Zambian teenager’s ICTs skills boosted

Introduction

Initiative Name:	Zambian teenager’s ICTs skills boosted
Author:	Tovin Ngombe
Implemented by:	IICD
Country:	Zambia [ZM]
Theme:	Education
Download:	English (73 kb) | French (57 kb) | Spanish (68 kb)

The Story

Background and context: In whatever human trait you view Information Communication Technologies (ICTS) most people have widely accepted that it plays a key role in shaping the social economic development of any society. But the technical nature and the complexities involved in understanding ICTs tools have created the digital divide between the developed countries and the third world nations.

However, the spreading of ICTs in the African countries though at a slow pace is a non-stop venture, hardships would be encountered, some projects will succeed, others will fall apart, but the benefits are too many to outline. Hence the key to alleviating these hurdles lies in educating the already excluded people for them to effectively use and understand the basic ICT tools.

Zambia is among the third world countries that have not realised much in the ICTs arena, but its ICTs draft policy has placed top priorities to achieving universal access by 2010. The policy has outlined that without adequate and reliable connection to information and knowledge network, the country would be excluded from participating in the global village. However, the GTP project is a window of hope for the country’s ICTs development among the pupils who have the potential to become reliable users of the skills acquired.

This article examines the implementation of GTP in three schools.

The Rhodes Park School, which is privately owned, has 24 hours access to the Internet and pupils have access to it. The School is the only one in the country that has introduced French in the learning circle to ensure that pupils participate with other countries that do not speak English. It has an ICT component in its curriculum and has embedded the GTP in its programme.

At the Lake Road PTA School the pupils participated in topics such as culture and dance, regarded as rich topics. 13 pupils participated, among them seven from the secondary School and six from the middle school.

At Chongwe high school, which is, situated 45Km along the great east road from Lusaka city had no computers before the GTP started reveals Mr Musonda Sikombe a teacher in charge of the project.

Despite the difficulties that participating Schools have witnessed since the inception of the project, there is a bright future for it to improve owing to the country’s ICT background, which is still in its infancy in the education cycles.

More articles with similar backgrounds >

The development problem/obstacle addressed: The Global Teenager Project (GTP) launched in 1999 under the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) has opened up a window of opportunities for Zambian Schools to bring the full potential of ICTs into the classroom.

GTP was initiated to impart ICT skills and learning skills to secondary School pupils while increasing their understanding of other cultures through staging lively, global classroom debates in cyberspace.

GTP Country Coordinator for Zambia Mr Mwape disclosed at the GTP workshop for the teachers in charge in February 2005 that they were called to share information with a wider network, to enable them to be networking among themselves, to share their concerns, and to ensure that they all have a clear understanding of the project.

More articles with similar problems >

Organisational aspects: Mr. Mwape says that the project has eight participating Schools, which are all found in Lusaka adding that there is room for expanding it to other provinces after gaining experience in Lusaka.

Twice a year, about eight to 12 classes from different schools link up via email to form 'virtual Learning Circles, the core activity of the Global Teenager Project. Learning Circles are web-based, virtual environments for intercultural exchange and they provide a safe, dynamic and fun environment for GTP's exciting educational programme.

They discuss a theme of their choice for the next 10 weeks and the outcomes of their discussions are posted on the Virtual Campus, a place where students exchange knowledge. The classes select one theme from a shortlist of 14 general subjects ranging from health, environment, human rights, globalisation, and my Life.

Matero Girls High School, which joined GTP in 2002, has 14 computers and only eight of them are working while six are broken down says Mrs Banda.

Chongwe high school, which was picked as a pilot project, received seven computers from GTP and two second hand computers from the Computers for Zambian secondary Schools. However, 1,000 students are meant to share these computers and as a result only a handful of them benefit from the project.

More articles with similar organisational aspects >

Impact Assesment

Awareness: Mr Mwape says the GTP workshop would assist the participating Schools in the learning Circle to understand the role of ICT and to enable them share the researched information to the growing network.

Ms Musonda Sakala a teacher at Rhodes Park School says the project has increased ICTs awareness among the pupils.

