MDG 2 (Achieve universal primary education) : April 2005 Issue

Vol. III No. 4

April 2005

The first monthly magazine on ICT4D

Improving basic learning through ICTs Cocom@ Projects Information for development

www.i4d.csdms.in

Targeting MDG 2: The ICT way SchoolNet Africa

ISSN 0972 - 804X

MDG 2 (Achieve universal primary education)

Educating communities in reconstruction

Afghan Institute of Learning

April 2004 | www.i4donline.net

1 knowledge for change

Conflux 2005 THE e-GOVERNMENT CONFERENCE

Conflux is an attempt to provide a genuine platform to enable exchange of expertise in broad areas of e-Governance, and foster meaningful partnerships. The conference promises to attract a limited but creditable audience of 300 participants.

For details, please contact:

G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B VenueG2C G2E G2B G2G India International Centre G2G G2C G2E G2B Lodhi Road, New Delhi G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G Dates G2C G2E G2B G2G G2E G2B OctoberG2C 3 - 6, 2005 G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B PaperG2C Submission G2G G2E G2B Deadline G2G G2C G2E G2B June 15, 2005 G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2E G2B OfficialG2C Publications G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2Gwww.i4d.csdms.in G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B G2G G2C G2E G2B

ov

The bi-monthly magazine on e-Governance

knowledge for change

Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies G - 4, Sector - 39, NOIDA - 201 301, India Tel +91-120-2502180 to 87, Fax: +91 120 2500060 Web www.egov.csdms.in E-mail egov@csdms.in

Contents

i4d Vol. III No. 4

Features

April 2005

Columns

Mailbox

info@i4donline.net

17 Shiksha India

Educational CD Roms

18 Portrait

Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) India

the technology 36 Maximising options ICT solution for schools

41 Books received 6

Achieve universal primary education

8

Cocom@Projects Improving basic learning through ICTs Claudia María Zea Restrepo María del Rosario Atuesta Venegas

11 SchoolNet Africa (SNA)

Targeting MDG 2: The ICT way

42 Bytes for All 44 Disaster feature Battling disasters!

45 What’s on 46 In Fact

Education equations

Shafika Isaacs

14 Afghan Institute of Learning

Educating communities in reconstruction Sakena Yacoobi

telling for knowledge 29 Story sharing Digittal learning in African schools

from synergy learning 20 Lessons experience Challenges to create an e-Learning environment A G Largey

27 Mapping the Neighbourhood

37 ICTD project newsletter

Youth redefining learning paradigms Dipanjan Banerjee

23 News

i4donline.net News Search ICT4D news by date in the sectors of governance, health, education, agriculture and so on.

E-mail Subscribe to daily, weekly, monthly newsletters online or send request to info@i4donline.net Research e-Learning projects from India. www.i4donline.net/elearn.asp

Look out for disaster feature every month in i4d!

Learn more about FLOSS www.i4donline.net/floss/introduction.asp Print edition The past issues of the magazine is available online www.i4donline.net/archive/archive.htm

Your initiative is really appreciable, last month I saw your magazine for the first time, but I did not know that such a magazine also exists fully on ICT. Being a democratic tool, we can achieve many things in near future through ICT. Ranjan K Baruah myearth_icare@rediffmail.com Thank you for responding positively on our request to publish the article from Zimbabwe carried in your February issue, in our newsletter. We did enjoy reading your publication, which carries information of interest to us. We have put you on our mailing list and will keep you updated on developments in Zimbabwe. We wish you best wishes in your endeavours.

W. Moyo Embassy of Zimbabwe zimdelhi@vsnl.net I was interested to read about the articles based on real life experiences and IT to enhance learning. I would like to send a brief summary about the success of the National Galleries of Scotland website.

Anne Buddle Nat. Galleries of Scotland abuddle@nationalgalleries.org I am in Dublin attending a UN ICT Task Force meeting on ICTs in Education and saw the i4d print magazine for the first time. It looks great. Well done!

Shafika Isaacs SchoolNet Africa s.isaacs@schoolnetafrica.org

Send us your feedback at info@i4donline.net

Editorial Information for development

Volunteer your expertise to educate the teeming millions!

w w w . i 4 d . c s d m s . i n

Advisory Board M P Narayanan, Chairman, i4d Amitabha Pande Department of Science and Technology, Government of India Chin Saik Yoon Southbound Publications, Malaysia Ichiro Tambo OECD, France Karl Harmsen Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific, India Kenneth Keniston Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Mohammed Yunus Grameen Bank, Bangladesh Nagy Hanna Information Solutions Group, World Bank, USA S. Ramani Research Director, H.P.Labs, India Walter Fust Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Switzerland Wijayananda Jayaweera UNESCO, France Editorial Board Fredrick Noronha, Akhtar Badshah Editor Ravi Gupta Editorial Consultant Jayalakshmi Chittoor Sr. Programme Officer Saswati Paik Programme Officers Anuradha Dhar, Gautam Navin Research Associates Tanzeena Ghoshe Mukherjee, Sejuti Sarkar De Designers Deepak Kumar, Bishwajeet Kumar Singh Web Programmer Zia Salahuddin Group Directors

Worldwide, an estimated 103 million children of primary school age are still not enrolled in school, depriving one in every five children access to even the most basic education. Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will require the ingenuity, solidarity, and creativity of millions of ordinary people through voluntary action. Efforts on the part of national governments, supported by the international community, can only complement what ultimately will depend on the full involvement of people all over the world. Six billion people have something to contribute. Recognising this fact is the first step on the way towards harnessing this vast resource in a global effort to meet the MDG targets. This is a call for action by the United National Volunteers programme, which has been a catalyst for many organisations to receive expertise globally.

There are important lessons from innovative uses of ICTs for e-Learning and especially some that have been used successfully at secondary levels. These can be applied to the primary school education, with some research and innovation. When the poor and the marginalised have to combat multiple barriers of hunger, of lack of access and poor health, including millions who are orphaned due to epidemics and war, the challenges are plenty.

This issue of i4d magazine tries to look at the dimension of ICTs to not just act as a tool, but as an effective interactive social space and learning medium, where teachers become facilitators, and where rigidity of curricula gives way to flexibility in learning, and using the Internet as a valuable global resource, building research skills and creative spaces for peer-to-peer learning, cutting geographical and cultural divides.

Maneesh Prasad, Sanjay Kumar i4d G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA, UP, 201 301, India.

Phone +91 120 250 2180-87 Fax +91 120 250 0060 Email info@i4donline.net Web www.i4d.csdms.in

We are optimistic and believe that this is just a small beginning for an arduous task ahead for each one of us to contribute a small bit, and volunteering our expertise to the needy millions, and have an educated and aware next generation.

Contact us in Singapore 25 International Business Park, #4-103F, German Centre, Singapore - 609916 Phone +65-65627983 Fax +65-656227984

In understanding the global picture, we have fostered a new alliance with International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), Netherlands, by becoming an Asia Partner for iConnect. This will help us learn from what has been happening in Africa, and, in turn, contribute outreach space for the partners in Africa. We look forward to forging more collaborations and partnerships to make ICTs as effective and powerful as it can get!

Printed at Yashi Media Works Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi, India i4d is a monthly publication. It is intended for those interested and involved in the use of Information and CommnicationTechnologies for development of underserved communities.

It is hoped that it will serve to foster a growing network by keeping the community up to date on many activities in this wide and exciting field. i4d does not necessarily subscribe to the views expressed in this publication. All views expressed in this magazine are those of the contributors. i4d is not responsible or accountable for any loss incurred directly or indirectly as a result of the information provided.

Š Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies, 2005

Supported by:

March 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

Ravi Gupta Ravi.Gupta@csdms.in

5

MDG 2

Achieve universal primary education ‘i4d’ in March 2005 has highlighted Gender and ICT issue, but the issue of gender is such a factor that is related in one way or the other with all the social development issues for ever. In all the sectors of social development, gender acts as a basic factor in indulging the discriminations and differences within the society in various ways.

From kitchen to cockpit, from decoration to defense, from modeling to mountaineering, from spinning to space – women have proved their potential, but still they are struggling to get into the main track of the society to earn their right.

The basic problem lies in the fact that a major part of these silent creators of society are deprived from the light of literate world.

Some, who are even literates, are bound to be confined in the mechanical process of learning ‘3Rs’ (Reading, Writing and Arithmetic). In any nation of the world, lack of basic education persists for generations in those families where the female members are out of touch with basic education.

Although the importance of education has been felt long back, but the education of females continued to receive a low profile for long period of time in almost all the countries. When the realisation started percolating, it was already late, especially for those nations which have had to struggle for both economic and social development simultaneously, with additional burden of the curse of illiteracy, especially of the females. If the mother doesn’t know what is ‘school’ and what is the significance of ‘education’, how can a child be motivated to go to ‘school’ to be ‘educated’!!

Of the 680 million children of primary school age in developing countries, 103 million do not attend school, with 57 percent of these children girls and 74 percent living in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. More than 1/3rd of girls in South Asia never receive a formal education; adult women there have the lowest literacy rate in the world. Although estimates vary widely, India alone is estimated to have 40 million children out of school. In ‘Teach a

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Child, Transform a Nation’ published in Washington, D.C., January 2004, the following snapshots of education are provided, which warn us about the scenario of educational development in this century: • half of those who start primary school finish it —but in sub-Saharan Africa, 2 out of 3 do not • 3/5th of out-of-school children are girls • In year 2000, 21 countries had literacy rates of less than 50 percent • 2/3rd of illiterate adults are women • 1/4th of adults in the developing world —and 879 million people worldwide — cannot read or write.

No country has ever reached sustained economic growth without achieving near universal primary education. It has also been found that one year of additional education increases individual output by 4-7%.

Education is no more concerned only with qualification and good job, rather it has a long-term impact on all sectors of development. A farmer with just four years of basic education is, on average, 8.7% more productive than a farmer with no education. Education, particularly for girls, is related to lower death rates and longer life expectancies.

The World Education Forum, held in Dakar, Senegal in April 2000, adopted 6 major goals for education, 2 of which also became Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) later in the same year. MDG 2 is ‘Achieve universal primary education’ – to ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.

There are many hurdles to achieving the MDG target of all children receiving primary school education. While the globalisation process demands better educated and skilled labour, overall levels of education and skill-training remain low. In 1999, about half the total population of South East Asia was illiterate. In the 1990s, over 40% of children did not reach grade 5.

In 1998, the region continued to have mean years of schooling as low as 2.4 years. Sri Lanka was an exception at 7.2 years and i4d | April 2005

MDG 2

Basic education beyond MDG mean years of schooling for boys in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Nepal ranged from 2.9 - 3.5 years, for girls it was 0.9 to 1.2 years.

Let us have a look at the other side of the globe. During the socialist period the extent and quality of education in the EU countries were higher than in other countries with similar levels of economic development. Adult literacy was generally universal. The transition resulted in dramatic changes in the education systems of many countries. The education of thousands of children was severely disturbed due to ethnic strife, war, and civil unrest in the countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan. In many countries, enrollment rates and public spending on education fell sharply. In many Eastern European and CIS countries, the education indicators recovered to pre-transition levels, but the UPE remains some way off for Albania, Armenia, Georgia, and Tajikistan. To improve education outcomes for this region, there needs to be greater focus on improving access and quality.

Targeting MDG 2 Attempts have been made to close large gender gaps in Benin, Chad, the Gambia, Guinea, and Mali. While Nepal and Pakistan remain far from UPE, Bangladesh has demonstrated significant improvement in enrollment rates. As a whole, Latin America is closer to universal primary education than any other developing region.

