E-education – creating the atmosphere!

“One of the many challenges facing developing countries today is preparing their societies and governments for globalization and the information and communication revolution. Policy-makers, business executives, NGO activists, academics, and ordinary citizens are increasingly concerned with the need to make their societies competitive in the emergent information economy.”

Is there life after the examinations? Where does education begin and end? Is there relevance in our type of education? Have we done a good job of maintaining our inherited education system or do we need to look within for change? Is it time for change or the time has long expired? Will the change be sustainable? Will the revamped system of education still give us an edge over our peers, progression or retrogression, which way will we go? Is there something wrong with our education system in the first place such that it warrants change? Is the state of education what it was or is it yet what it shall be?

It truly is a shame when the elite and well to do of a country shun their local examinations’ bodies for foreign ones. Is it fair that the disparity between the “elite” schools and the “other” schools continues to widen with the “elite” ones incorporating ICTs in “their” curricular? Unfortunately you can’t blame anyone just because nobody will listen, so if you can afford it, better to ship your children to foreign lands or “elite” schools for further education rather than be part of a “sub standard process”. Don’t you think if the process of shunning our poor systems for foreign ones continues, one day we will have to send our children to nursery schools abroad because we will have let our systems run down to the ground. Slowly but surely we all watched the drama unfold before us, but how long will we continue with the culture of taking our children to these “good” schools, running them down and moving them to better ones which we will run down yet again? We allowed our universities to deteriorate, then our high schools, then our primary schools and now the rot is with our examination bodies, the final blow to an ailing body. Let’s all agree that our system of education, yes culminating in our examinations, is not in the best shape and state. If we are to talk about creating the atmosphere for E-education we cannot simply ignore the shambles that is our education system. It’s high time that someone spoke about it!

Where education is concerned, two countries seem to dominate the world, namely England or is it Great Britain and the United States of America. These two countries have modeled education to the rest of the world but what exactly is the difference between what they offer? I guess if you want to analyze a process carefully, the best basis point would be to look at the result of that process. A simple summarized layman’s observation would be that the British system (at least the one we inherited) creates an examination centered student with little application knowledge as compared to the American system which seems to develop the student’s application skills on learnt material. Simply put the former system creates head knowledge while the later creates applied knowledge. The focus on the British system is on testing for examination purposes whilst the American system of education creates a student who is ready for life after the examination, which really is where school begins (the life examination if you so wish). How much of what does a chap who has just attained 15 points at “A” Level know that can be applied to Industry and Commerce? Whether Cambridge or Zimsec or whatever other African syndicate, all they are after attaining a good pass mark, is an open book waiting to be written into by the hands of experience found in Industry and Commerce, or they go further to our Universities full of Professors who have never been employed in Industry and Commerce hence all they have is more and more theoretical knowledge.

How does all this relate to ICTs you are now asking? Well if you don’t see it yet then that’s exactly what I am talking about, learning, unlearning and relearning. We have to create an atmosphere for E-education, but even that has to have a base. Is the current foundation of education strong enough to support another elevation of education or yet another storey to make the structure more habitable? In fostering the right atmosphere for E-education to take root, we need to focus on Educational content, the environment, infrastructure, examinations as well as the link between academia and industry & commerce. The mix cannot be any better defined.

