How appropriate is software for developing ICT literacy in Africa?

Teacher training institutions in even the poorest African countries are slowly being equipped with computers. Increasingly, teachers are being exposed to new information and communication technologies (ICTs). The majority of school teachers are likely to work in environments without computers for the foreseeable future but in schools where ICTs are available, teachers will want to know how to use them.

A study commissioned by DFID’s Imfundo initiative aimed to identify software appropriate for use in an African context. Complementing previous studies on software providing materials in particular subject areas, it looks at appropriate and available software tools and applications that could be useful for teaching educators and teachers ICT literacy. A large number of software packages were evaluated on the basis of their cost, user-friendliness, interactivity, content and teaching approach.

Imfundo was set up in response to requests from African educators to assist them in identifying training materials to develop key ICT skills – computer literacy, the use of e-mail and the Internet, word-processing, spreadsheets, presentations and website creation. These ICT skills are essential if teachers, government officials, peer educators and others are to make the best use of Africa's ICT-based learning.

The authors predict a future in which telecommunications capacity will expand and the shift from wired towards wireless technology will continue. The cost of computers and internet access will fall and the trend towards making technology simpler to use and set up will continue. Dramatically lowered costs will make electronic communication available and affordable to a large part of the population.

The study notes that:

• There is little suitable ICT skills training software for African educators.
• There is almost no educational content on the Internet that has been produced in Anglophone Africa – with the exception of South Africa.
• Most software packages intended for educators are from donor projects or private sector foundations: very few packages have been developed by the private sector and when the packages become available, they do not reflect the needs of the African lifestyle.
• Although there are areas in Africa where most schools will have computer networks installed in a few years’ time, rural schools in the poorest parts of the continent will have nothing even twenty years from now.
• Training courses often encourage people to see the technology as something to be learned about, not something to be learned to use creatively.
• ICT literacy training has a tendency to be repeated in an ever-worsening cycle of cascade training - training is passed on and if initial training is not good, there is a danger it will become increasingly worse as it is transferred, so bad ICT literacy training ends up being repeated.

Africa is considering using Open Source Software (OSS) - software that can be freely used, distributed and edited. South Africa has an OSS policy which has already resulted in considerable savings. Donors are urging consideration of OSS and an African Open Source Foundation has been created. OSS works well with refurbished computers – a major source of school equipment in Africa – while Microsoft licensing for the reinstallation of Windows on refurbished computers has been costly.

The authors recommend:

• looking to the future: there is little point providing new teachers with detailed knowledge about already out of date systems
• stimulating materials that can demonstrate to educators and learners how technology can create a more interesting learning environment
• tackling 'technophobia': educators are likely to need more guidance than the children they teach.

Internet download speed is critical for African educators. Documents or images that are 5 megabytes (MB) in size can take hours to download through a dial-up modem and telephone connection, and therefore the download process is frequently interrupted. There is little sense in teaching computer skills to school educators if access to ICTs is a long way off for them.

Source(s):
‘Review of basic ICT Skills and training software for educators in Africa’ DFID Imfundo Partnership for IT in Education, by Tina James, Olof Hesselmark, Ben Akoh and Leonard Mware 2004 Full document.

Funded by: DFID Imfundo

id21 Research Highlight: 26 November 2004

Further Information:
Imfundo
Department for International Development (DFID)
1 Palace Street
London SW1E 5HE
UK

Tel: +44 (0)20 7023 0980
Fax: +44 (0)20 7023 0976
Contact the contributor: C-Hagan@dfid.gov.uk

Imfundo, Department for International Development (DFID), UK

Tina James
Tina James Consulting
P O Box 72267
0040 Lynnwood Ridge
South Africa

Tel: +27 12 361-4334
Contact the contributor: tjames@intekom.co.za

Other related links:
'Missing the connection? Using ICTs in education'

'DEEP impact: teachers and technology'

'ICTs in school classrooms: planning to avoid costly mistakes'

'Aiming high: ICTs and higher education in Mexico'

'Computers in secondary schools: high-cost problem or low-cost cure-all?'

'Learning to share'

'See the id21 links page on Information and Communication Technologies in Education