Colombia and Brazil have made substantial progress, as has Barbados in the Caribbean, the other countries march steadily toward getting all children into school. The challenge in Latin America is more about the quality of education rather than the access. Girls are at a strong disadvantage, but gains have been made to close large gender gaps in Benin, Chad, the Gambia, Guinea, and Mali.

Although primary enrollment increased in the last decade, population growth rates have exceeded primary education expansion, leaving many countries with a growing April 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

number of out-of-school children. An estimate says that primary school enrollment is growing; nearly 90 million additional children entered school between 1990 and 1999. With improved primary school enrollment, adult illiteracy rates declined worldwide from 37 percent to 20 percent between 1970 and 2000. While 83 countries are on track to achieve this goal, 71 others are not.

Many countries are on track to achieve the goal.

ICT for primary education ICTs can help overcome chronic shortage of facilities and teachers in an efficient and economic manner for many countries facing budgetary constraints. UNESCO estimates that an additional 15-35 million educated and trained teachers will be needed over the next decade if all countries are to achieve the MDG of universal primary education by 2015. ICT-based distance training can overcome the shortage of primary school teachers by accelerating instruction. ICT can also supplement primary school teaching, thereby helping to overcome shortages. Through the traditional ICTs of radio and television, ICT could also be used to emphasise the importance of primary school attendance, particularly in areas with strong social or cultural barriers.

Despite all the programmes to achieve MDG 2 in an ICT way, we should not forget about those underprivileged sections of the society who are still struggling for their breads in various corners of the globe.

Ensuring all a better healthy future with all basic needs is not an easy task, especially in those countries where ‘ICT’ is still a resource for a lucky few. A child will come for ‘basic education’, if and only if he/she has that much freedom to go for that, and that freedom will come from his/her socio-economic status. Else, we will have to see number of children, growing up without a healthy environment, as a victim of ‘cycle of illiteracy’……can ICT help them?

Source : www.developmentgoals.org

Saswati Paik saswati@csdms.in

7

C OCOM@P ROJECTS

Improving basic learning through ICTs Cocom@ projects in Colombia articulates the use of the concept maps like strategy of knowledge representation and the collaborative learning supported in the ICTs.

As a contribution to the improvement of the basic learning of sciences in Colombia, the group of investigation in Educative Computer Science of University EAFIT Colombia, has implemented a set of collaborative projects in the context of a fictitious island called the Cocom@ Island.

These projects are offered to the educative community at national level by the scholastic network Conexiones and try to develop in the participant students abilities for the analysis of real problems and the oriented investigation to the search of solutions to problems of the near surroundings. Cocom@ projects articulates the use of the concept maps like strategy of knowledge representation and the collaborative learning supported in the ICTs, allowing the development of basic competitions for the handling of the ICTs like mediators of individual and collective learning.

Background

Claudia María Zea Restrepo EAFIT University of Medellín,Colombia czea@eafit.edu.co

María del Rosario Atuesta Venegas EAFIT University of Medellín, Colombia. matuesta@eafit.edu.co

8

In Colombia, the education system has identified a great weakness in the learning of science. It is marked by a scarce implementation of didactic strategies promoting the construction of new scenarios which can enable an adequate access of the students to scientific information and to criteria building for them to have their own views regarding theories, concepts and the relations between the two. In line with this concern, the students in Colombia have taken the SABER (Since 1991 ICFES-COLOMBIA began a new work stage to assess basic education resulting in the development and application of the tests known in the country as SABER ) tests, and they have reported an insufficient academic achievement in science by the students in basic and middle education processes, and this has generated great concern in government agencies and in the education centres.

Teaching science is not only a matter of renewing the goals, but also the contents, the methodologies and the strategies that support the teaching and learning processes seeking an appropriate learning environment. In this sense, the Model ‘Conexiones’ - a proposal to include ICTs in classroom activities promoting the development of collaborative projects, is considered as a didactic strategy giving sense to the use of the ICTs. It helps the students to develop research and building skills and to share their learning experiences, proposes the development of collaborative activities derived from Collaborative Projects. The purpose is motivating the students to acquire and build knowledge in a collective manner, involving contextual actions related to the learning environment and offering the students a structured content related to science by means of concept maps as a valid source of information where access is achieved through technologic tools.

As an alternative to contribute with specific solutions to this problem of organising knowledge, ‘Conexiones’ has articulated all required dimensions of organising knowledge through the strategy of Collaborative Projects, as a didactic strategy to capitalise meaningful learning. The National Education Ministry has provided the Colombian citizens with standards to achieve skills in natural, which help directly the learning processes, the achievements expected from the students and the matters that have been reconsidered in order to provide possible alternatives for solutions to the problem set forth.

While including Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the model ‘Conexiones’ proposes with a national coverage, the innovation of education in classrooms, by working with collaborative projects based on the students’ specific i4d | April 2005

interests and on the problems they identify in the contexts around them. Dynamism is provided to this strategy by using different activities following constructive and collaborative learning lines, and they are based on the strategy of concept maps as an alternative to represent knowledge and to provide access to structured information.

Each collaborative project defines its purpose, based on the intention to achieve the students’ competences and skills, and each student has some scientific information (including productions from experts), that help him/her approach knowledge and to have an understanding of the concepts related to the space of the problem set forth by means of knowledge systems represented in concept maps.

The concept maps, due to their contribution to learning, have become a very valuable tool for students and teachers, since with only one strategy representing knowledge, they can gain access to information from experts, identify previous knowledge, validate knowledge, identify gaps and inaccurate conceptions on the relationship between concepts, validate learning and use a concept map as an excellent hypermedia application with computer tools. ‘Conexiones’ uses the CMapTools, a free use computer tool to build knowledge systems based on concept maps, by means of a cooperation agreement between the EAFIT University from Medellín, Colombia and the IHMC of West Florida University in Florida, USA. The strategy of collaborative projects to construct learning in topics related to science has been implemented by an imaginary situation named ‘Isla Cocom@’, (Cocom@ Island) which presents the geographic, demographic and hydric characteristics and conditions of the island to the students, among others. Its objective is to help the students clearly identify the problematic situations of the context and to propose solutions on scientific grounds to the problems presented in Cocom@.

The activities scheme, developed by the students, focuses initially on an understanding of the situation and, for this purpose, they are guided towards making a group analysis involving topics and concepts which will then be investigated by the students in collaborative groups (between 4 and 5 students per group). They are supported by concept maps and resources available at Cocom@.

The Isla Cocom@ Collaborative Project has been implemented in an e-Learning computer environment which helps give dynamics to interaction processes between students, groups of students, experts and teachers. It also helps to complete a follow up on the participant’s work, to socialise the partial and final results of the project and to have spaces for teacher’s training as a supplementary activity. The environment offers four groups of functions to the participants: information, construction, communication and support. The collaboration schemes are supplied by the dynamics contributed by the activities proposed by each project and they are based on the synchronic and non-synchronic functions provided by the computer environment.

This is how Cocom@ has proposed two specific problems to the students in basic and middle education institutes in Colombia: (a) power generation and attention and (b) prevention of natural disasters April 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

Target group The Cocom@ Island Collaborative Project invites all the Colombian students between 12 and 17 years, to participate in various activities of the collaborative projects that the Cocom@ Island context provides. The students must work in collaborative groups of 4 to 5 students per group, and each of them will be guided by a teacher of any knowledge area.

Observations Due to the importance of providing significant learning to the students, once each of these collaborative projects conclude, an assessment is made on the learning experience both for students and teachers. The input to assess these achievements is provided by a survey type instrument in digital format available on the Web, where the student is asked for data and information in the categories provided by ‘Conexiones’ to work under collaborative projects. The products resulting from the project and the ones, which provide some sort of solution to the problem initially set forth are analysed as a tangible object. These products range from the presentation of their research works in printed and digital formats, reasoned and justified from the scientific perspective through their essays and the participation in socialisation forums and models, drawings and concept maps frequently responding to a technologic production.

Following is a reference to the results of the observation of groups of students who recently participated in the project Isla Cocom@: Prevention and attention of natural disasters.

It consisted of the compilation of data and information of the students and teachers who participated in the project. The observation reflects how they used the concept maps (as organisers of information) and the advantages they identified in connection with their learning process.

Since the Project intended to assess the learning results on natural disasters as well as to observe the use given by the students to the graphic representation of the topic in the concept map, they were asked about their preferences when choosing their options for gathering information. The following data was collected on this matter.

Internet is still their primary resource, secondly they use the

Concept Map – Cocom@: Attention and prevention of natural disasters

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concept map and the third tool was based on presentations made by the geologists of the EAFIT University of Medellín Colombia.

At the end of the activity, 69 percent of the students surveyed said they would like to work with concept maps in different subjects, and they also said it was an easy learning method since they can visualise all the concepts related to the subject matter of study. The survey presented to the students was a good instrument to assess their experience. It was useful as a core component to observe the application of knowledge gained with the activities carried out while developing the collaborative project, as well as the use of the concept map and ICTs. The groups of students understood and assimilated the concept of the Plan for the Prevention, Attention and Recovery in Natural Disasters, with the plan, they were prepared to solve the situation set forth in Isla Cocom@. Due to the structure presented in each of the plans, it was clear that the students followed the steps before, during and after, proposed in the concept map (provided in the collaborative project), making a coherent description in each of these phases, of the actions, procedures and responsibilities to follow, as well as the people and resources required for any type of emergency. This indicates a direct relationship between these plans and the concept map.

As an additional source of information in analysing this case, regarding the use of the concept map as an information organiser, the opinions of the teachers who were leading the development of the Isla Cocom@ project with their groups were collected in an informal interaction environment. The purpose of such non-structured interviews was to direct the analysis of the experience lived by the teachers with their corresponding groups of students. The teachers believe the concept maps on the plan for the prevention, attention and recovery in disasters was extremely useful for the students to reach a better understanding of the concepts and for the students to use the map to prepare their own plan. The teachers didn’t experience any confusion while working with the concept maps; on the contrary they felt it was a good source of information and consider the concept maps a very enriching resource for the students, which is much more dynamic and complete when

compared to other material. Also they indicated that the concept maps should be used frequently during teaching activities, in addition to being a source of information and consultation for the students, they should be used so that the students can learn about the topics by building their own concept maps taking advantage of the CMapTools. The teachers believe that they as well as the students were able to completely clarify or learn something when reading and working with the digital maps.

Outcomes The inclusion of ICTs in the Isla Cocom@ collaborative project is achieved by creating activities and generating products that respond to the solutions presented by the students, and this incorporation is a learning process in the use of ICTs, having a direct relationship with the students’ and the teachers’ requirements to reach the results expected for the project. The students report they have been able to increase their skills in using Internet resources, since it is used for consultation, interaction, access to information and socialisation and presentation of their products associated to Cocom@. The students show interest on the topics where they have developed collaborative projects mediated by technology, and they are able to build knowledge based on the development of their own mental structures, improving their performance at school in the areas related thereto.

The use of concept maps to represent knowledge of science has been a novel and motivating strategy for the students and teachers, and this is strengthened by having access to them on the Web. The organisation of the concepts and the relations between them by using concept maps enhances the acquisition and a clear understanding of new knowledge by the student, and the student can easily include this knowledge to his/her previous one. The integration of the concept maps to the strategy of collaborative projects provides the student with the possibility to relate practices and research activities with concepts of scientific nature which can be transferred in future to other contexts and problems.

Note: The complete article with references is available at www.i4d.csdms.in

UNESCO Bangkok publishes two studies on ICT in Education The Asia-Pacific Programme on ICT in Education managed by the UNESCO Office in Bangkok has published two studies on ICT in education, ‘School Networking: Lessons Learned’ (Volume 2) and ‘Infoshare: Sources and Resources Bulletin’ (Volume 6, 2004/2005).

