Teaching Africa’s teachers about ICTs

African teacher training institutions are doing little to train teachers how to incorporate information and communication technologies (ICTs) into their teaching practice. Teacher training institutions and schools need better resources to ensure that ICTs are properly integrated into education.

A study from SchoolNet Africa (SNA) examines how African teachers are taught about ICTs before and after they enter classrooms. It identifies ICT courses and programmes and recommends ways in which ICT capability can be integrated into teacher training programmes.

In the few African schools equipped with ICTs, computers are often second-hand and cannot run complex software; electricity supplies are unreliable; access to computer rooms is limited by the competing demands of teachers, students and administrators. Due to lack of training and familiarity with computers, teachers do not know how to browse and find internet materials and are not familiar with educational software.

While there are some initiatives to train teachers in ICT skills – the authors identified 61 courses targetting teachers in anglophone Africa – these are usually small and of varying quality. Most ICT training is delivered through face-to-face instruction; there are very few online courses linked to African teaching systems.

Researchers also found that:

• Very few African teacher training institutions offer any form of pre-service ICT training.
• Even those countries with national ICT policies have not developed a coherent strategy to develop teachers’ ICT skills.
• There is little sharing of experience between countries and no moves towards a united African framework for teaching ICT.
• Africa lacks accreditation systems to acknowledge ICT skills obtained by teachers or rank courses by quality.
• Many ICT teacher education projects have been created with time-limited donor funding so it is doubtful whether they will remain sustainable.

Most African teacher training institutions are too under-resourced to meet existing expectations of ICT training. The addition of an ICT curriculum requires extra infrastructure, the development of teacher trainer ICT skills and production of ICT training materials. A shortage of public funds is the fundamental challenge to building skills in ICTs in African education.

Many educationalists have yet to realise the transformational potential of ICTs. And given there are so many other spending priorities, as long as ICTs are considered non-essential, they will continue to struggle for attention.

SchoolNet Africa calls for:

• integration of ICTs at the pre-service teacher training level by building ICT capacity at teacher training institutions
• production of content within training courses relevant to the cultures and languages of Africa
• ensuring that content is supported by user communities excited about using it and that it is rigorously evaluated
• greater effort to ensure sustainability of existing initiatives
• improved collaboration and information sharing between countries
• providing accreditation to teachers who have undergone recognised ICT training: the motivation of acquiring a qualification could be increased with better pay or promotion possibilities.

Source(s):
‘Towards a Strategy on Developing African Teacher Capabilities in the Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)’ by Cassie Janisch and Neil Butcher, SchoolNet Africa, October 2004 Full document.

Funded by: Commonwealth of Learning, International Institute for Communication and Development, Microsoft’s Partners in Learning Program, Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa

id21 Research Highlight: 20 March 2006

Further Information:
SchoolNet Africa
PO Box 31866
Braamfontein
Johannesburg, 2017
South Africa

Tel: + 27 11 465 4003
Contact the contributor: info_aekw@schoolnetafrica.org

SchoolNet Africa, South Africa

Other related links:
'Can ICTs fight poverty in Africa?'

'How appropriate is software for developing ICT literacy in Africa?'

'ICTs in rural Ghana: bringing schools and communities together?'

Integrating ICT in Teacher Training: Reflections on Practice and Policy Implications - A Case Study of the Learning Resource Centre at the Kenya Technical Teachers College