By ICWE
The fifth eLearning Africa conference identified trends and key measures for empowering education on the Continent
Lusaka, Zambia. “The Internet flattens hierarchy, reduces social distance, makes me closer to you, and, paradoxically, makes all our serious connections more authentic. I witness how this helps the young people in the process of learning values and how it assists in the planning of positive community actions.”
This year’s eLearning Africa conference started with a stirring speech on Online Social Education of African Youth delivered by the Rt Rev Dr S. Tilewa Johnson, Bishop of Gambia. He prompted the audience to “explore how the digital technologies you are developing can also remain in touch with the traditions of learning and encounter of Africa.”
A total of 1778 education professionals from 78 countries gathered in Lusaka, Zambia’s Mulungushi International Conference Center last week. eLearning Africa 2010 - the fifth in a series of pan-African events focussing on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for development, education and training - identified major trends on how to empower the Continent’s education systems, teachers and learners.
Mobile Phones Provide Access to Learning
Being cheaper and easier to access than traditional internet connections, mobile phones tend to be turned into learning tools in many contexts in Africa. By 2009, 28% of the Continent’s population had a mobile phone subscription. For example, nurses and health workers in Kenya who are trained by the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) can download tests and reference material or exam dates on their mobile phones. Health workers in remote areas can also post difficult cases on a website, thus starting a forum that is moderated from AMREF and summarised by experts in the field.
In South Africa, where literacy rates are low, the Shuttleworth Foundation has started a major mLearning campaign to encourage reading and writing amongst schoolchildren and young adults. The logic behind the approach is obvious: While South African teenagers don't have access to books, they do have cell phones - about ninety percent of those living in urban areas are connected. In the Shuttleworth Foundation’s effort, called the m4Lit project, a teen mystery story was published in English and in isiXhosa on a mobisite (www.kontax.mobi), as well as on South Africa’s most popular mobile instant messaging platform, MXit. Steve Vosloo from Shuttleworth Foundation explains, “In the first three months of publication, over 12,000 teens read the whole story on their phones. A total of 30,000 people have read the full story.”
Enabling Access: Green IT and Alternative Power Solution
From cloud computing to small-scale power generation and governmental rural electrification programmes, the sustainability of eLearning in Sub-Saharan Africa is increasingly dependent on alternative energy solutions. Persistent power outages add to the high cost of investment in Africa, as most businesses are forced to use expensive alternative power sources such as generators. Toward mitigating this problem, eLearning Africa showcased a range of best practices of alternative energy sources such as solar energy, bio fuel, and biogas.
"How would I be able to enjoy seeing Ghana beat Germany ‘live’ in the World Cup Football final in my tent in the Sahara Desert?”, asked Prof Anthony Rest of Southampton University, UK, a delegate at eLearning Africa. He replied to his own question: "Using a camel carrying solar panels linked to a simple cost-effective solar energy generator system based on a Dell M109S low-powered data and video projector. If I can see my football, and I can with my camel system, I can provide the means of education for students and communities in the remotest rural regions anywhere in the world.” Together with Keith Wilkinson, a teacher at the International School at Lusaka, Rest presented this low-cost energy device. The solution consumes only 47 watts, in contrast to most current data-video projectors, which require 200-300 watts and cannot be economically sustained for long. The projector is used as a multimedia resource for teaching chemistry.
As for the production of biofuels, the Biofuel Association of Zambia showcased the jatropha seed and its products like the cake used as charcoal, the soap and mosquito repellant, oil for lamps, and oil for cars.
Prof Thomson Sinkala from the Biofuels Association of Zambia pointed out that to improve the standard of living, there is need to switch from low-quality energy sources such as firewood and charcoil, to better quality energy sources such as biofuels and biogas. These products, could also be used as household fuels or to supply electricity for computers or laptops in schools and community centres.
Inclusive Education Key to Development
Various African governments often face similar problems with the implementation of ICT and education programmes at a local level. Obstacles can include the bureaucratic structures of institutions, scarce resources and a lack of leadership strategies to harness the opportunities brought by ICT.
A high-level political Round Table at eLearning Africa saw Ministers and senior policy advisers from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Equatorial Guinea and Zambia discuss how ICTs can foster capacity development and inclusion in African education systems. eLearning is seen as one of the most important development accelerators by the majority of African administrations. National ICT strategies therefore, focus on issues such as access to ICTs, equipping institutions with the most appropriate software and hardware, as well as curricula development, fostering digital literacy, and the provision of initial teacher training.
Meanwhile, at the Conference, practitioners and researchers provided vital insights into gender and inclusion issues in ICT integration in schools. The International Development Research Centre (IDRC)’s Observatory (www.observatoiretic.org) is unique in the depth and breadth of its ICT-in-education indicators, and it is recognised in particular for its sex-disaggregated school-scale data on the use of computers.
At eLearning Africa, the Observatory provided a forum to share results from initial analysis of this pan-African data set. Dr Alice Ndidde of Makarere University presented her work on the use of ICTs by female and male educators and learners in Uganda, noting that while institutional policies largely support equity of access to computers, current ‘use’ data show that for both educators and learners, males have an advantage.
Reasons ranged from the girls’ perceptions and attitudes toward higher education and careers in ICTs, the lack of female role models in schoosl, social and cultural barriers, as well as infrastructural inadequacies.
Access could be improved by training more female teachers in ICTs to serve as role models to encourage the girls. Another help would be increasing the number of computers in schools to widen access. Sensitisation programmes and workshops were also seen as important.
These results were echoed in Prof Thierry Karsenti of the Université de Montréal’s pan-African study, which looked at ICT integration in teacher training.
A promising example for successful inclusion of marginalised people through the use of ICTs came from Kenya. Students and teachers of various ethnic groups from different schools in the North Rift Region that were affected by the post-election mayhem have been brought together through the eLearning project “Good School Neighbours”.
In this endeavour, students, teachers, and opinion-makers get the chance to encourage dialogue and peaceful co-existence between the feuding rural communities in this vast, arid region, which is home to around 1.8 million people and where armed cattle rustling has been a way of life. The North Rift eLearning consortium, which supports the project, has developed an eLearning resource centre to provide a wealth of information on peace and conflict resolution, using education manuals, teacher training, and eLearning with websites, e-mails and recorded programmes, thus helping to bring peace to armed, nomadic peoples.
ICWE GmbH, with input from Brenda Zulu (Zambia) and Toby Harper-Merrett (Canada).