Lake Road PTA School joined GTP in 2004 and has found the programmes to be invaluable to both teachers and students

At the Chongwe high school the pupils have learnt researching skills using the computer though the knowledge is not fully exploited owing to the lack of Internet connectivity at the School. Feedback from the students illustrated the challenges: “We, speaking as a group, never had the opportunity to be in the chat room. In our group only one person had the chance of sending E-mails. And this opportunity occurred once in every two weeks,” but they were also very positive: “I met through the net a lot of friends. I now know that countries have similar traditions, cultures, and that HIV/AIDS is a global problem. These are just a few of some things or knowledge that I gained,”

More articles with similar awareness >

Empowerment: Bridget Walubita a teacher from Bedsfield School, which is privately owned pointed out that from the inception of the project at her School in 2003, it has assisted her and the pupils to acquire ICTs skills.

Ms Walubita says the pupils’ exchange of information on culture with the rest of schools has assisted them in knowing how other countries handle it.

“The topic on culture has been interesting, it ranged from managing education, how culture has assisted them in shaping their education, and on whether students are allowed to wear trousers at School, to treat their hair, and to paint their nails,” Ms Walubita noted.

Cletus Sikwanda a student from Chongwe High School who had been participating in GTP since February 2002 revealed that at the time the project started, the School relied mainly on their Co-ordinator from microlink for sending, receiving e-mails, and other learning cycle news. “We have been exposed to different traditions and cultures in different countries and their environment and some of the former GTP students have been able to find employment owing to the skills they acquired from the learning cycle,” Sikwanda said.

More articles with similar empowerment >

Lessons Learned

General: At the Rhodes Park School Ms Sakala observed that part of the learning circle takes part during School holidays, which makes it difficult for pupils to respond to their friend’s mails. She appealed for the harmonisation of the learning circle since even other participating Schools in Lusaka face a similar problem.

Lake Road PTA School found that the dissemination of information was not enough as the School administration allowed them to use the Internet to communicate to other participating Schools for one hour only. “We had to go to the internet cafés to complete our work since only one computer is connected to the internet, we had a time frame for using the internet at our School for one hour only and it was not enough to communicate on Virtual campus,” he said. The school, which is privately owned, has only 10 working computers, which are shared among 800 pupils from reception to secondary School. Students have shown themselves to be keen to learn ICTs. Mr Mukwato says that the project has contributed to the improvement of the results in ICTs and the School has a Cambridge curriculum as well as a local curriculum.

Matero Girls High School teacher in charge Rose Banda disclosed that the GTP has exposed the pupils to the ICT tools and it is being used as a device for teacher’s teaching skills. “We are really getting a lot which we can use. The aspect of communication is really working. GTP is a good tool for exposure, we are gaining ICT skills, researching, surfing the Internet, and pupils are chatting with other participating Schools,” Mrs Banda narrated.

At the Matero Girls High School, which joined GTP in 2002, a shortage of hardware is also standing in the wayof expanding the ICT courses, despite the demand among the growing number of pupils who are eager to learn ICTs. They have 14 computers, of which only eight work. “Us Matero Girls High School, we will be glad if the project will also assist us in acquiring computers. We will be grateful if people assist us it will push us a lot.” Mrs Banda observed.

At the Chongwe high school students had to travel a distance of about 45 km to go to Microlink Technonologies, which is an Internet service provider where they used to have access to the Internet. This delayed the pupils in responding to e-mails from their friends in the learning Circle.

Technology: The Examinations Council of Zambia (ECZ) - of the Ministry of Education - report states that statistics for students studying computers has been declining at an alarming rate, which, was attributed to the poor handling of subjects by teachers.

According to the Zambia Telecommunication indicators about 80 percent of the telephone lines are concentrated along the line of rail while the 20 percent is shared by the rest of Zambians through out the country.

Out of the country’s 10 million people, one telephone line is shared among 100 people, a scenario which entails that there are few people that have access to the telephone line. However, GTP has created a foundation for the country’s dream of improving the ICTs as the tool for achieving development.