ICT and Peace: how could it work in Colombia?

Author : Pablo Jaramillo
Date added : 2000-08-30

Brief Project Background

Colombia is a country in war. Most of legal economic activities are struggling to survive. Its most important agricultural product, coffee, is having hard times too. The National Federation of Coffee Growers, a private, non-for-profit organisation that represents 500,000 coffee growers is focussing on several projects that let coffee growers improve their performance and their competitive levels.

One of these projects is the introduction of ICT in public rural schools. The reason? Those children are the next generation of coffee growers. Improving the quality of their education is the key variable to have better coffee growers and more competitive farmers.

However the competitiveness of coffee farmers is almost impossible if this absurd civil war continues.
We believe that investing in a better education of poor rural children, is our way to contibute to peace and understanding in our country.

Results

ICT and Peace: how could it work in Colombia?

Fourty five rural public schools located in the coffee region of Colombia are carrying out an ICT project. The sponsors of the project are the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia and the national, municipal and community-based governments

The National Federation of Coffee Growers

The National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia or "the Federation" as it is usually called, is a private, democratic, non-profit organization. Founded 73 years ago with the mission of defending the interests of Colombian coffee growers who often struggle economically, the Federation has become the organization which most faithfully represents farmers in the country. Over the years, the Federation has worked in partnership with the national and regional governments in the areas of research, marketing, technical assistance, rural infrastructure, electricity, credit, health, and education, among others.

The Country and its Coffee Region

Located in the northern part of South America, Colombia is a country that covers an area of 1,000,000 square kilometers and has a population of approximately 40 million inhabitants. Unfortunatelly, the country has suffered a very extensive collection of social problems over the last 50 years. These include: civil war, left-wing guerrilla terrorism, right-wing paramilitary intervention, illegal drug production and trafficking, an elevated level of criminal activity, child abuse, the highest level of kidnapping world-wide, unemployment, corruption, poverty and the list goes on. Internationally, these social problems are rated among the most severe in the world as demonstrated by news articles, that qualify Colombia’s problems with descriptive adjectives such as severe, extreme, abundant and excessive. Words like “hope” and “faith” have lost their meaning for most Colombians. Finding a solution to these problems seems almost impossible, at least in the near future.
In the middle of this chaos, everyday more than 500,000 rural families struggle to survive. Their existence depends on a very limited piece of land cultivated with coffee plants. The average size of a coffee plantation in Colombia is 1.6 Hs (ENC, 1993-1997) . Most farmers must cultivate their own farm and work sometime on another farmer’s property. The average income of a coffee farmer is about US$100, an amount similar to the monthly minimum salary set by the government. Compared with other coffee-producing nations, Colombian coffee growers have lower harvest volumes and higher production costs. Production costs in US$/pound in 1995 were: Colombia: 0.94, Costa Rica: 0.77, Guatemala: 0.73, Honduras: 0.51 and Brasil 0.75 (FEDECAFE,1995).

After recently conducting a series of evaluations, discussions and consultations with experts, the Federation identified basic education, as the key variable to improve the Colombian coffee growers' competitive ability on the international market.

The Project

With the help of the national, regional and municipal governments, the Federation has introduced several educational projects, that will improve the coverage and quality of the education offered by rural public schools located in the coffee region. One of these projects is "Virtual School" initiative, which is presently helping to introduce computers, educational software and Internet resources into the schools.

Previous attempts to intoduce computers into the schools met with failure, with very few exceptions. The results demonstrated that despite the high level of motivation and investment in ICT, computer use in the classroom was minimal. The initial expectations of the teachers and students were high but restrictions, fear of damaging the computers and lack of training led to frustration, disappointment and a lack of enthusiasm.

The Federation studied the problem and after carefully planning, it decided to launch "Virtual School" as an ICT project for rural schools in the state of Caldas. The action plan placed a low emphasis on technology and hardware and a high emphasis on pedagogical processes and training. The program was conceived along the principles of a constructivist methodology called “New School”. The training is reinforced by initial in-situ sessions with experts, on-going computer advice and support, and sufficient software availability.