The Asia-Pacific ICT in Education Programme is based on the fact that the rapid development of ICT presents development agencies with a unique opportunity to make a major contribution to the expansion and reform of education in Asia and the Pacific. This programme shows how disparities in educational access and quality can be reduced with ICT and how education systems can enhance the knowledge and skills of their learners, promoting creativity, critical thinking, decision-making, teamwork and lifelong learning.

School Networking synthesises and analyses the experiences of five Asian countries in networking schools, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. This publication

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provides specific lessons learned in the use of SchoolNets to revolutionise education and highlights best practices, along with recommendations for further improvements.

School Networking is the third in the series of publications that draw lessons learned and experiences from the SchoolNet Project.

The previous two publications in this series are entitled as ‘SchoolNet Toolkit’ and ‘Integrating ICTs into Education: Lessons Learned’.

‘Infoshare’ provides a special focus on ICT capacity-building for teachers and other education professionals. This issue examines projects currently underway in Asia, offering lessons learned on curriculum integration, knowledge management, pedagogical collaboration and both content and policy development for ICT in education. For those with an interest in non-formal education and community empowerment, this issue of Infoshare looks at tactics for integrating ICT into literacy and skills development programmes. http://portal.unesco.org i4d | April 2005

access, refurbishment, deployment, maintenance and teacher training for their educational use in schools, forms the essence of SchoolNet Africa’s ‘Campaign for One Million PCs for African Schools’.

To date the Campaign has sourced its first 10,000 PC donation; hosted in-depth online discussions with an international network of practitioners; established a policy statement on refurbished PCs, a dedicated course on managing a TSC, trained practitioners on the TSC course and engaged in extensive lobbying and advocacy work with governments and at international policymaking forums.

It targets for the next two years are, to source 200,000 PCs; to develop it’s TSC course in French; to train 200 practitioners across Africa; to develop a dedicated training programme for women practitioners; to establish 10 TSCs; to conduct research on e-Waste policies ; to establish a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) calculator which will serve as a monitoring and evaluation system that tracks progress towards sourcing, distributing and using the PCs in schools.

SchoolNet Africa as lead agency in the Campaign along with its African schoolnet partners will work with an extensive international network of partner organisations in achieving its targets. These include, among others, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) who invested significantly in the Campaign, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Community Education and Computer Society (CECS), Ungana Afrika, Computer Aid International (CAI) and the Global eSchools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI).

Case study: SchoolNet Nigeria SchoolNet Nigeria (SNNG) emerged directly under the influence of its interactions with other schoolnet formations through the SchoolNet Africa formation process, particularly with SchoolNet South Africa. It was officially launched in September 2001, with high level support from the Ministries of Education, Communications and Science and Technology. It is established as a partner organisation of the Nigerian Education Tax Fund (ETF), which is a state fund based on 2 percent taxation of company profits in Nigeria. Since its launch, SchoolNet Nigeria has initiated a print media project in partnership with MTN, a pan African cellular network company, Direqlearn, which involves educational information and curriculum-focused inserts in Nigeria’s national newspapers. This ensures widespread distribution of education resources which is also a novel way of using traditional ICTs. In addition, SchoolNet Nigeria and the ETF partnered with a local company on a project to roll out computer laboratories of 20 computers on a low cost solution to an initial 35 schools which will move to scale in two years to reach 2000 schools. This project also involves training teachers in the use of the computers and in the use of a curriculum software called ‘LearnThings’. In addition, SNNG has partnered with the World Bank Institute on collaborative projects for learners and with SchoolNet Africa on its ThinkQuest Africa/Mtandao Afrika and Campaign for 1 Million PCs programmes. SNNG has, in addition, adopted the dual-use approach to schools in their network where school computer labs function as cyber cafes and computer training centres for the community. Furthermore, they are currently in the process of establishing 6 technical service centres (TSCs) in partnership with April 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

a local company. SchoolNet Nigeria has shown great innovation in the way it has forged partnerships with government institutions, the private sector and school-based communities.

School networking and the MDGs To date, school networking has demonstrated the potential of ICTs in advance greater access to learning (as demonstrated by the SchoolNet Nigeria case), in improving the quality of education (as demonstrated by SchoolNet Namibia’s focus on ICTs for learners with disabilities and how this has given learners incentive and motivation to learn) and in enhancing gender parity (as demonstrated by the work of SchoolNet Uganda in their focus on technical training for women teachers). However, these remain small scale, largely pilot-centred initiatives and making a difference requires larger scale interventions that will effect systemic change.

Here some schoolnets are in the process of engaging as part of national programmes, led by government. The establishment of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) eSchools programme which involves support from heads of states and ministries of education from more than 20 African countries, holds immense potential for greater government commitment to promote ICT-enabled education.

The future of school networking Over the years, SNA has appreciated the importance of systemic, integrated solutions. It has learned the necessity of combining local leadership, enabling policy, harnessing the diverse capabilities of partners, both locally and internationally, and investing in local skill development, innovation and creativity of learners, teachers and practitioners which together comprise the basic ingredients of a winning formula for confronting the education challenges faced by the school system in African countries. In addition to this, the necessity of dedicated national budgets, partnership with the international donor community and the private sector and the conscious involvement of the school communities in establishing an evolving process that is financially sustainable. It is hoped that the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the growth of the NEPAD eSchools Programme, the establishment of the GeSCI will add significant value towards achieving these goals.

The complete article with references can be read at www.i4d.csdms.in

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A FGHAN INSTITUTE

OF

L EARNING

Educating communities in reconstruction Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) is an Afghan women’s non-governmental organisation (NGO) which was founded in 1995 in Pakistan to assist Afghan women and children. AIL believes that educated people are the key to a future, developed Afghanistan.

Sakena Yacoobi Afghan Institute of Learning Afghanistan sakenay@aol.com

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A fresh breath of life “Society, while willing to make room for women, is not willing to make changes for them” – this quote of Shirley Williams seems to be reflected through many incidents of the world. Any change in the normal set up in respect of society or policy, mostly affects the life of women irrespective of their direct involvement in that matter. The crisis in development of women during the political crisis of Afghanistan for past several years have raised this issue once again. After years of war, the literacy rate of Afghan females is among the lowest in the world. Afghan women had no opportunity to learn because of war and the brutal Taliban regime. Older girls were prevented from attending school, women were forced to stop their schooling and to marry at their young age. But their will to learn never died despite the depressing phase of so many years. To encourage their will and to get them back to the normal track of life, the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) initiated Women’s Learning Centres (WLCs).

Motto of AIL The Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) of Afghan women, which was founded in 1995 in Pakistan by Professor Sakena Yacoobi to assist Afghan women and children. The Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) was the first NGO to start Women’s Learning Centres (WLCs) in refugee camps in Pakistan in 2002. Requested by the women in the camps, the WLCs are designed to meet the multiple needs of Afghan women and children. WLCs train teachers, provide health care and health education, and offer preschool education through university classes. Workshops that train women to lead and to advocate for their basic human rights are offered in the WLCs. Women also learn

income generating skills like sewing and carpet weaving. WLCs offer women and girls fast track classes that allow them to study on an accelerated basis to complete grade certificates, learn subjects like English and computer skill in enrichment classes, and/or learn basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. Some younger girls study in fast track programmes, complete grade certificates within a few months, and mainstream into public school at a grade level, appropriate for their ages.

AIL believes that educated people are the key to a future, developed Afghanistan.

With that in mind, AIL works to empower all Afghans who are needy and oppressed by expanding their educational and health opportunities and by fostering self-reliance and community participation. AIL’s goals are to lay a foundation for quality education and health for years to come and to provide comprehensive education and health services to Afghan women and children, so that they can support and take care of themselves. AIL seeks to achieve its goals by providing education and health programmes, training the leaders of the education and health programmes and working with the communities it serves. AIL believes that, one day, Afghans will be able to completely support all of their education and health needs by utilising these strategies.

Community participation AIL uses consensus decision-making processes and encourages community participation in all of its programmes, which is very unique in Afghanistan. AIL is an excellent model of these principles and the organisation’s commitment to community participation and consensus are two of the reasons that it has been so successful, especially when implementing new programmes in conservative, hard-to-reach communities.

AIL works with community leaders in the i4d | April 2005

planning, developing and implementation of all projects. No project is started unless the community has requested it and is involved in it. Utilising this visionary strategy, communities now contribute 30 percent to 50 percent of the resources needed for a project.

These community contributions have come in many forms, including donated space, materials, supplies, and assistance with security. These contributions have strengthened the communities’ involvement in and ownership of AIL programmes. AIL will continue to strengthen community contributions to and ownership of programmes as a part of ongoing efforts towards sustainability.

including pre and post-natal care, baby delivery, and traditional birth attendant training. AIL’s clinic in Mir Bacha Kot, which was officially opened in February 2004, has begun a special nutrition programme in its clinic to provide health education and intensive interventions that save the lives of malnourished and undernourished children.

• School support, advanced classes, and pre-schools: AIL continues to support 14 schools in Pakistan with over 5,000 Afghan students, and advanced classes and home schools for over 800 boys and girls in rural Afghanistan in addition to its

AIL presently has offices in Kabul and Herat, Afghanistan and in Peshawar, Pakistan. AIL is a registered NGO with both the Pakistani and Afghan governments.

AIL serves 350,000 women and children annually, is run entirely by women and employs 470 Afghans, 83 percent of whom are women.

Behzad Learning Centre

Major accomplishments of AIL since 1995 • Teacher training: The Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) has trained over 9,000 teachers in student-centred teaching techniques. These interactive teaching methods have revolutionised both teaching and learning in Afghanistan.

• Human rights and leadership: Afghan women have learned how to advocate for their basic human rights and developed leadership skills through the AIL’s Human Rights and Leadership Workshops. Human Rights Workshops are culture-based, grassroots-oriented, participatory, and dialogical. The workshop relates the struggle to eliminate violence (of all types) against women in Muslim societies to empowering women. Over 1000 women have received this training to date.

• Home schools: Through the Home School Project, AIL kept education for girls alive during the Taliban regime by providing grade I-VIII education for girls underground. Underground home schools were the only educational option available to these girls for more than four years.

• Women’s Learning Centres: AIL was the first NGO to start Women’s Learning Centres (WLCs) in refugee camps in 2002.

Requested by the women in the camps, the WLCs are designed to meet the multiple needs of Afghan women and children.

WLCs teach women literacy, provide health education, and offer preschool through university classes.

• Health programmes: Afghan women have the highest maternal mortality rate in the world and one of the highest child mortality rates. AIL’s clinics are helping hundreds of women each month to deliver babies safely through their focus on reproductive health, April 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

Women’s Learning Centres. AIL provides pre-school education to 375 students and trains its pre-school teachers to teach very young children over nineteen curricular topics.

• Afghan Women’s University: Gawhar Shad University was founded in 2003 by AIL, in response to the lack of post-secondary education opportunities for Afghan women. Today, the University has three curriculum tracks: the College of Nursing/ Health Education, the College of Math and Computer Science, and the College of Education.

• Support for community-based organisations: AIL has begun providing training and seed grants to community-based Afghan educational organisations to improve their management, implement interactive teaching methods, and increase their student enrollment, particularly for female students. Currently, AIL is supporting four community-based organisations that are serving over 2,200 students. AIL teacher training staff visit the organisations regularly and provide their teachers and managers with required training and supplies to the centres.

• Voice of Education magazine: Nida-e-Talem (Voice of Education) magazine is compiled and published by the AIL to provide a forum for informed commentary by Afghans on important issues in Afghan society today, with a particular focus on health, education, and current events.

