E-education – embrace the future!

“Globalization and technological change—processes that have accelerated in tandem over the past fifteen years—have created a new global economy “powered by technology, fueled by information and driven by knowledge.”1 The emergence of this new global economy has serious implications for the nature and purpose of educational institutions. As the half-life of information continues to shrink and access to information continues to grow exponentially, schools cannot remain mere venues for the transmission of a prescribed set of information from teacher to student over a fixed period of time. Rather, schools must promote “learning to learn,” : i.e., the acquisition of knowledge and skills that make possible continuous learning over the lifetime.2 “The illiterate of the 21st century,” according to futurist Alvin Toffler, “will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.””

Why are we where we are? Are we going somewhere, if so where are we going? Do we have a place in the world and a share in the world order, if so what is our place and our share? Who are we and what makes us who we are? Do we have an agenda, if so what is our agenda? Do we have permanent interests or permanent friends? What defines our ethos - interests or friends? Are we really as educated as we think we are? Is our education relevant and to whom, ourselves, our neighbors or the Diaspora? What value do we place on ourselves, do we have a price, what is that price and is it high enough and truly what we are worth? Why do others innovate whilst we cry, how long will we keep on doing the same thing and expecting different results? In our quest for education have we truly become any wiser than when we first began?

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become one of the cornerstones of modern society. Truly “developed” and “progressive” as well as “developing” countries, now understand the importance of ICTs and are mastering the basic skills and concepts as part of the core of education. There is dire need for organizations – both public and private, as well as practitioners and other players in the education sector to increasingly embrace ICT in aiding educational improvement and reform. Concerns over educational relevance and quality coexist with the imperative of expanding educational opportunities to those made most vulnerable by globalization - developing countries in general; low-income groups, girls and women, and low-skilled workers in particular. Global changes also put pressure on all groups to constantly acquire and apply new skills. The International Labour Organization defines the requirements for education and training in the new global economy simply as “Basic Education for All”, “Core Work Skills for All” and “Lifelong Learning for All”.

It is quite unfortunate in deed that though Africa is the cradle of ancient civilization, it now seats safely in the back seat of all things educational. Maybe the current state lies in the definition of Africa’s education in its self “Ancient” and “Civilization” or “Education” implying old and redundant. How else can you explain the fact that our universities are still, in this day and age, churning out some graduates who have no appreciation whatsoever of a computer. Well, maybe the simple reason why “our” so called educated people still find themselves employed overseas, howbeit in mostly, menial jobs, is because to the undiscerning eye a degree is still a degree or maybe the employers seem to figure it out that if you at least have a first degree you can be converted to “something” on the job – as you go by. The greatest misfortune lies not in the fact that the west, north and whoever, after our great insistence and great fighting in deed, allowed us grudgingly, to learn and get intoxicated with their highly addictive education and systems of learning, but in the reality that our brains and thinking ended after our final examinations. How else can you explain the fact that all we have changed in this country is our the name of our examination body and not the content of education material and the way of disseminating such content? Forget our African His story which is as a matter of no mistake whose story as in who is His in History? Ours collectively or a result of someone’s mischief? Which African His has written our story? Maybe “my English” is too shallow but how else can you explain the fact that our people “finish”, “complete” “their” education. Does it ever get “completed”, “finished” in light of the fact that after the examination is sat for and passed or failed, there is the application of the various concepts learnt in real life scenarios or rather there has to be the application of concepts learnt which process should not end till death? One has to learn, unlearn and relearn until going back to face the creator or kuruma churu (bite the molehill – denoting getting buried period) for the atheist. If you truly can’t re-invent the wheel, does it also imply that you can’t just add a spoke to the wheel or maybe just polish the wheel? I truly believe that our problem lies in the spoon feeding type of education that we received mainly in the late 70s to the 80s through to the 90s. We seem to have landlocked ways of thinking as much as most countries in our continent are landlocked with pockets or islands of beneficial cognitive exercise here and there.

