration; promote the establishment of partnerships from a policy perspective; give full play to the enthusiasm and initiative of stakeholders; and ultimately these entities must work together to promote the construction of high-performance digital education systems.” Kim Jin points out that Huawei continues to spend more than 10% of its sales revenue on research and development every year, adding that more than 30 years of investment has allowed the company to accumulate end-to-end technical capabilities and build a reputation in the industry through its ICT infrastructure.
“This clearly demonstrates that we have the ability to work with universities to build smart campuses for the future. We have been in South Africa for many years and have been growing in this space for some time. This gives us the confidence to say that we can be trusted partners to educational entities, and work with them to build an advanced educational future, through the process of digital transformation,” concludes Kim Jin.