WLC’s special focus on education and health AIL’s WLCs through their acclaimed pre-school programmes train professional kindergarten teachers to teach 19 curricular topics interactively and at age-appropriate levels. Pre-schools also use

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innovative methods to engage parents in school activities and their children’s learning, a new concept for Afghans. AIL’s Pre-school Education Programme serves about 375 children a year.

Through 18 WLCs, AIL provides life-saving health care services including exams, vaccinations, and treatment. AIL reached over 90,000 people, mostly Afghan women and children, with health services in 2004. Additionally, AIL provided over 146,000 women and children with health education on important health topics like disease prevention, hygiene, child care, nutrition, family planning, vaccinations, and reproductive health. Health education is provided as a part of health services, in WLC classes, and through two hour workshops. AIL’s health programme emphasises maternal and child health. In rural Kabul province, AIL started a nutrition clinic through its WLC that serves hundreds of undernourished children, at the request of that community.

Achievements of WLCs When the first WLCs opened in Pakistan and began providing education and health services, word about the success of the programmes spread quickly. Soon, AIL was showered with requests from other communities for their own WLCs. AIL now has eighteen WLCs, where there were none in December of 2001. One of the striking impacts of AIL’s work with WLCs is that this model of providing health and educational services to women has been successfully expanded to hard-to-reach rural areas in provincial Herat, Parwan, and Kabul (e.g. Sar Asia, Lolenge, Shakardara) at the request of those communities. Many of these rural communities have historically been resistant to women’s and girls’ education but through AIL’s principles of community involvement and cultural sensitivity, the organisation has been able to reach women in these communities with urgently needed services. In fact, AIL continues to receive requests for services from other rural communities who have learned about the quality of AIL’s work with women and girls.

AIL is working hard to meet this demand.

Through its Women’s Learning Centres, AIL reaches over 350,000 Afghans each year with urgently needed health and education services. WLCs offer a vast array of educational opportunities including literacy, calligraphy, drawing, Mathematics, Pushto, English, Dari, sewing, needlework, carpet weaving, craft-making, bead knitting, computer, Arabic, health, etc. WLCs provide out-ofschool education to women and girls. These centres are the only educational option for women who are not allowed into government schools because of their age or because they are married. Younger students often take classes in the WLCs before or after regular school hours because they find they learn more easily when taught using the interactive teaching methods that AIL teachers use. Some of these students are not able to attend school during the regular school day because of employment obligations. Some WLCs have computer labs, which offer general and intensive classes to more than 200 students each year. Students learn basic computer skills through computer classes. Afghans, especially women and girls, have a strong interest in learning computers and continue to request for more labs.

Sign of progress AIL develops new WLCs with programme sustainability in mind.

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First WLCs are started only when request comes from a community for them and community is involved in the project. Community contributions and input are encouraged. As a result, communities contribute a substantial portion of the materials needed to begin a new WLC. These contributions come in the form of donated space and supplies. They also include volunteer time and assistance with security. AIL hires and trains women from the local community to staff and manage the WLC. This practice is an important part of sustaining the WLC because it ensures that local people have the skills and knowledge to continue programmes independently in the future. In some cases, fees are charged to WLC students and patients who can afford them. Additionally, some WLCs have begun programmes like tailoring, carpet weaving, and art classes which generate small amounts of income to support programmes from the sale of products.

AIL presently has offices in Kabul and Herat, Afghanistan and in Peshawar, Pakistan. AIL is a registered NGO with both the Pakistani and Afghan governments. AIL serves 350,000 women and children annually, is run entirely by women and employs 470 Afghans, 83% of whom are women. AIL has been project partner with Creating Hope International (CHI) (a 501 c 3 non-profit in the U.S.) since 1996. CHI provides advice, training, financial management, and fund-raising assistance and acts as fiscal sponsor for AIL upon request.

Expansion of WLCs to rural communities At the request of rural communities, AIL WLCs have been established in many rural villages in Kabul and Herat provinces during 2003 and 2004. At the request of and in partnership with the villages of Mir Bacha Kot, AIL established WLCs in this community during 2003. These WLCs, located in Mir Bacha Kot, Shaikhan, Bala Aaab, and Baba Quchqar, provided a mobile health clinic, home schools for girls and boys, advanced classes for boys, and literacy and sewing classes for women and girls. By the beginning of 2004, AIL had established a permanent health clinic in Mir Bacha Kot. Villages nearby noticed the success of these programmes and asked AIL to begin WLCs for them. Working together with these villages, AIL started WLCs in Shakardara, Karenda, Kalikhan, and Kariz Mir in 2004.

Hope for a better future Afghan women started and grew the Afghan Institute of Learning.

The successes of the Afghan Institute of Learning and the organisation’s ability to expand and respond with immediacy to needs identified at the grassroots level, demonstrate just how powerful an impact Afghan women can have when they are empowered through education. AIL will persist in its efforts to reach even more underserved women and children during the rest of 2004 and in the future, especially in rural areas. Through this combination of short and long term strategies, AIL is forging ahead in its efforts to achieve a new beginning for Afghanistan.

Note: This article is based on project documentation, Global Giving / Global Philanthropy Forum Innovation Marketplace Nomination by Sakena Yacoobi, AIL available at http:/ www.globalgiving. com/pfil/921/projdoc.doc i4d | April 2005

S HIKSHA I NDIA

Educational CD Roms Background of Shiksha India Shiksha India, a non-profit organisation supported by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) was formed with the prime intent to bridge the digital divide in India. The aim was to use technology to improve the quality of education and promote computer literacy in India. Shiksha India strived to increase the earning capacity, reduce information arbitrage in rural India and promote entrepreneurship. Shiksha India provided a platform for industry, academia and government to work together to equip the schools with the 5 Cs: Computers, Connectivity, Coaching (Teachers’ Training), Content and models of Commercial sustainability. After many interactions with various education systems , Shiksha India realised that the need existed more for Content and so started focusing on developing good quality content.

Shiksha India set up a Content Committee comprising eminent educationists and those in the field of technology to steer the process of Content Development according to its vision. It followed an exhaustive vendor selection process. Several vendors made presentations to the committee and the short-listed ones were asked to undertake a study and come out with a comprehensive and a detailed document which would reflect their comprehension of the scope of the project, the vision of Shiksha India and an entire strategy for Content, its deployment, phased introduction, upgradability, technical issues, hardware requirements etc. It has made MOU with APF (Azim Premji Foundation) and with Care ‘N’ Cure , a charitable organisation working on ICT for slow learners The inspiration behind Shiksha India was ‘Educar’, a digital divide project in Argentina. ‘Educar’ was Argentina’s national, educational Internet portal comprising of high quality interactive educational contents, covering all subjects in every one of Argentina’s regional curricula. The project also aimed at increasing the Internet penetration in Argentina by offering web-based educational platform. Shiksha collaborated with the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) in CLASS (Computer Literacy & Studies in Schools) scheme. This scheme funded 19 states for their respective IT educational initiatives. Shiksha was on the monitoring and evaluation group of the CLASS. The Vidya Vahini project of the Ministry of Information Technology gave Shiksha a platform to deliver education content to government schools.

Shiksha developed the educational portal www.shiksha.ernet.in, and produced 30 Modules in the initial phase of content development.

The projects on education Shiksha aims at bridging the digital divide by providing good quality educational material (academic content) and by introducing various technology tools in various underserved schools. The following Shiksha content is available in Hindi and English.

The primary objective of Shiksha is to provide various April 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

technology tools to the schools and equip children with variety of skills - academic as well as life-long. It also aims to provide a platform for various stakeholders in the education setting to share and collaborate for meaningful issues concerning the child’s education.

The beneficiaries are the underserved schools - both in rural and urban setting. The deployments/associations of Shiksha are 160 Navodaya Vidyalaya Sangathan (NVS) schools, spread across different Indian states/regions, pilots in Jammu and Kashmir , Punjab and Andhra Pradesh and around 20-25 schools in Delhi.

Technology tools for primary education MDG2 is “Achieve universal primary education” and Shiksha plans to achieve this by providing tools (through itself or other partners).

The ultimate aim of it is imparting and improving the basic education. Shiksha plans to work with other like-minded organisations and reach out to the needy/underserved in the rural areas, villages, etc. ICT will play an important role in the project as the various tools that Shiksha has developed or plans to develop would be technology driven - Academic Software in CD form, Education Portal, etc. Boston Consulting Group conducted a pilot study on Shiksha content in 3 schools in Delhi. The report showed that there was a visible lift in students’ performance on using Shiksha contents.

In future, Shiksha India will be engaged in promoting/furthering technology-aided learning in schools through providing content and conducting teachers’ training on Effective Technology Integration. It will provide a web-based platform for promoting creative learning among children and will facilitate the building of a conclave of like minded institutions, individuals, etc. to share resources to benefit the needy. Shiksha’s contents for translation in regional languages will be made available to institutes/organisations working for the benefit of underserved children.

For further details: Narinder Bhatia, Shiksha India shikshaindia@ciionline.org, narinder.bhatia@ciionline.org

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P ORTRAIT Portrait is a new feature series to provide a platform for showcasing the various activities of development agencies and the potential role of ICTs in strengthening their initiatives.

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) India AKF is part of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN, www.akdn.org), a group of eight private, nondenominational, international development agencies that are committed to promote health, education and rural development in low-income countries of South and Central Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Established in 1967 by His Highness the Aga Khan, the Foundation with support of local and national government authorities provides grants and funding, specially to grassroots organisations for development projects and seeks to foster an innovative approach to social and environmental problems. The Foundation has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and branch offices in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Kyrgyz Republic, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, Tanzania and Syria and has affiliates in Canada, Portugal, Tajikistan, UK and USA. The India office of the Foundation was established in 1978. It has made substantial investments in education, health, rural development and the creation and strengthening of civil society. The Aga Khan Foundation’s education programme seeks to promote the holistic development of children by improving the quality of education from the pre-school to primary level and focusing on minority and disadvantaged communities. In health, it supports the strengthening of integrated community-based health service delivery and environmental health through programmes like Gujarat Health Systems Development Project, Community Led Initiatives for Child Survival Programme and Gujarat Environmental Health Improvement Project. The health programme focuses on the sustainable improvement of well-being of children under three and women in the reproductive age group by involving private and public health service providers and village communities. The implementing partner for rural development programme is the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (India), based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The programme focuses on the reduction of rural poverty through promotion of rural livelihood and community based natural resource management and improvement of national and state level practices and policies.

Programme for Enrichment of School Level Education (PESLE) The objectives of the education programme are to ensure better early caring and learning environment for young children, to increase access to education, to keep the children in school longer and to raise the levels of academic achievement. Keeping these objectives in mind, AKF has developed Programme for Enrichment of School Level Education (PESLE, www.pesle.org) in India. It is a community based school improvement programme that works for improvement of quality of school education (both private and government schools) by involving teachers, students, administrators, parents and communities. The focus is to provide special attention to children, specially from disadvantaged and minority

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“Convergence of technology and education is needed” Interview|Dayaram Programme Manager, AKF India What is the situation of basic school education in India?

Access to school is not a problem. 98% of population has access to school within walking distance of 1 km. The core issue is unpreparedness of the school system for mass education, especially of marginalised. Schools are unable to retain students. Drop out continues to be high and learning level is abysmally poor. The number who have joined but left the school is much larger as compared to children who never joined school. It means they are not able to adjust and on analysing further, you will find non-learning and non-comprehension as measure reasons for children leaving schools. Almost 50% of students, who put in five years in school, are not able to properly read and write, they are not able to do simple mathematics. They are barely literate. The quality of education is the main issue. For long the entire discourse on drop out remained centered around parental poverty and disinterestedness rather than accepting it as failure of the school system. There are innumerable examples of poor parents supporting their children’s education even in the hardest of times if they find school being serious and sincere about their children’s education. The major challenges are to retain children and, at the same time, to improve the level of education.