Ask the teachers or let’s give them a better name, educational practitioners what they do when they are on “strike”, “go slow” or “drive by” which ever name you give it? I don’t have the answer don’t mind me. Don’t think I hate this type of practitioner, the opposite is so true, I love, respect and honor them with a passion, I am mostly a by-product of one too many a practitioner having gone through “my primary and secondary education” like most of us out there, with one particular practitioner who I met at Trust Academy in 2008 having left an indelible mark in my illustrious life as a gallant son of ICT. Thanks to mukoma Steven Maduveko my eyes will be forever open, having gone under the knife in your diploma “surgery” or class if you will. Don’t you make me apologetic now because I feel like getting to some serious issues here and now! If the world is revolving, going through a metamorphosis of sorts, what then is the place of Education in that new paradigm? Isn’t it obvious that Education will always be the bedrock of all things futuristic, but in what form, shape or size will that Education be forged? Enter ICT with its bag full of learning innovations termed E-learning, Blended Learning, Open or Distance Learning and Lerner-Centered Environment. Unfortunately, even if I want to or not, I sometimes have to find myself dwelling on definitions which can be a pain especially where pen and paper limit you.

E-Learning – electronic learning or e-learning is a general term referring to computer aided learning. It is commonly associated with Advanced Learning Technology (ALT), which deals with both the technologies and associated methodologies in learning using networked and/or multi-media technologies. It is also known as on-line learning with Distance Education being the basis of its development. It overcomes timing, attendance and travel difficulties and can be “on demand” (as and when the student is ready or is willing).

Blended Learning – is a combination of multiple approaches to learning and as such is usually used to define a combination of different delivery methods to deliver a particular course. These methods may include a mixture of self-paced learning and online classrooms.

Open or Distance Learning – my fellow kinsmen would be akin to a type of education with many seniors having gone through education in the unsightly comfort or discomfort of a jail cell and also having been introduced to study packs through the Rapid Results College. This type of education (for the comfort of the younger generations) in its current form, is where students work on their own and communicate with faculty and other students via e-mail, electronic forums, videoconferencing, chat rooms, instant messaging and other forms of computer-based communication thereby forming the difference between the ancient and the “current”, forming a ‘new normal’ Open or Distance Learning with the old being mainly paper and environment dependent. Most Distance learning programs include a computer based training (CBT) system as well as communication tools to produce a virtual classroom. Due to the fact that the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW) are accessible from virtually all computer platforms, they serve as the foundation for many distance learning systems.

Learner-centered Environment – the National Research Council of the United States of America defines learner centered environments as those that “pay careful attention to the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs that learners bring with them to the classroom”. The impetus for learner-centeredness derives from a theory of learning called constructivism, which views learning as a process in which individuals “construct” meaning based on prior knowledge and experience. Experience enables individuals to build mental models or schemas, which in turn provide meaning and organization to subsequent experience. Thus knowledge is not “out there”, independent of the learner and which the learner passively receives; rather, knowledge is created through an active process in which the learner transforms information, constructs hypothesis, and makes decisions using his/her mental models. A form of constructivism called social constructivism also emphasizes the role of the teacher, parents, peers and other community members in helping learners to master concepts that they would not be able to understand on their own. For social constructivists, learning must be active, contextual and social. It is best done in a group setting with the teacher as facilitator or guide.

Now that we find ourselves on the same page let’s talk education proper. If education has taken a new paradigm shift what of the teachers sorry practitioners? We are truly living in interesting times ladies and gentlemen. I wonder how your 4 year old kid will relate to a learning experience in which they go to nursery school and the tutor turns on a 42” LCD TV (that’s 42 inch Liquid Crystal Display television set for those who have just joined us - dummy) and begins to take the class through a color co-ordination tutorial by watching Sesame Street via Satellite Television of course. He (let me be a male chauvinistic pig for once) will quickly identify with it having watched another offering at home on pay per view (lest I do some marketing for DSTV) and the learning process will be more than mind blowing. How about your form 3 Ms Pretty watching Animals of The Serengeti on the Geography Channel at school yes at school illustrating Wild Life patterns in a Geography or Biology class? The experience will be more lively having toured the “Whatever Game Park” during the school holidays, imagine the relevance. How about a good looking education practitioner, wearing something commonly associated with the trendiest “current” fashion delivering a “fresh” lecture using Microsoft Powerpoint beamed onto some wall by a state of the art projector, wouldn’t you feel proud to be associated with such a process? But hey, the reality is too “far from the madding crowd” we still have skimmers who now know what topic comes after what topic even in their sleep, they don’t even use skim books anymore they know all of it by head, heart and soul. The unfortunate part of it all is that with the death of a great teacher dies his work. They are sadly remembered for “educating the nation” while they remain at the same place until death do them part from the confines of the four square. How can they teach and not learn? Learn a new way of teaching that one day chalk will break never to be unbroken again, broken forever. The world is progressing and quickly towards a new way, a new pen and paper, a new chalk and blackboard.

