Shafika Isaacs
“I learned how to use the Internet at school and how to do research using the Internet …My research has been on the French revolution, its causes and what happened afterwards. I have also learned to work on collaborative projects with other learners where we used the Internet to work on our projects like the one about women in traditional marriages from different cultures.”
Sophia Nansbuga, 18 years old, at SchoolNet Africa launch, November 2001
“There is no email and Internet at my school. I learned about it from my friend. I use the computers at my school to write letters and my exercises using MS Word.”
Analina Macatane, 16, at SchoolNet Africa launch, November 2001
Analina Pedro Macatane is a Grade 9 student at Fransisco
Manyanga High School in Maputo Mozambique. Analina’s school is one of the very few in Mozambique that have computers – in fact, one of the 13 computerized schools out of the 7,000 in the country. Analina says that they have 5,000 students at her school and 16 computers. They had Internet access at the school as well as a school homepage. But the high price of the telephone bill meant that they couldn’t afford to pay to maintain the Internet.
Sophia Nansbuga, an 18 years old Grade 10 student at Nabisunsa High School in Uganda, on the other hand, speaks of how she uses the Internet at her school, how she regularly sends email to students from other countries, how she used the Internet to conduct research for her school projects on the
French Revolution, and for collaborative projects with other learners at the school on female genital mutilation in Uganda.
However, at her school there are 1,200 learners and only 10 computers in one computer lab.
These two girls told their story at the recent launch of
SchoolNet Africa. SchoolNet Africa is an African learning network of “SchoolNet” organizations which are promoting education through the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in up to 23 African countries, in partnership with a range of global, regional and local organizations.
A SchoolNet is an institution that facilitates the distribution of computers to schools, connects computers to the Internet, provides helpdesk support to schools, facilitates training of teachers in the use of ICTs and furthers the integration of education content and curriculum through the use of ICTs.
The Technological Landscape in African Schools
ICT penetration in schools in Africa remains extremely limited. Access to ICTs remains highly uneven within countries and across the African continent – an extension of the developmental disparities that have characterized the region for decades. Table 1 provides a cursory glance of a few African countries where schools with computers are shown as a proportion of the total number of schools.
Table 1: Computer Penetration Ratios at Schools
in African Countries, 2001
Country
South Africa
Egypt
Ghana
Namibia
Mozambique
Number of schools
28,798
32,000
35,000
1,519
7,000
Schools with computers
5,000
10,000
500
60
20
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South Africa has the most developed economy in Africa, the highest teledensity and hence the highest degree of access to
ICTs relative to the rest of Africa. And yet, the disparities even in South Africa remain significant. Of the approximately 29,000 schools, only 5,000 have computers and of these, a fraction has Internet access, despite the increase in initiatives to get schools online in the country. The main obstacles to Internet access for schools are:
•
Lack of infrastructure in general and network infrastructure in particular,
•
High telephone costs and high cost of Internet access,
•
Limited expertise, and
•
Lack of an enabling policy environment
Similarly, in schools where there are computers available, they range from one computer in the school to computer laboratories of up to 40 computers. They would also range from used and refurbished computers to new Pentium IIIs.
This disparity also leads to uneven access to the technologies. In some cases, only principals use computers, in other cases only teachers do. Access to computer labs by learners remains very limited. Where learners do have access, it is limited to Grades 11 and 12.
2
A few schoolnets such as SchoolNet South Africa and
SchoolNet Namibia have also developed schoolmail, an email system for learners and educators. Many have also developed school home pages. Some, like SchoolNet Cameroon and SchoolNet Namibia, and to some extent in South
Africa, are exploring the use of wireless solutions particularly for schools that are outside the electricity grid. At
Myeka High School in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa, the school uses a solar panel system to access electricity to power the school's computer laboratory.
3
(See Figure 1 )
According to the principal of Myeka High, solar electricity has led to the acquisition of world class electronic learning equipment such as computers, a TV and VCR, an overhead projector, linkages to the Internet and useful educational websites, and a copier/printer. The technologies have had a positive learning effect on both learners and educators. They encouraged a culture of learning and teaching and contributed to the decline in the school dropout rates. Also student enrollment increased from 720 in 1997 to 850 in 1999.
Similarly, SchoolNet Namibia is currently testing the use of wireless Ethernet bridges with high gain antennas to link schools to a central wired node, which allows for connection of ranges up to 60km.
Evidently, much of the technologies that will work on a larger scale are currently being tested and schoolnets are exploring innovative options that will work under conditions of scarce resources.