In comparison to other countries what is the progress of India in developing and implementing quality education?

India’s position is quite low. Even after fifty-seven years of independence an estimated 100-120 million children between the ages of 5-15 years are out of school. They constitute almost 50% of our country’s child population. Being out of school they are subject to exploitation and drudgery of work with little hope of realising their potential and are denied the opportunity to dream of a better tomorrow. Engaged in unpaid domestic work and in the unorganised sector, children are rendered invisible and their work unrecognised.

Our school system is yet to gear up for the task of mass education. Majority of the marginalised children attend schools against variety of odds. Although the system is one of the largest educational systems in the world, it is woefully wasteful and inefficient. It is indeed a matter of national concern that 54.6% children (56.9 girls) drop out before they complete class 8 and 66% (68.6% girls) drop out before they reach class 10 (GOI, MHRD Website, provisional data for academic year 2001-02). These percentages are appallingly low in tribal areas, backward districts and among the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Given the situation on the ground a child entering class one in a rural government school or urban municipal is able to reach class ten by accident and not by design. Equally significant is the shortage of teachers and schools at the upper primary and secondary level.

How is AKF’s PESLE programme addressing these issues? What is the implementation process of PESLE programme?

PESLE is addressing all these issues discussed here, while focusing on quality. We are focusing on; teacher training, school governance, curriculum relevance etc. The programme talks of three phases: first is consolidation (to consolidate and refine strategy); and then outreach (test it outside their own control system and try to see how the model act in different situations); the third phase is to interact i4d | April 2005

with government and local community to institutionalise it. One is trying to interact with Government and to see that some of our process becomes their process. Already Government has taken some of the points and has integrated them into the larger system.

What do you think about India’s chance to achieve MDG 2?

It’s my personal experience that major problem is governance. It’s true that we have fewer schools, we have bad quality schools, less teachers, bad quality teachers. But it’s also true that lot of money remains unspent. It’s a paradox that you have large amount of funds unutilised and, at same time, you do not have teachers and schools. So the issue is not just scarcity of fund, but in a major way of governance and inadequate capacities at different levels. When I speak of governance I see lot of opportunity in Information Technology in making governance more transparent and effective.

How is your organisation taking up MDG 2 in India?

There are around 1million schools in our country. We don’t think that we can create substitute for it and create a parallel type of schooling. What we can create is a model, which can be used to reform the existing system. Today if Government completely withdraws and the total education system is privatised then I can say that 40 % of the population will not have access to education.

Government probably can allow spaces for entrepreneurs but cannot absolve itself from the responsibility. The first problem is the highly centralised governance. So reform in school governance is needed urgently. Similarly pedagogic reforms is very much need of the hour. Our classrooms are boring and unattractive for the children. There are already many institutions created. The issue is to make the existing institutions functional and optimise their functioning. We are attempting through this project to generate lessons in the area of governance and pedagogic reforms that can be replicable. Many models of these have been experimented in varied socio-cultural contexts and are ready for demonstration. Our aim is to complement and strengthen existing government system for better delivery of education for all.

Have you ever thought of putting the technology aspect like community radio in your project?

We are exploring the potential of technology in bringing transparency and efficiency. But there is problem of inadequate infrastructure in the areas we are working. To disseminate, we need electronic media. We too, feel that there is a lot of potential in community radio and CDs can be useful to disseminate when we are bringing some new learning to our school. We are thinking of collaborating with agencies this year, which work on use of technology to improve the quality of school.

April 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

communities, by addressing the three key challenges: enrolment, retention and learning achievement. The programme is running in 1,071 schools in the States of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan involving 2,27,500 students (Source: AKF). There are four factors that are being addressed to improve the quality of basic education: the location, timing, curriculum and content of teacher training; professional development for all categories of educators and caregivers; the role of governments, NGOs, communities and parents in financing and managing education; cultural and economic relevance of the curriculum.

The programme partners under PESLE have initiatives a series of innovative approaches and experiments to improve school effectiveness. Modules have been developed to train and mentor teachers, educators and administrators on the job. Several ‘resource centres’ have been established for training teachers on studentcentred teaching, in-classroom support and follow-up. Communities have been made active stakeholders in the education process.

They regularly provide feedback and qualitative inputs to enhance teaching-learning processes in the classrooms. Regular interaction with the community in the form of meetings enable the community to take decisions for school improvement including those related to infrastructure, facilities and schooling processes, thereby consolidating the progress made in schools. Parents have been also mobilised to enhance their role as care givers. In order to educate girls, participation of mothers has been prioritised. At the classroom level, a co-operative spirit among the students is encouraged allowing the expression and pursuit of natural curiosities, thereby enhancing cognitive and learning outcomes. Programme partners are encouraged to take into account the socio-cultural contexts of the children while developing the curriculum so that it is in conformity with child’s interaction with society.

Under PESLE project, AKF is currently working through four implementing partners: Bodh Shiksha Samiti, working in the slums of Jaipur and rural areas of Rajasthan; Dr. Reddy’s Foundation for Human and Social Development, providing education to working children of Hyderabad in collaboration with Andhra Pradesh State Police Department and the State Education Department; Society for All Round Development (SARD), providing education to poor children, particularly girls of one of the most marginalised communities in Rajasthan; and Aga Khan Education Service, India, whose schools are located in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

To take a hard look at the performance, the Aga Khan Foundation has designed and installed a Management Information System (MIS) to measure impact across schools. Trends of participation rates in terms of gender, attendance pattern and academic performance of the students have seen a marked improvement. Among the beneficiaries, 36% is from Muslim minority group and 82% of the Hindu students are from disadvantaged section. Girl’s enrolment is as high as 63% compared to the all India figure of only 42%. Average attendance of students is 82% compared to the all India figure of only 51%.

With these positive outcomes, AKF’s school Improvement Programme has set the framework for greater interaction with the wider school education system to enhance quality of learning.

Anuradha Dhar, anuradha@csdms.in Sejuti Sarkar De, sejuti@csdms.in

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L ESSONS

FROM

S YNERGY L EARNING E XPERIENCE

Challenges to create an e-Learning environment Care should be taken that traditional classrooms are not simply uprooted and transplanted on top of this technology... sometimes the power of the new technologies is lost when they are used to carry out similar things that have always been done in our traditional classrooms.

A G Largey Synergy Learning alan@synergy-learning.com

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The present situation Some commentators have described the present state of the Indian Multimedia/ Games capabilities as similar to what the Indian software development industry was 10-15 years ago. According to a study by Andersen Consulting, the Indian multimedia and graphics industry, currently pegged at $550 million, is slated to grow at 30 percent annually over the next three years and achieve revenues of US$ 15 billion by 2008. This growth will surely come mainly from outsourcing from the United Kingdom and America and whilst there is real competition from the Far East. One thing India has in its favour is the English language skills of its workforce. Professor T.K.Ghoshal, Joint Director, School of Education Technology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, cites various reasons for the ‘tardy growth’ of Indian Multimedia Content Industry including lack of expected export order, lack of domestic market, lack of feel and sensitivities towards the special needs of the (export) market, lack of indigenous content corpus and, finally, lack of skilled/experienced manpower.

Perhaps Indian education may best address this last reason, this ‘skills gap’.

The challenge It is improbable that this gap would be filled by a ‘quick fix’. A more long-term approach would be required, one that needs to begin in the secondary schools. This may only be achieved by relevant, focused and quality training of students in the appropriate areas and skills. The courses must provide internationally recognised, valued and creative courses with certification. Pathways must allow progression in skill acquisition, the ‘unlocking of creativity’ and ultimately employment in the creative industries, or even self-employment. The multimedia/

games industries require this skills and Indian education must respond by creating an indigenous creative workforce, which can then take advantage of the outsourcing opportunities. These are the challenges for the schools and colleges.

A similar challenge This situation is very similar to the situation Synergy Learning (http://Synergy-Learning. com) found itself five or six years ago, albeit on a much smaller scale. Synergy Learning was formed in 1997 as a joint venture between the University of Ulster and ICL (Fujitsu) in West Belfast, Northern Ireland.

It was a social regeneration programme for a deprived area of Belfast. The aim was to teach to the people of West Belfast ICT and multimedia skills. The multimedia part of the company was growing quickly and there was a need for new employees. However, when Synergy went looking they discovered that within Belfast there were very few qualified and creative people to employ. The problem was solved by basically ‘growing their own’ candidates. To do this, Synergy wrote and obtained accreditation for a multimedia course, which would produce the type of employees, they required. They obtained funding for the course from the Department of Education and delivered the course over two consecutive years.The course was extremely successful. Certification and graduation were good and the majority of the graduates gained employment in the growing multimedia sector of Northern Ireland. Synergy Learning actually still employs two of the original graduates. Many started successful small business. Later Synergy saw the commercial possibilities of the course. The courses were initially introduced in five colleges and two schools in Northern Ireland. Learning resources and i4d | April 2005

An example of synergy learning interactive tutorial.

This is a simulation of Macromedia Dreamweaver and the student has to actually click on menus, enter data and interact with the interface. Software tools and skills can be learnt without having access to the actual software.

staff development were purchased from Synergy by the colleges.

With the resulting success in the colleges and schools, Synergy further developed the courses, the materials and the pedagogies required making the offering more global and have established partnerships with schools and colleges in England, Wales, Eire, Singapore, Hong Kong and China.

A possible solution Perhaps a solution to India’s problem may be of a similar nature • The introduction of recognised relevant courses • The adoption of new pedagogical approaches required with new technology • The introduction of quality learning and teaching resources.

With such subject content (multimedia/games) and with a wide audience, traditional classrooms and methodologies may not be sufficient or even cost effective. New technologies must be used in the solution. The power and accessibility of the Internet must be harnessed. ‘e-Learning’ may provide part of the solution.

However, care should be taken that traditional classrooms are not simply uprooted and transplanted on top of this technology.

The integration of the new technologies has not always been handled properly and sometimes the power of the new technologies is lost when they are used to carry out similar things that have always been done in our traditional classrooms. Indian education must ensure that the new technologies are seamlessly integrated into a modern learning environment and do not appear as ‘bolt-ons’ which change nothing. Indian education must learn from the ‘e-Learning mistakes’ of the West.

If an e-Learning approach is to be adopted then many things will need to change and the education system, the student and the teacher must recognise this. e-Learning has many definitions. ‘The convergence of the Internet and Learning, or Internet-enabled learning’; ‘The use of network technologies to create, foster, deliver and facilitate learning, anytime and anywhere’; ‘The delivery of individualised, comprehensive, dynamic learning content in real time, aiding the development of communities of knowledge, linking learners and practitioners with experts.’

April 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

e-Learning, if designed and delivered correctly is and does all of these things but in many cases the emphasis is put on the ‘e’ and not the ‘learning’ - inherently e-Learning is about ‘Learning’. This will require many paradigm shifts in many different quarters. All these requirements fall into two categories: support and financial issues and pedagogical and methodological issues. The latter issues include the creation of different learning environments, pedagogical changes and the creation and adoption of relevant learning and teaching materials. The challenge is also to adopt strategies such that as many learners as possible have access to such environments, pedagogies and materials.

Consider two of the above requirements to ascertain what the challenge really is.

• adoption of an appropriate pedagogy • appropriate learning materials

Pedagogy Schools and colleges, while looking at the introduction of such courses, must also look at different delivery methods. There will be a variety of audiences and with present and future technology education will obviously not be confined to the physical classroom.

