A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the Degree of
Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) in the
Department of Library and Information Science at the
University of Zululand, South Africa, 2010. / Social Informatics is the field of study concentrating on the social aspects of Information
and Communication Technologies (ICT) utilisation with researchers in the field
concentrating on aspects such as human interaction with ICTs, the effect of certain
hardware and software on utilisation and the impact that the use of ICTs have on the
daily lives of people in society. One of the areas where the use of ICTs can have a huge
influence is on governmental service delivery, where these tools can be used to speed up
processes, beef up security, provide access to, and disseminate information, and be used
in virtually all government departments to provide a more effective and efficient service
to all its people.
The aim of the study was to examine the use, impact and interaction of ICTs for service
delivery among Civil Servants in the uMhlatuze area. The study was carried out using
both qualitative and quantitative methods through survey research. The objectives of the
study were: to determine the nature of the services rendered in the three targeted
Departments (Education, Health and Social Development), to establish the types of ICTs
currently in use by Civil Servants in uMhlatuze area, to explore how the Civil Servants
interact with ICTs in the municipality, to explore the impact of the Civil Servants`
interaction with ICTs, to determine the training needs of the Civil Servants, in so far as
effective ICT utilisation is concerned, to determine users level of satisfaction with the
standard of service delivery, to outline the challenges faced in the service provision.
Data was collected via questionnaires that were submitted to the three departments by the
researcher. Interviews were also conducted with both civil servants and their clients. The
aim of the interviews was to get their personal opinions on problems facing service
provision. The number of responses from the distributed questionnaires varied:
Education (21), Health (9) and Social Development (5). Managers from the three
departments were interviewed with an aim of understanding types of services they offer
to clients, clients satisfaction with service offered to them, the use of computers in
providing services, the level of computer literacy among staff (Civil Servants), difficulties experienced when providing services to clients, and the effect of the
availability of computers in providing service delivery.
The study revealed that not all ICT tools are generally available and/or used by civil
servants in the uMhlatuze Municipality It was also found that most new technologies
were neither used, nor available, or could not be accessed by civil servants in the
departments, e.g. the Internet, laptop computers, databases, video cameras, video
recorders, sound/tape recorders, overhead projectors, and information systems. The
government also does not appear to make much use of radio and television, which are
mediums that are often used in this country for communication. The researcher
recommended that the government should ensure that each civil servant has a computer
linked to the Internet on his or her table. All available ICT tools should also be provided
to the different departments because they deal with different social needs everyday that
may require different solutions. A lack of skills to operate a number of ICTs, especially
the computers was identified as a serious impediment to effective service delivery.
Therefore it was recommended that the Departments of Education, Health and Social
Development send their staff for training on the efficient utilization of ICT tools,
specifically computer related training. It was further recommended that computer literacy
courses and refresher courses be offered on a continual basis in order to elevate the level
of computer literacy among the civil servants, especially for programmes such as Word
processing, Excel and PowerPoint which are used almost daily in the public service.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uzulu/oai:uzspace.unizulu.ac.za:10530/551 |
| Date | January 2010 |
| Creators | Ntetha, Mduduzi Aubrey |
| Contributors | Mostert, J., Le Roux, C.J.B. |
| Publisher | University of Zululand |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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