The experience of African learners using new ICTs shows that there are positive learning outcomes. Sophia, for instance, tells of the advantages of having access to the Internet at school - how it has widened her horizons, and allowed her to claim the Internet space for her own learning experience.
SchoolNet Namibia shows fine examples too. SchoolNet
Namibia emerged from a competition organized by the Namibian National Museum, which involves children computerizing paper-based insect records. The competition, Insectathon, is now a central activity of SchoolNet Namibia. In total, 31,020 paper-based insect records of the National Museum, representing 152,751 insect specimens were computerized by schoolchildren from 48 different schools during the regional and final events. Most of these children had never seen a computer before the competition.
4
The winning team from Usakos Junior Secondary School will go to Washington, DC, USA in April 2002, to undertake, among other things, a mini-insect@thon at the world-renowned Smithsonian Institute.
Similarly, ThinkQuest International, a web-development competition for learners between the ages of 12-19, have over the past three years, had a number of participants from
12 different African countries, two of which have established national ThinkQuest programs, SchoolNet South Africa and the Regional Information Technology and Software Engineering Centre (RITSEC). One of the winners in 2000 was a
17-year-old from Nigeria whose family spent half its monthly income to encourage her to learn about the Internet.
5
In Mozambique and Uganda, collaborative projects on topical issues have been one way of encouraging learners to use computers. In Mozambique, learners from different schools have worked with one another, even though they do not have access to the Internet.
Thus, despite the slowness of the diffusion of the new technologies in African schools, where they have been tried, there is at least anecdotal evidence of positive learning outcomes. Through computer-related competition programs in
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particular, African learners appear to be motivated to participate and they acquire skills in research, collaboration, team work, and, in some cases, like with ThinkQuest, interaction with learners between different countries, thereby creating opportunities for cultural awareness and tolerance.
•
School TV – dedicated time for curriculum-related teaching;
•
CD ROM's and video– a myriad of educational software packages based on school curricula and available on
CD-ROMs; and
•
Online curricula such as www.learn.co.za
.
In South Africa, the spectrum of technologies outlined above is being tried, and the process has begun in Nigeria.
New ICTs should be utilized to complement older styles of learning, particularly in situations like in Africa, where we are challenged to reach large numbers of learners and educators. Much of the experience of schoolnets thus far has been on the technological side: installing computers and connecting them to the Internet. An approach with a stronger educational focus will have to consider utilizing varied technologies. SchoolNet Africa’s collaboration with the Learning
Channel Campus, a commercial enterprise in South Africa whose vision is to develop multi-media platforms most suited to local conditions, teaches that the use of both old and new ICTs works most effectively in reaching large numbers of learners. A multi-media platform is what works most effectively, one that takes account of local capacities and languages.
Thus in additional to chalk and talk, a spectrum of technological options are available.
•
Community Radio with dedicated education programs for learners and educators;
•
Local media, whereby educators use their own resources in their own languages at the local level to supplement the absence of textbooks;
•
Print media that take the form of newspaper supplements targeted at both learners and educators. This has been extensively applied in South Africa and is now being tried in Nigeria;
SchoolNet organizations, with one or two exceptions, have only scratched the surface in using ICTs among a few learners and educators. They nevertheless demonstrate the potential that new technologies may provide in enhancing learning and teaching. There is, however, a dearth of knowledge on the experience with the use of ICTs in schools and the pedagogical value they add in an African context. Generating experimental knowledge on how to change the shape of learning and teaching remains crucial and is one objective that SchoolNet Africa hopes to achieve.
1. Isaacs, S. and Sibthorpe, C. (2000): Report on School
Networking in Africa Workshop, IDRC.
www.schoolnetafrica.org.eg
2. Isaacs, S. and Broekman, I. (Eds.) (2001): Whetting the appetite for ICTs in African Schools, IDRC.
www.idrc.ca/acacia (to be published)
3.
4. www.myeka.co.za
www.schoolnet.na
1
Shafika Isaacs is currently the Executive Director of SchoolNet Africa, a pan-African NGO headquartered in South Africa.
For more information contact Ms. Isaacs at shafika@schoolnetafrica.org.za
or check out their website: www.schoolnetafrica.org.eg
2
Isaacs, S. and Broekman, I. (Eds) 2001: Whetting the appetite for ICTs in African Schools, An evaluation of schoolnet projects supported by the IDRC, IDRC (to be published). www.idrc.ca/acacia
3 www.myeka.co.za
4 www.schoolnet.na
5 www.thinkquest.org
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