The audiences will consist of students within the education system but will also consist of those on the periphery of the system and indeed those outside the system. It will consist of those who want to retrain, those who want to change career, those who want to up-skill, those who want a qualification for their present skills plus many more. It is unlikely that traditional didactic teaching methods, nor even perhaps full time education, will be entirely suitable for everyone and more progressive approaches and different timetabling arrangements will be required. Digital Distance Learning will be a major factor in any solution. Recent experiences in e-Learning suggest that a blended approach is most suitable. The role of the teacher is no less important, in fact it is probably more important now. In the areas of multimedia and games, teachers will be required more and more to adopt the role of facilitator rather than the role of knowledge expert. They must encourage innovation and creativity.

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Example of the e-Learning material This is how the materials are presented in the virtual learning environment or indeed in a simple Intranet. The list of topics is presented on the left and the different icons on the right represent the different types of learning materials.

The new technologies will provide a variety of online learning approaches not previously available. These will include online face-to-face situations between teacher and student, live e-Learning-self paced online learning, live demonstrations online, master classes, collaboration online, synchronous and asynchronous tutoring, discussion groups and the development of communities of practice as well as simple knowledge acquisition.

All of these methods require changes in teacher, student and classroom organisation. The management of these changes is another major challenge to Indian education.

The pedagogy supported by Synergy Learning operates in an e-Learning environment underpinned by social constructivist learning theory which blends ‘face-to-face methods, tutor-led demonstrations, student research, learning tasks, online learning materials, offline learning materials, collaborative and cooperative assignments, teaching on demand, self paced learning, student centred approaches in varying degrees depending on what has to be learnt. This pedagogy allows for a variety of different learners in a variety of different situations.

Learning materials It is widely recognised that learners do not all learn in the same way and they do not even learn the same things in the same way.

Individual learners have a variety of learning approaches and use these approaches in varying degrees in different learning situations, e.g. visual, auditory or kinesthetic. A good learning environment must also allow for the construction of knowledge, the constructivist approach and, more specifically, social constructivism. Any learning materials that are produced for the e-Learning environment must reflect these differences and this underpinning theoretical perspective. Consequently good learning materials must be in several formats and foster and encourage collaboration and co-operation. Learners must be able to choose their own personal approach and have the opportunity to engage in discourse with others and collaborate and cooperate in the learning environment just as they would in the normal classroom.

Synergy Learning has been developing such pedagogies and materials for several years now and has built up a large amount of expertise and e-Learning resources, i.e. learning resources that can be placed into new e-Learning environments.

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When developing the e-Learning materials for the multimedia/ games courses Synergy went through three phases.

1. Analysis of what had to be learnt - In these courses learning includes: mastery of tools, skills acquisition, conceptual understanding, meta models such as critical thinking, research methods and meta cognition.

2. Consideration of the different learning approaches such as drill and practice, constructivism (mental models and scaffolding) social constructivism (social activities, communities of practice and common knowledge).

3. Development of different types of materials which consisted of : • Temporal models (movies and demonstrations) • Spatial models (graphics, 2D models, 3D models) • Process models (interactivity, mimicry) These models include pictures, graphics, diagrams, text, learner interaction, step-by-step activities, demonstrations, simulations, sound/speech and learning as well as assessment tasks.

The materials were created as a series of small ‘Learning Objects’ which can be used and reused in a variety of ways.

Issues and challenges The issue and challenges for teachers and the Indian education system would appear to be how best to fill the skills gap, adopting a long-term approach. The solution must in itself make use the new technologies of multimedia and games. Indian education must consider introducing courses and curricula in the relevant fields that are engaging, accredited and have an international value, develop new pedagogies that are suitable for and make optimum use of the new technologies and use innovative and creative learning resources produced by the new technologies.

It would appear that many schools and colleges have already moved some way along this road and there are other institutions that are helping. Negotiations are underway with the British Council, Liqvid (http://www.liqvid.com/), Edexcel and Synergy Learning to introduce some of the courses, adopt the pedagogies and use the resources within the Council’s Managed Learning Zone. This Zone already provides courses that use the new technolologies and e-Learning extremely well. (http://www.britishcouncil.org/india-education-onlinecourses-2.htm). i4d | April 2005

Vol. III No. 4

April 2005

Information for development w w w. i 4 d . c s d m s . i n

Education Advisory committee meets to strategise the use of ICTs in education In Pakistan, the Advisory Committee for the National Strategy on ICTs in education convened its second working group session recently to make a long-term strategic plan for the amalgamation of ICTs in education.

The session was organised by Education Sector Reform Assistance (ESRA), in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the two-day session was attended by experts and specialists from the education and IT sectors, including representatives of the federal and provincial governments, other stakeholders and international speakers.

The objective of these sessions was to formulate a strategy that would enhance teaching, learning and education administration through the use of ICTs. The introduction of ICTs in education did not begin with the advent of new digital technologies such as computers, Internet, e-mail, world wide web, wireless, etc. It has been going on for decades in very successful programmes that have extensively utilised radio, television and the print media in both distance education and classroom instruction in other countries of the world.

At present, what makes the system contemporary is that, these older technologies are being combined with the use of e-mail and the Internet.

Source: http://www.hipakistan.com

Uconnect to provide ICT facilities in African schools The NGO, Uconnect imports used computers from Europe and USA, revamps them and supplies them to schools and April 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

organisations. The organisation also helps them to network their computer labs and to get Internet connections.

At least 100 schools of Africa that would otherwise not afford, have been able to buy computers at lower prices from them that extends Information Technology to rural areas. In the first year of the project, the organisation distributed hundreds of computers to 60 mostly rural-based schools. In the last 20 months Uconnect has supplied over 100 schools, both primary and secondary with computers. Schools from as far as Mbale, Lira, and Tororo have benefited from the project.

Source: http://allafrica.com

JNU students to access digital library soon The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) of Indian national capital of New Delhi will be providing its students with a state-ofthe-art library in about three months from now.

The university has taken a major step to digitise its records, books and research papers completely and it is now working to make the library fully computerised.

The project will be completed in the coming months.

While the library catalogue has been completely digitised and can be accessed from anywhere, the university is now digitising all the books and journals. Apart from this, all the new books are being kept in the e-Format to ensure easy access of all materials in the future. But it is not just the reference books that will come within easy access for students now. With the university planning to digitise all the research papers, dissertations, thesis and even the newspaper clippings kept in the library; all old works will simply be a click away for students now.

Source: http://www.hindu.com

ADB to integrate ICT into basic education to bridge digital divide In Uzbekistan, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) will help prepare a project to integrate ICT into basic education through a Technical Assistance (TA) grant approved for US $600,000.

The TA will prepare an ICT development strategy for basic education and a feasibility study for a project that will introduce an ICT-based approach to teaching and learning in certain grade levels and subjects in basic education based on this strategy. TA will take a participatory approach to build consensus among stakeholders on key challenges facing ICT development in basic education. It will also focus on developing targeted policies and mechanisms to help bridge the internal digital divide between urban and rural areas and explore ways to promote public and private sector partnerships in ICT development.

Source: http://www.harolddoan.com

Distance education going global With an increasing prominence on distance learning and its merits, institutes offering them are no longer being looked upon as an inferior alternative to interactive learning.

This is being corroborated by the fact that Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), a premier distance learning institution in India alone, has signed 21 MoUs for a wider outreach. IGNOU’s MoU with Narayana Hrudyalaya, Bangalore, for developing a two-year Post Graduate Diploma in Community Cardiology for Doctors, is an example of the same. Technological advancement has made it possible for the students around the world to come together through satellites and the Internet. And, the scope of distance learning is

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The i4d News

Laptops for rur rural al kids in Cambodia In a village in Cambodia where the homes lack electricity, the night-time darkness is pierced by the glow from laptops that children bring from school. They were equipped with notebook computers by a foundation run by Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, and his wife, Elaine.

Negroponte remarks that when the kids bring them home and open them up, it is the brightest light source in the home and parents love it. He and some MIT colleagues are at work on a project they hope it will brighten the lives and prospects of hundreds of millions of developing world kids. It is a grand idea and a daunting challenge: to create rugged, Internet and multimedia-capable laptop computers at a cost of $100 apiece. The cost of a laptop comes in far lower than a child’s textbook expenses for the computer’s lifespan. He also says that it is a way of having the children be the agents of change. They bring the device home, and then the parents look over their shoulder. He thinks that it is extremely important that individual children own laptops; it will ensure they will be well maintained.

Source: http://www.hindu.com

not limited by geographic borders. IGNOU, for instance, has signed a MoU with the University of Fiji, Fiji Islands, to share learning materials in computer education and IT programmes. Another agreement has been signed with the Radio Australia to share audio programmes. An agreement with the St. Mary’s College, Ethiopia, has also been signed.

Source: http://www.tribuneindia.com

Rural schools go for ICT integrated learning in New Zealand A cluster of small rural schools in the Thames/Coromandel area wants to create an atmosphere where the children develop ‘a life long love of learning’. To achieve this, the Kopu Project aims to convert the schools’ to a 21st century model of teaching and learning where information communications technology (ICT) is a key part in the learning process.

The Kopu Project schools will move away from more teacher-dominated teaching methodologies to ones based more on an inquiry-based learning model, which teaches students to think more independently. A range of technology will be used during the Kopu Project, including laptops, interactive whiteboards, data projectors and an integrated intranet and extranet called Knowledge NET. Internetbased Microquests will be constructed by teachers, based on the inquiry-learning model. The Internet will also be a primary

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source of information for students and teachers.

Source: http://www.digiops.org.nz

e-Governance Website launched to help women lodge their complaints in India The Chief Minister of Delhi, India, Sheila Dikshit has launched a website http://www.dcw.delhigovt.nic.in of Delhi Commission for Women (DCW).

The website was launched at a function hosted as a part of International Women’s Day celebrations. DCW takes the initiative to help women in distress lodge their complaints without travelling to the office of the DCW. Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com

World Bank offers $500 million aid for e-Governance scheme in India The World Bank has agreed an in-principle to provide $500 million financial support for India’s National e-Governance Plan (NEGP) over a period of four years. The multi-pronged project will empower rural citizens, will improve government effectiveness and promote private sector growth.

The announcement was made at the concluding session of the NEGP workshop with states and Union Territories held in

the New Delhi, India recently. Mark Dutz, Senior Economist, Finance and Private Sector Development- South Asia Region, World Bank, has said that the government had initiated a dialogue with the World Bank for support of the e-Governance plan.

In January, the bank’s management gave an in-principle go ahead for $500 million financing in the first phase, with a clear understanding that if there is a need and absorptive capacity, it would be willing to upscale the support. The scheme will cover 10 main areas, including land records, property registration, transport and revenue collection amongst others.

Source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com

Trikala becomes e-Trikala The Greek Vice Minister of Economics C. Folias has announced Trikala, as the first digital city in Greece and it will finish its first phase of development by the middle of 2006, with funding from the Greek Information Society Framework Programme.

The digital city ICT applications aim to improve everyday life by simplifying public transactions, reducing telecommunication costs and by delivering new services related to the local way of life. Those ICT applications also offer new methods to enable citizens to participate in policy-making, and help ensure local government and public authorities as guarantors of the local society’s proper operation.

Source: http://www.public-cio.com

African leaders go for ‘digital tax’ to bridge digital divide The Presidents of Algeria and Senegal have backed a plan asking wealthy nations to tax their cities’ investment in technology to buy mobile phones and computers for poor nations. The voluntary ‘digital’ tax would contribute to the United Nationssponsored Digital Solidarity Fund, created to promote democracy and economic development in developing countries by bridging the digital divide between rich and poor nations.