Educational Content
What is it that our students learn when they are at school, college or at home? Where does learning really begin and end? Can we confine learning to a particular space and time? Does distance play a role in the learning process? It is a foregone conclusion that our curriculum needs to be revisited. How can generations and generations learn of the same material as if time is stagnant? Knowledge is doubling every year so how can we afford to teach and learn the same thing over and over again. When people began learning, if ever there is such a thing, an argument as to the shape of the earth is said to have factored in, that argument is now a closed case everyone knows the world is round even the atheist. That’s the progression of knowledge. I wonder what else has changed. What our students learn at school will also determine their homework, think about working at home. Imagine an auditor from one of the mainline auditing firms, the ones that you meet by the “combies” with laptops looking sleek and all, what impediments they would have in executing their work if the only time they interacted with a computer was at the office? So guess what, the laptop looks as good on them as they look on it doing their work at home. Lest we lose focus, our educational content has to change so that it becomes relevant to real life scenarios. I truly wonder if anyone will be in the know of long division in a couple of years from now, what with the introduction of the calculator version of mathematics coming on board, maybe there will be a grade 7 calculator version of maths in the not so distant future. In the African context we seem to do a lot of finishing, like “finishing school” (kupedza chikoro) hence for us learning begins and ends somewhere, that culture has to change. There is a cost to buying the future. Our educational content has to be harmonized with real life such that the learning process does not end at 1 or 3 o’clock when the school bell rings and the student is released from “class”. How can you test the whole country using the same basis when their environments are totally different? One has to travel 20 kilometers to school another has to go to school hungry on bare feet, while another gets to school and sleeps on account of having had an overly rich breakfast. The process lacks fairness if one’s life is to be judged on account of examinations written from totally different backgrounds. At another school 20 students share one textbook at another there is one book for half a child and so forth. Pay attention. Which school teaches real life skills like Motor Mechanics, let alone the art of washing cars? Is it that O’Level or A’Level students cannot grasp the concepts involved? We tend to teach sports and a bit of music like marimba and the like. Not bad at all if you have a strong arts ethos but not good if musicians are the poorest people around and sports people are not adequately rewarded at professional level. Why create a river to feed the dead sea?

Environment
Once upon a time, back in the days of the learned Professor’s student activism tenure at the U of Z, the SU was a heaven on earth. Students would go and dine in deed till they tired and dropped. Unfortunately gone are the days, I can’t wish for the virgin days of my mother can I? ICTs do not function in a vacuum. I wonder how one would react if they found a computer at the center of first street, fully functioning and surfing away unconnected to any power source with no one there. That would be a Zombie affair wouldn’t it, a ghost issue in sooth. We have called for the scrapping of duties and taxes on ICTs, they are not a luxury and never will be a luxury. Unless we begin to appreciate that we have to foster a right spirit and environment for education and ICTs, then we will always wonder why all these things sanctions included continue to hit us (my line of reasoning being that we have inflicted more sanctions on ourselves than anybody else can ever do to us). Environments are created, maintained or destroyed so we rightly or so, choose what we want. Unfortunately this subject cannot be discussed without going into deep waters, but as you know I am not a deep water person let me continue in my shallowness.

Infrastructure
“O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth…” read O foolish Africans who hath bewitched you that ye should not perceive the way of the future? One wise president so it fit to donate computers to schools in the hope that his example would be followed by all and sundry as a pointer to the importance of ICT, but hey no one took heed, private sector, public sector neither industry nor commerce. What lack of sight or is it foresight. The first whistle has been blown signaling the beginning of the greatest ball game of all times and no one moves! What a shame. We need to begin to make ICTs common or at least available in all schools. One voice spoke on ICT infrastructure and e-education in Africa as such “a country’s educational technology infrastructure sits on top of the national telecommunications and information infrastructure. Before any ICT-based programme is launched, policymakers and planners must carefully consider the following:
• In the first place, are appropriate rooms or buildings available to house the technology? In
countries where there are many old school buildings, extensive retrofitting to ensure proper
electrical wiring, heating/cooling and ventilation, and safety and security would be needed.
• Another basic requirement is the availability of electricity and telephony. In developing countries large areas are still without a reliable supply of electricity and the nearest telephones are miles away. Experience in some countries in Africa point to wireless technologies (such as VSAT or Very Small Aperture Terminal) as possible levers for leapfrogging. Although this is currently an extremely costly approach, other developing countries with very poor telecommunications infrastructure should study this option.
• Policymakers should also look at the ubiquity of different types of ICT in the country in general, and in the educational system (at all levels) in particular. For instance, a basic requirement for computer-based or online learning is access to computers in schools, communities, and households, as well as affordable Internet service.

