Concept note on research
Introduction
GeSCI’s key role is to provide strategic advice to ministries of education in developing
countries. As a strategic advisor, GeSCI is expected to be an expert organization with a
niche of ICTs in Education. GeSCI’s reputation (and ultimately its success and
sustainability) will grow and depend on its ability to ably demonstrate its expertise in this
area and to turn this expertise into achievements for its partner countries. Experts are
expected to be authorities on their subject of expertise. Expertise is gained through prior
experiences, acquisition, management and utilization of knowledge and development of
skills.
The State of GeSCI’s expertise
At the moment, GeSCI’s expertise is almost solely dependent on the knowledge,
experiences and individual skills of its staff and their interactions with other experts in
the field and in various donor and NGO organizations. Institutional processes to capture
the knowledge and experiences of its staff are also only beginning to get addressed.
Institutional arrangements to enhance and sharpen skills are at best elementary consisting
of peer-learning during orientation of new staff.
Research at GeSCI currently consists mainly of literature reviews, reading reports and
publications authored by other organizations. Some original research has been conducted
to develop tools such as the Framework for Selection of Technology Options and
associated TCO tools and the Content Evaluation Framework.
GeSCI’s reputation as an expert organization
There is a growing awareness of GeSCI’s abilities and experiences in supporting
developing countries to integrate ICTs into their education systems efficiently. However,
GeSCI still faces many sceptics ranging from those who question its motives, its abilities
and the potential of ICTs in Education in general. These sceptics (and these might include
our own partner countries) can easily find ammunition because there is no concrete
demonstration of GeSCI’s expertise or results of GeSCI’s efforts to draw on (Namibia is
going to be our test case). What gives GeSCI legitimacy, in the expertise field, is the
experience and knowledge of its staff. However, this can only go so far. Institutional
reputation, expertise and credibility must be developed and enhanced.
What is needed to enhance GeSCI’s institutional reputation as an expert in ICTs in
Education is a more visible and active role in generating and sharing knowledgeinformation and resources. Generating knowledge involves assembling existing
knowledge and developing new knowledge:
a) Existing knowledge is garnered from the past experiences and existing knowledge
of its staff, from its day to day interactions with its partner countries and other
experts
b) New knowledge is developed through critical analysis, creative problem solving,
literature reviews and original research.
GeSCI, if it is to be an acknowledged expert, must be seen to be contributing to the
overall ICT in Education body of evidence and literature. This is more critical in light of
the fact that there is not much information and resources available in the field of ICTs in
Education. In fact, the jury is still out on whether or not ICTs in Education are directly
beneficial to teaching and learning.
Even more importantly, GeSCI must continuously critically examine existing knowledge
and information and strive to produce new knowledge to ensure that its advice is actually
beneficial. There is nothing as risky as basing strategic advice on little or unproven
information. At the same time, GeSCI can not simply transfer promising practices from
one country to another but must adapt, adopt and innovate from country to country.
Innovation is or should therefore be a key ingredient of GeSCI knowledge generation and
management.
Knowledge generation should be accompanied by the development of institutional
processes to capture, manage and utilize this knowledge and to develop staff skills to
utilize this knowledge in supporting our partner countries.
Areas of knowledge development
In order to be good at what we do i.e. provide useful strategic advice, we have to
thoroughly and continuously:
1) Understand context
a. Understand the education system and its associated systematic and
institutional processes and how ICTs fit into, impact and affect the system
and in turn how the system impacts and affects the use of ICTs
b. Understand the issues, potentials and limitations of using ICTs for
education
c) Conduct baselines and collect statistical information e.g. institutional
arrangement, how many donors/ partners doing what, how many schools
with PCs or a piece on ICTs in teacher training colleges or a piece on ICTs
in the MoEs
2) Determine what we know and what we don’t know
a. Determine, review and analyze the barriers and critical success factors
that affect the efficient selection, deployment, use and integration of ICTs
into education
b. Understand what works and what doesn’t/ hasn’t worked in other
countries and the reasons why
c. Determine areas where information and knowledge is limited
3) Develop new thinking and knowledge
a. Continuously and proactively monitor and review the latest developments
in ICTs in Education
b. Conduct research and studies into new and emerging areas and into areas
where little information or knowledge exists
In other words, when it comes to ICTs in Education, we should be the “go-to guys,” a one
stop shop of expertise and knowledge. Our reputation is enhanced by demonstrating this
expertise- through making documented knowledge, information and resources available
for use and scrutiny by other experts. For example, the TCO tools and the Content
Evaluation Frameworks developed by GeSCI have been often used as “evidence” that we
are a serious player. More such works are required.
How to generate knowledge
At the moment, knowledge generation both for internal use i.e. in providing expert advice
and for external use i.e. used by our partner countries and other partners and experts in
the field is the main preserve of ICT and Education Specialists. However, it is doubtful
that Specialists will have the time to continuously and solely generate new knowledge.
Therefore, the knowledge generation process must involve other staff members e.g. the
CPFs and should also be outsourced or developed in conjunction with other partners.
In general, GeSCI should consider the following approaches:
1- Document the knowledge and experiences of its Specialists and CPFs
2- Commission studies, evaluations, tools developments using outside consultants
3- Undertake original research e.g. through the proposed collaboration with
universities
The outcomes of this knowledge generation should be in form of:
 Case studies of work done in our partner countries and in other countries
 Reports on studies, evaluations etc undertaken or commissioned
 How-to documents
 Opinion pieces from renown experts
 Articles on new thinking and directions
 Original research publications
The role of communication
Communication, in the specific realm of GeSCI’s expertise, achieves two primary
objectives:
1- The dissemination of knowledge internally within GeSCI to staff who need to use
it to make their work more effective (internal communications).
2- The external dissemination of knowledge to our partner countries and to other
partners who can use the knowledge to further their own work (external
communications). Also related to external communications is the ability to
express what we do articulately. What we do is also in turn informed by the
visibility of our successes and expertise.
It is the external communications that enhances GeSCI’s visibility and provides an
anchor for GeSCI’s establishment as an expert in the area of ICTs in Education.
However, communication comprises of channels and processes- on its own, it is not very
useful. What it needs is the substance, in this case, the knowledge in form of information
and resources.
Possible topics of research/ study to begin with
In the very short term, some areas of study and research that GeSCI can seek to
commission include but are not limited to:
1- The use of technology in Special Education e.g. the potential uses of assistive
technologies, how developed countries have used ICTs in Special Education,
how developing countries are using assistive technologies
2- Inclusion of ICTs in the SWAP quality indicators and in Education System
reviews- how this can be best done, why it is important etc
3- Conduct studies on major actors including donors and NGOs in the field of ICTs
in developing countries e.g. sub-Saharan Africa.
4- Study on business models for financing ICTs in developing and developed
countries
5- Conduct study on connectivity in the basic education sector in developing and
developed countries
6- Undertake survey of ICTs, their use and overall management in teacher education
institutions in developing countries (and also developed countries for comparison)
- can be done in phases by regions e.g. Southern Africa, West Africa, East Africa,
Central America, South East Asia etc
7- Undertake survey of ICTs, their use and overall management in Ministries of
Education in developing (and also developed countries for comparison) countriescan be done in phases by regions e.g. Southern Africa, West Africa, East Africa,
Central America, South East Asia etc