The fund, which was launched in Geneva, Switzerland, recently, has already collected $5.3-6.6 million to be spent on technologies such as mobile phones and computers. It has been realised that such initiatives would help in bridging the digital divide.

Source: http://www.reuters.com

i4d | April 2005

The i4d News

Health Patients avail online medical consultation from doctors In US, in an attempt to improve efficiency and control costs, health plans and medical groups around the country have now started to pay doctors to reply by email, just as they pay for official visits. While some computer-literate doctors have been using email to communicate informally with patients for years, most have never been paid for that service.

Blue Shield of California pays his doctor $25 for each online exchange, the same as it pays for an official visit. Some insurers pay a bit less for emailing, and patients in some health plans are charged a $5 or $10 co-payment that is billed to their credit card and relayed to the doctor. For doctors, the convenience of online exchanges can be considerable. They say that they can provide advice about post surgical care, diet, changing a medication and other topics that can be handled safely and promptly without an official visit or a frustrating round of telephone tag. And surveys have shown that email, by reducing the number of daily office visits, provides physicians more time to spend with patients who need to be seen face-to-face. For patients, email allows them to send their medical questions from home in the evening, without missing work and spending time in a doctor’s waiting room.

Source: http://www.asianage.com

Online database of traditional Tibetan drugs launched An online database of traditional Tibetan medicines has been launched in China.

The free access database is a joint effort by two institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS): the Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology http://english.cas.ac.cn based in Xining and the Lanzhou based Scientific Information Centre for Resources and Environment.

The database has 3,000 distinct entries covering Tibetan pharmaceutical resources, traditional prescriptions, ancient and modern literature about Tibetan medicine, and details of Tibetan medical experts and institutions that research or prescribe Tibetan medicines. Among the information included are details of the names of plants used in Tibetan medicine, where they are April 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

found, and how to identify, collect, store and cultivate them. The database also details the plants’ pharmaceutical effects, including any toxins they contain.

Source: http://www.scidev.net

Agriculture Agricultural markets to access online information soon In India, an online system to furnish information on agricultural markets is being developed and would be ready within a year.

The Geographical Information System (GIS)-based National Agriculture Market Atlas would help farmers avail online information on production of crops and its marketing potential from anywhere in the country. The National Institute of Agricultural Marketing (NIAM), National Informatics Centre (NIC) and Directorate of Monitoring and Inspection (DMI) are jointly preparing the GIS-based digital National Agricultural Market Atlas. The atlas would have information on agricultural mandis (rural markets) in different states, which would help farmers grow more remunerative crop.

Source: http://www.newkerala.com

National Farmers Commission emphasises on establishment of RKCs in rural areas In India, at the Fifth Annual Baramati Initiative on ICT and Development, the agriculture scientist and the Chairperson

of the National Farmers Commission, M S Swaminathan has called for establishment of Rural Knowledge Centres (RKCs) across the country to allow uncorrupted flow of information between rural communities, scientists, administrators and educators.

He said that the principles of social inclusion, gender equity and regional balance should be inbuilt pre-requisites in the design of RKCs. He emphasised that RKCs can provide just-in-time information to farmers in rain-fed and dry land areas using contemporary ICT tools. He also added that these RKCs could be located either in the panchayat buildings or rural schools so that it is accessible to everyone. The RKCs can be run by Self-Help Groups (SHGs) after the members are trained in operating ICT tools. The National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development (NABARD) could develop a special scheme for supporting ICT SHGs, he added.

Source: http://cities.expressindia.com

ITC to expand its agribusiness model e-Chaupal In India, Indian Tobacco Company (ITC) is now planning a 12 million expansion of its e-Choupal agri-business model. The company is planning to set up 30 rural hypermarts in the Indian States of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharasthra by March 2006.

These hypermarts are christened as ‘Choupal Sagar’ and it will be positioned as one-stop shopping destinations for farmers. S.Sivakumar, CEO, International Business Division of ITC has remarked that the first layer of these hypermarts provides farmers with information about weather

e-Gram project to connect e-Gram over 6,000 v villages illages in Gujar Gujarat at The Gujarat State Panchayat Minister of India, Bhupendrasinh Chudasama informed in the State Assembly that under the e-Gram project of Gujarat government over 6000 villages will be linked through computer by March 2006.

He also said that as per the figures of December 2004, the government has already connected 567 villages under the project. Various documents have been issued by the government like birth and death certificates, Below Poverty Line (BPL) certification, different application forms and others will be available through the computer in each and every village under the project, he added.

Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com

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The i4d News

iConnect collabor collaboration ation between i4d and IICD Information for Development (i4d) and the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD) have announced the collaboration on a series of articles regarding “evidence based real life experiences and impact in the field of ICT for development”. Local journalists in IICD’s focal countries will produce the articles.

The collaboration will assist IICD in disseminating experiences from the grassroots level and helps i4d to further diversify their content base with articles from Africa and Latin America.

Source: http://www.iconnect-online.org

and prices. These hypermarkets will provide them another platform to sell their produce and purchase essential farm and household goods, all at the same place.

telecom company to hawk 2 million to 3 million sets in India in the first six months of the launch.

Source: http://in.rediff.com

Source: The Economic Times

Telecom Africa experiences fastest growth of mobile phones A study, backed by the UK mobile phone giant Vodafone, has said that the mobile phone use in Africa is growing faster than anywhere else in the world.

The study also said that African countries with greater mobile use had seen a higher rate of economic growth. It is supported by The Centre for Economic Policy Research, which studied the social and economic impact of mobiles in Africa.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk

Motorola launches cheapest mobile handset in India A slick mobile handset made by Motorola, a global leader in providing integrated communications solutions and embedded electronic solutions, has hit the Indian market.

The handset is launched at the low price of under Rs 2,000 apiece, making it one of the cheapest mobile phones ever to hit the Indian market. This mobile phone also offers the simple pleasures in life — downloading ring tones, instructions in Hindi as well as in English.

Motorola is set to unveil its sub-$ 40 (Rs 1,657, at last week’s exchange rate) mobile phones from April in emerging markets across the globe and its big stop will be India. With three entry-level models (C 115, 116 and 117), the GSMA expects the US

26

Local Language ICTA promoting the use of ICT in Sinhala and Tamil The ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) is promoting the use of ICT in Sinhala and Tamil by developing websites. The agency will also be conducting a workshop on ‘Developing Websites in local languages’ on 24th of March, 2005.

It will cover the basics of setting up a standards-compliant multi-lingual website, using common tools such as Macromedia Dream Weaver and Microsoft Front Page, etc. It will assist in identifying and understanding Unicode specific issues in the design and development of web sites.

Source: http://www.icta.lk

Digital Culture UNESCO releases two documentary films on women and ICT to bridge the gender divide Two documentary films on women and ICT that were produced in the framework of UNESCO’s pilot project ‘Putting ICT in the Hands of the Poor’, which examines the information needs of poverty stricken communities in South Asia, with a special focus on gender issues are now available online.

The gender divide is one of the most significant inequalities reflected within the digital divide, which cuts across all social

and income groups. UNESCO’s concern about women’s marginalisation from ICT is based on the assumption that women will benefit less from new educational and employment opportunities. Women in many rural areas do not have structured local communication networks or access to information and knowledge, barriers that compound and enhance poverty. This is why UNESCO has helped to develop a number of potential models to address this issue through innovative use of ICT. Source: http://portal.unesco.org

Gandhi manuscripts to go online soon Research on Mahatma Gandhi will now be easy. No more leafing through thousands of pages of documents and manuscripts as researchers will have all data just a mouse click away.

The Sabarmati Ashram Preservation Trust has initiated a project to make digital copies of all manuscripts available in its archives and also develop a system to look through them on computer.

Source: http://www.expressindia.com

General ICT to boost up rural Tanzania soon Dreams by Tanzania to provide ICTs to remote rural areas are likely to be achieved, as authorities start to address practical tasks towards the objective.

At the centre of the initiative is the Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) which has embarked on a programme to install telecommunication Centres in different parts of the country.

Presently, the project has opened Telecentres at Sengerema, Ngara, Kasulu, Kilosa, Lugoba and Dakawa village at a cost of more than $1,500,000 million. And soon Mtwara and Mpwapwa branches will be opened.

COSTECH, UNESCO and UNHCR have sponsored the project.

Source: http://209.183.227.156

For daily news on ICT4D log on to www.i4d.csdms.in

i4d | April 2005

M APPING

THE

N EIGHBOURHOOD

Youth redefining learning paradigms Use of ICTs for creation of new knowledge base is often less emphasised in comparison to its potential in dissemination of pre-acquired wisdom.

Educational scenario: India vis-à-vis the world Throughout the world, most underdeveloped and developing communities face the pegging problem of low literacy levels and dismal state of education system. Often, lack of education is designated as the single largest roadblock towards achieving their developmental objectives. India is among many such developing nations of the world, which is fighting to cope with problems of low literacy and inadequate education infrastructure. Although, education scenario in urban India seems to ride on an upswing – rural conditions are still much the same as it was before. Taking into account that almost two-third of Indian population resides in rural region, conditions of education prevailing at the national level is gloomy. Going by the latest figures available with the Department of Education, Government of India, national literacy level as available from the current Census Report (2001) is recorded at 65.38 percent - with male literacy at 75.85 percent and female literacy at 54.16 percent. Hence, there is still a long way to go before we reach the target of cent percent literacy. The condition is much alike in other developing countries of the world and even worse in underdeveloped nations. However, hope still survives, as global efforts initiated by international organisations like UN, commit to hasten the process of improving literacy levels across the world.

Education: Impose or implant?

Dipanjan Banerjee CSDMS dipanjan@csdms.in

April 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

In our efforts to bring a bigger section of the community under the ambit of basic education, we must ensure that the mode of imparting education is interesting, which, by virtue of its own, can generate enthusiasm among young learners. We must ensure

that knowledge is served on a platter that bases itself on practical problem solving, rather than rot learning. Unfortunately, still now, our primary education system is measurably missing such purpose-driven educational element that can attract and retain learners by itself. It is only when we find newer and more meaningful educational methodologies that we would succeed in bringing and retaining learners even from less educated communities. It is only then, we could dream of achieving literacy on a large scale.

ICTs and educational models With the advent of digital era, educational delivery models have potentials of undergoing dramatic change in terms of quality, relevancy and reach. Computer-based educational content can be made more attractive and interesting for young learners, compared to traditional book-based learning. The highly interactive nature of computers makes the learning process more enjoyable and provides a very steep learning curve. Above all, communication and connectivity are increasingly shrinking physical boundaries of people and places – contributing towards harmonising the educational content availed by different communities.

Although ICTs speed up the process of communication, information sharing and knowledge-based learning among communities, the use of ICTs for creation of new knowledge base is often less emphasised in comparison to its potential in dissemination of pre-acquired wisdom. The fact is even more pronounced, when it comes to creation of original knowledge base by those who have always been considered to remain at the receiving-end of the knowledge network – namely, the student community.

There are many amongst us who would

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shriek and shudder at the very idea of involving school kids in generation of knowledge…“after all, knowledge creation is not a child’s play!!” - only a few will actually believe, that it can be done.

Mapping-the-Neighbourhood: ICTs in local learning In the Northern Himalayan State of Uttaranchal, in India, a small hilly place called Almora is witnessing how ICTs can bring a reversal in the way knowledge has conventionally been acquired and disseminated. Since September 2003, a unique project called ‘Mapping-the-Neighbourhood’, running in 10 schools of the region, has empowered some 250 students and a handful of teachers to generate information base of their own area through use of modern Geo-ICTs. Implemented by Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS), which was formerly known as Centre for Spatial Database Management and Solutions, and supported by Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, the project has been running successfully in Almora for the past one and half years and has already been replicated in 10 more schools of the adjacent district of Nainital.