In general, ICT use in education should follow use in society, not lead it. Education programs that use cutting-edge technologies rarely achieve long term success:
It is cheaper, and easier, to introduce a form of technology into education, and keep it working,
where education is riding on the back of large-scale developments by governments or the private
sector. Television works for education when it follows rather than precedes television for
entertainment; computers in schools can be maintained once commercial and private use has
expanded to the point where there is an established service industry.” True food for thought hey!

Examinations
There is no point whatsoever of learning with the various mixes or models using ICTs and then sit for an examination that does not encompass ICTs. The content as well as the method of examination needs to give if E-education is to gain momentum. If only the education practitioners would sit down (with a little consultation from ICT gurus of course) to try and marry education with ICTs forming the bedrock of a new education system that’s E-education, progress would be achieved. Maybe the fear or challenge lies in learning, unlearning and relearning. You have certain players who will tell you that “we have been playing this game using these rules for so long, how can you, a child born yesterday, tell us to rethink, re-invent, and evolve”? The only history they identify with is that of yesterday not of tomorrow! Maybe tomorrow is way too complex for them forgive their blinkers. We can’t overemphasize the need to rethink our examination structures, but again examinations culminate from the content learnt in the progress of education hence, once the content is up to scratch examinations should follow suit, that is if there is less intervention from destructive hands which have created the current shambles now obtaining within our own system.

Link Academia and Industry
I was literary rushing to get here. Over the years maybe due to “text book” Economics and other large human factors, academia and Industry have continued to drift apart. First to suffer was the apprenticeship programme as well as the attachment programme which would see either students being taken on board within an organization to train on the job, in a specialized area or being attached in a gap year to an organization in order to gain some experience or a feel of how it would be like to function in a real life setup. Industry has almost always been a pain in all the wrong places with demands of years of experience which more often than not are unlikely to have been achieved by a recent graduate fresh from the four square. Ain’t it a bit foolish to demand 3 or 4 years experience and say you are not discriminating against a recent graduate? Whatever the answer is, it boggles the mind. Industry needs to woe (kupfimba) the education sector in more ways than one such that the education sector produces the best graduate and incumbent for jobs within Industry and Commerce. The outcry for brain drain is dramatized, how can you expect to continue having the best workers when you are not churning the best graduates in their numbers? Fortunately or unfortunately industry and commerce doesn’t seem to be creating more employment for the various graduates who are already out there, so it seems. If there is a brain drain, then doesn’t it also follow that the caliber of the graduates is unsuitable for what the industry wants or is “work experience” the impediment? To what extent is outflow matching inflow in the job pool? Who determines which vocation is on demand? What is Industry doing to make sure that relevant skills are retained? What and how much contribution is being made by Industry and Commerce towards right skilling (the education of the relevant people to meet available jobs)? If Industry and Commerce truly understands the importance of ICTs why is there so little meaningful contribution towards Academia? It seems as though Industry and Commerce has just gone numb. You cry Economy, but where do all the computers that you don’t use anymore end? What use would they be say to a school in Dotito, Maranda, or somewhere at the backside of the country? Your garbage would make someone’s day hey! Change someone’s life forever. What happened to your brick cellphone wouldn’t that be adequate for someone’s learning process? Why do you think that one day you can give someone a candy factory when you have never parted with a single mint? Let’s go back to basics, teaspoon giving back to the ocean and see what happens, tremendous ripple effect.

“The Emerging Trends
The trend in the market would show that on-line education is fast catching up. As per a report by UNESCO, there are approximately 80 million students enrolled in higher education programmes world-wide in 1999, of which 6,150,000 are on-line. Australia alone enrolled 690,000 students in higher education courses. In the US, which is coming up as a big base for on-line education, 710,000 students were enrolled in distance learning last year. By 2002 this number is estimated to touch 2.2 million. According to IDC, a whopping 90 percent of the on-line learning market is still untapped. The University of Southern Queensland in Australia claims that 75 percent of its 20,000 students are studying through distance education that involves some form of electronic delivery. Further, according to the Campus Computing Project, 30 percent of US colleges and universities plan to incorporate the Internet into their distance learning initiatives.”

What has since happened to those figures, heaven only knows?

“Wherefore seeing we also are encompassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” Hebrews 12 verse 1.