There are several characteristics that make this project different from others and in our opinion are part of the success, so far:

The institutions are not specially selected. There is an open invitation to all rural basic schools in Caldas to participate. If a school does not have the required hardware, which consists of at least 3 computers and a telephone line, then the community, the teachers and the students show their commitment to participating in the project by finding support for these necessities. Support is available from entities such as the Mayor, the Secretary of Education, a wealthy local farmer, an NGO or a politician. Once the school has the required hardware and the community and all teachers have expressed their interest in participating in the project, the Federation provides the inital training. In other words, once an institution demonstrates its commitment they are automatically accepted into the project.
Computer Science teachers at individual institutions are not necessary. All teachers and students work with the computers as part of their regular classes. Students go to the computer room to learn more about Math, Natural Science or Music, rather than to learn specifically about Computer Science or Programming.
Computers are equipped with sufficient general and educational software so as to be useful in all subjects.
The training is easy, simple and practical. Teachers and students are easily able to adopt technology.
The school learns how to work independently. Even though there is a great deal of training provided by experts at the begining of the project, the idea is that most of the information and advice the teachers or students need are available on the Internet through web pages set up by the Federation. The project would not be sustainable if the presence of a computer expert were needed at the school at all times.
Each school develops the project at its own pace, respecting the principles of the “New School ” methodology.
Most of the resources are invested in software and training personnel. Hardware is usually not provided.

Main uses of computers, software and Internet:

Teachers and students and members of the community use the computers, the software and the Internet to complement subjects and topics that are being studied in the schools and communities. Collaborative projects with other rural schools are made possible through communication via the Internet. Presently, students are conducting projects with other rural schools within Colombia and schools in Spain, Mexico, the USA, Belgium and Argentina. These projects include: a virtual forum regarding the advantages and disadvantages of an improved variety of coffee plant developed in Colombia a few years ago, collaborative international projects about values and tolerance which has also been aided by MIT Media Lab, and an ecological project between a private urban school and a public rural school. Sending and receiving emails are becoming part of the everyday routine for students and teachers and chat rooms are also used to maintain communication with others. In addition, the Internet is used as a resource tool for gathering information. The project provides the schools with a selection of comprehensive and interesting web sites but the students and teachers are also encouraged to "surf the web" on their own. Plans are being made to use the Internet to train teachers virtually in the near future.

Stimulating Findings:

Without a doubt, Virtual Schools have had an impact on the lives of more that 7000 students, 450 teachers and 45 communities. There is a sense of increased self-esteem now that for the first time the rural schools feel that they are not second-class and they have advantages that are not yet available in many urban schools. The number of students that now attend the schools and the time they stay there have increased significantly because they no longer feel they need to travel to the city to profit from the advantages available in the urban areas. Students and teachers in all of the schools in the project are showing more interest in learning English, meeting new virtual friends and collegues and learning about other cultures. Although a formal impact evaluation has not yet been conducted, any observer of schools in the project can see the evidence of increased happiness, pride and a feeling of being in the right place, at the right time.

Challenges and Difficulties:

Despite the success of the project, the Federation has had to surmount many challenges. Internet service is neither free nor government-subsidized. Communities sometimes have difficulty obtaining the funds to pay for the service. There is always a need for more computers to serve the school. The teachers and communities have taken a leading role in running fund-raising festivals and door-to-door campaigns in order to raise money and obtain more computers. Rural areas are usually the last to receive the benefits of the latest changes in infrastructure (such as new telephone lines and fiber optics) and thus communication is cut off more often than in urban areas and the transmission speed is slow. However, in comparison to the availability of technology in the rural schools in the rural areas in the past, the change has been enormous.

What children and teachers say:

These are some of the comments, the Federation has heard over the past 2 years:

"...I am practicing addition on the computer...we are connected to the world...I chated with a friend in Brazil...If my teacher does not know something, I ask other teachers via the Internet....We want to travel to Samaná (a remote town in Caldas,Colombia) to see the project they have explained to us in the forum.....I chatted with an american boy, although I know very little English....I can find almost everything on the web, without going to the town. That is amazing.....There in no reason to travel to the town to study, since we have more here...I am happy here, because teachers let me play and learn on the computer....The teachers are learning as much as we are....Collegues from Virtual School: look what I found on the web yesterday....Does anyone know a website where I can find a good picture of the planets? ...My mother made a beautiful birthday card for me on the computer...." and much more, everyday.

Final Words

Recently, Sonia Betancourt and Erika Largo won First Prize in the National Educational Computing Fair. Sonia and Erika are two indigenous teenagers, 17 and 12 year old respectively. They live in a rural community in Riosucio/Caldas, where guerrilla, terrorism and a variety of the social problems mentioned above abound. Their project involved composing the music of their school anthem using the computer. In order to win the prize, they had to travel to a distant city in Colombia, where the Educational Computing Fair was being held. The trip for them was their first experience away from home, their first experience flying in a plane, their first time having a bed to themselves and the first time they won anything.

What have we achieved? A lot!. This is our way to contribute to peace and understanding in our country.

Project Information

Total budget in US$ : -

Contact Information

Pablo Jaramillo

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