Schools, any non-profit organisation for that matter - churches, clubs, associations, etc., worldwide have the problem that their funds are never enough for all they need to do. They are always going on fund-raising drives for this project or that. They are always asking the parents to contribute to this cake sale or volunteer for that fund-raising event.

Depending on the socio-economic situation of the school this may be easier or more difficult. Schools in poorer areas have a much more difficult task than the richer schools. Schools and parent bodies put in a lot of work, often with very limited results.

And looking at school web sites I fear that they are not doing anything to help.

I have looked at school web sites in South Africa and in the U.S.A. (I'm not going to name names, OK) and to be honest

I ask myself the question, and this is a question I do not think these schools asked themselves before they set up the web site: "What is the purpose of this web site?" and with most of the web sites I couldn't come up with a good answer. The web sites were obviously merely the re-publishing of their brochures onto websites.

Looking at these web sites I asked myself: "Who would be interested in visiting this web site, and then stay on it?" "Who would return to this web site, and for what reason?"

• Would the students from the school visit the web site? Only once in a while if there is something about themselves or their friends on there - MAYBE!
• Would the parents of the students visit the web site? Not really, unless they are looking for the schools email address, or some similar minor thing.
• Would the old students visit the web site? Nothing there to attract them!
• Would a stranger visit the web site? Only if the are looking for the school's address and phone number!

The majority of the web sites I visited, and I visited 100's, are a waste of web space.

So why do they exist?

Because of the similarity between the web sites, even if different people designed them, in fact even across the Atlantic the similarities between the South African and the American web sites were striking, because of the similarities between the web sites I think they were mainly put up because "The school is supposed to have a web site".

Schools put up web sites without a clear objective, without clearly defining whom the web site is for, without knowing who they want to visit their web site, without knowing what returns they expect to get out of the web site.

Returns? You mean they must get something out of it?

Of course! Why else would a school have a web site? To stroke some ego's?