A good friend of mine told me the other day how they were studying for their ACCA exams with a person who is physically situated in South Korea over an internet website called www.passacca.net in a chat room. Isn’t that amazing, a person across the world converging with a person in Zimbabwe at the same time transferring information in real time (chiriporipochko). With the amount of exposure that we have acquired as Africans, what is it that stops us from developing content on our weather, climate, wildlife, economics, maybe politics, you name it, for use in classrooms across the world for a fee of course? Why is it that when it comes to television programs on Africa’s deadliest snakes you still see a white face behind the camera from across the big pond telling you how poisonous your snakes are yet literary millions of Africans have succumbed to slow and painful deaths under the venom of the African black mamba’s kith and kin. I thought that was education, relevant education not the Pythagoras Theorem which some of us have been subjected to with still little or no understanding having been achieved though we “finished our O’Levels and our A’Levels” having recorded “good” grades in Mathematics which has more than half its content being irrelevant in real life scenarios after a pass has been attained. At least I met a Puffadder once on my way from school one day and surely I ran as fast as my legs could carry me though it was meters and meters away from me and going in totally the opposite direction from me, well I had heard that it releases poison from the rear section hence my “run”. So justice done, teach about snakes at school period, African snakes for that matter and I won’t write about Education. The greatest fraud of all is that at Teacher-Training Institutions, the would be practitioners’ learning curricular does not introduce them to ICTs hence leading downstream to teachers who are well trained and so good in class, so good in deed that they can’t even think about evolving their skill into something that is computer based let alone ICT based with its broad form. Unfortunately such infrastructure doesn’t even exist, where it exists, the lack of electricity has reared its ugly head, hence Africa bleeds, swears, mourns, curses, spits, kicks and dies slowly with a few donors burying its last remains.

I wonder what else we are going to export after tobacco has been totally banned like what they are trying to do to our asbestos. I truly wonder what next after gold has totally become an undesired metal with the current trend it has since taken where it is no longer the basis of Economic or national Monetary Value with both “developed” and “developing” nations randomly printing money un-backed by gold reserves. Will diamonds save us, how will we wash away the blood since wherever they are they are known to cause the spillage of blood hence the term blood diamonds? Maybe coal will do the trick but won’t someone think of a renewable type of coal maybe white coal for a change? We’ve got to find uranium and find it fast and cause a war between the west and the east or the north and the north maybe that’s a better idea. Shamefully we find ourselves in the Biblical Gideon position where none but ourselves can save us from our future. We need to innovate. Shift our thinking, our systems. We unfortunately choose not to see further than the door of the classroom that our strength lies not only within the four square but also outside the foursquare. We have spoken of brain drain but forgotten to speak about potential drain. The potential drain of our Education practitioners, which if structured into centers and pockets of real new world education can become an Export Processing Zone churning Education material for the region, the continent and the world as well as graduates with a different skill to be exported to add value to the rest of the world with relevant skills with those retained being value adders to our local context. The road lies winding ahead of us people of the “dark continent”, whether it is time to turn on the light or not lies in no one other than ourselves, lets strengthen our feeble arms and put our hands to the plough.


“ICTs greatly facilitate the acquisition and absorption of knowledge, offering developing countries unprecedented opportunities to enhance educational systems, improve policy formulation and execution, and widen the range of opportunities for business and the poor. One
of the greatest hardships endured by the poor, and by many others who live in the poorest countries, is their sense of isolation. The new communications technologies promise to reduce
that sense of isolation, and to open access to knowledge in ways unimaginable not long ago.”

“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.