A combination of conventional IT tools (viz. basic computing), aided with specific Geoinformatic tools (viz. GPS, GIS) have been used by students to produce map-based digital information resource of their local area. Rich and up-to-date datasets associated with maps, covering information relating to demography, livelihood, education, resource availability, employment, agriculture, energy, health and such other socio-economic parameters have sculpted a completely new knowledge platform, wherein, communities can analyse and investigate locally-relevant information to find best-fitting solutions for their developmental needs.

Students collecting socio-economic data through village survey.

structured training modules, training is imparted with the single purpose of empowering participants with skills of IT and GIT (Geographic Information Technologies), which they can use for higher learning. Thus, at no point, students are enforced to learn something that does not have an immediate application potential.

This makes the entire exercise all the more interesting, as students avail an opportunity to learn technology that can be put to test almost immediately as they learn. Moreover, the project serves a good incentive for teachers to learn new things along with their pupils, which they never experienced before.

The project has also got much to offer in terms of holistic learning opportunity. Spheres of study covering science, mathematics, geography, environment and civic issues are dealt with at various stages of activity. Students get to find the practical relevance of their formal study areas, as they conduct reality-check of conditions that exists on the ground. Starting from mapping of local infrastructure, land-use, resource distribution and flora diversity, students also get engaged in socio-economic survey, water quality testing, waste disposal study and even documentation of developmental history of their area. Through all these exercises students attain an elevated understanding about the delicate connection that exists between real world issues and that of their formal study areas. These in turn, incite students with the fervour to know even deeper and better.

Towards achieving development goals

Students mapping their neighbourhood with GPS and hand-held computers.

Although, data aggregation and assimilation form a major component of the project, it is not the sole objective with which it was designed. A much higher goal is ingrained in it, which aims to encourage students and teachers for re-discovering their native place and identify local resources through mapping and field-based learning. High level of practical orientation, rather than learning pre-designed content is one of the uniqueness of this project, rendering it with a new dimension in learning intervention.

Although, the project has a considerably large component of

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‘Mapping-the-Neighbourhood’ provides an ideal setting to spread a model of purpose-driven, value-added learning methodology, which transcends age-old conventional modes of learning.

With an inherent objective to bring distinct perspective change among learners and those who are facilitating them to learn - ‘Mapping-the-Neighbourhood’ bears potential of going a long way to make the process of education more meaningful than ever before.

The greatest challenge, however, lies in keeping these initiatives alive and allowing a silent transformation to creep through the educational landscape across communities. The children of Almora schools are creating a new learning paradigm through Mapping the Neighbourhood initiative. i4d | April 2005

Story telling for knowledge sharing

Digital learning in African schools Presenting a new series of locally written articles with southern perspectives on the impact and the use of ICTs for Development.

Following is the first series of articles focusing on ICT4D in Education in 6 African countries.

In collaboration with:

www.iConnect-online.org is a knowledge sharing platform for Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in sustainable development. iConnect draws content from its partners, links resources and expertise and encourages collaboration. For the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), the host of iConnect, this is a way to share experiences, lessons learned and ideas, and interact with communities and people with an interest in development and the applications of ICTs. These experiences can lead to a better understanding of the actual benefits of ICTs for Development (ICT4D). The core of iConnect will be a series of locally written articles on the impact and the use of ICTs for development. The articles have a strong focus on fact finding; objective information on ICT4D practices from a southern perspective: Southern content written by Southern people. i4d is the iConnect partner for Asia, disseminating the articles to their readers.

Schools in Burkina Faso to conquer the new technologies

By Ramata Soré Initiatives aim at integrating the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the educational system in Burkina, a country extremely poor and therefore at the bottom of the UNDP classification scale.

The teachers and pupils are delighted with this initiative.

They are discovering new ways to communicate and to look for information. Despite shortfalls due to the novelty of the approach, the new ICTs are essential in the educational system.

“I am very happy to discover how to find information and discuss on the net with friends in other schools apart from mine,” pointed out Mathieu Kabré, a pupil at the Marien N’Gouabi de Ouagadougou High School. This student learnt about the net at his high school thanks to the Global Teenager Project (GTP).

The GTP is a programme set up in 1999 by the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD).

“The project brings the new information and communication technologies in the high and middle schools. This initiative sets up networks between schools located in many different countries in Europe, Africa and Latin America. The pupils have the opportunity to Pre-school children in Mali

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join in online discussions (Learning Circles) on a wide range of subjects such as health, environment, human rights, globalisation, AIDS, culture, racism or music,” explained Adama Traoré, the GTP/Burkina coordinator. More than a hundred pupils from a dozen Burkina schools met up online in 2004 using email, chat, etc.

Apart from this project, World Links, a World Bank programme set up in Burkina Faso in 1997, “aims for better integration of the new ICTs in schools by means of projects bringing together technical supervisors and

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The fundamental evaluation

Teacher training in Zambia

pupils. The World Links initiative consists of allowing a group of pupils to search the net to find websites - related to the courses being given in class - that can help to understand the lessons,” explains Abdoulaye Yatabaré, World Links project coordinator and a teacher by profession.

Prioritising needs Computer equipment and the Internet are not available in nearly all the schools in Burkina. The situation is even more blatant in the schools in the provincial areas. Out of nearly 450 high and junior schools, there are around twenty or so high schools with equipment. The computer equipment too often only consists of a computer and a printer which are only used when there is someone available who is computer literate. Furthermore, the equipment is damaged by the heat and dust. In the case of certain schools, if there is a connection, more than one has been discouraged by its exorbitant costs or the very slow connection.

“I think the Internet offers some advantages, but you have to be careful. Looking up information and setting up school websites are perhaps the most important aspects. Unfortunately, I have seen how using Internet has become a sort of easy solution for the education problems. Nevertheless, we have priorities. In my class, there are more than 90 pupils. We don’t have teachers for some subjects.

What is the fundamental priority between these requirements and the desire to install the Net in all the schools?” wondered Patrick Somda, World Links coordinator, aloud.

The World Links programme is working with the Ministry of Higher and Secondary Education and Scientific Research (MESSRS) and the General Directorate of Vocational Education (DGESTP).

Since January 2003, World Links Burkina has a multimedia centre, located in the school area of Ouagadougou. The 12,000 pupils from the local primary, junior and high school can use it. Neither GTP nor World Links have an annual operating budget. They are funded by charities.

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The Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have to be integrated into the very heart of teaching. They cannot be seen as a new subject that is isolated from the others and considered to be something out of the ordinary that is for a very few pupils, but as a tool that is part of school life. “It is therefore essential to prepare learning activities that allow skills and know-how to be developed: a critical (try, select, check) and analytical approach is needed there in order to reflect, and learn in order to reach an evaluation. Without this evaluation, the different training that we are giving loses its impact and importance,” stressed Adama Traoré.

ICTs can lead to a diversification of the information sources, practising languages using real communication situations, increasing the motivation of the pupils, teaching using mathematics, life and earth science software. The research by the pupils into a subject area should not only be by just discussing a subject. In order to study a case, the pupils have to resort to various information sources, select those that are likely to provide the suitable answers and then reorganise them so that they can be disseminated.

Surfing online and exchanging messages without any educational purpose do not result in learning. The teacher has to include the activities using ICTs within a programme and encourage the pupils to question their knowledge. A research and synthesis approach has to be developed in the schools. The teacher cannot achieve this alone. The initiative therefore has to be a national one, in other words from the Education Ministry.

The necessary collaboration The deluge of field initiatives kills skills and distracts the people interested in new technologies applied to teaching, according to Abdoulaye Yatabaré. The lack of coordination and collaboration in the actions can be seen in the opportunities that arise and because everyone wants to be responsible and to run a structure. Abdoulaye Yatabaré therefore predicts: “We are facing a situation where we are driven to make an easy living and we forget about the fundamental. When the structures working at integrating ICTs in teaching do not combine their efforts, our forces will still be scattered and we will have nothing to contribute and will be the losers.”

ICTs first appeared in the Burkina schools some years back. The happy beneficiaries usually use it to exchange information (email, chat, documentary research). These technologies are never used as ‘teaching machines’, testing knowledge and providing and developing on the basis of a rationalised use of knowledge. In order for the new ICTs to be used as a teaching aid in the Burkina educational establishments, the teachers and policy makers need to thoroughly study the pedagogical conditions to be set up. ICTs are becoming wide spread. They will undoubtedly be essential communications and information tools in the future, and in near future, the Burkina schools will be able to brag that they know how to use them appropriately.

For further information contact iConnect coordinator Sylvestre Ouedraogo sylestre.ouedraogo@univ-ouago.bf i4d | April 2005

Turning Ghana’s youthful population into skilled human resource

By George Koomson Ghana aims to increase its per capita income from its current level of $400 to $1000 per annum within the next 10 to 15 years.

Included in plans to bring about this development, are turning the country’s large youthful population into a skilled human resource and increasing the percentage of her key technical and professional manpower. The plans identify e-Learning as a cost effective and quickest way of achieving this.

Among emerging initiatives being undertaken by private, non-governmental and public agencies to provide educational content through various electronic channels to different demographic groups, the Learning Centre of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) is one of the most successful ones. Since June 2000, the Learning Centre is delivering continuous professional training to public, private and civil society workers through a mix of channels including video conferencing and the Internet. Professionals in the judicial, local government and civil services have already undergone capacity building training at the Centre. The Centre has been particularly helpful when new concepts or reforms are being introduced. It has run courses aimed at preparing professionals and stakeholders for the liberalisation of telecommunication, democracy and governance, judicial reform, ICT governance, benefits and challenges, and courses on public transportation.

The GIMPA Learning Centre is one of 14 pilot centres sponsored by the World Bank around the world, to provide low cost capacity training programmes for professionals in both public and private sectors. Since its inception, the Centre has provided training to over a million people. The Learning Centre currently receives funding from the World Bank, supplemented by fees from course participants and rental charges from organisations which seek to use the Centre’s facilities for specific periods.

While most training programmes at the Learning Centre take place at the GIMPA campus and primarily involve continuous education for professionals, an e-learning programme, the Global Teenager Project (GTP), run by a non-governmental organisation, takes place at various primary and secondary schools which participate in its programmes. GTP typically delivers content through the Internet in learning circles of 10 weeks. Topics treated so far in the learning circles include democracy, human rights, AIDS, environment and diversity and globalisation. At least 5,000 pupils and students in Ghana have participated in one or more of the learning circles.

According to GTP coordinator Ebenezer Malcolm, GTP is currently operating in 3 of Ghana’s 10 regions and plans to add a fourth one shortly. Once a school joins the programme, GTP ensures the delivery of content while the schools provide the infrastructure in terms of computers and Internet link. Also, GTP provides initial training to teachers to become facilitators of the learning cycles.

But not all the schools which sign on have Internet link to their

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premises. Such schools often have to arrange with commercial internet café operators so that they can use their facilities at specified periods. The low level of telephony penetration in the country has also limited GTP’s ability to go to the rural area.

Even schools which have Internet access, do not always get reliable service, while other schools complain that the cost of the dial ups is too high. There have been occasions when GTP has borne some of the costs for connection, especially when the schools are in low-income areas. Other organisations such as district assemblies have also chipped in by providing free computers to some schools.

Despite these challenges, Malcolm says GTP has achieved more than it originally envisaged.

“The programme has enabled children to use different software, improve upon their research capacities as well as providing them with extra materials for their studies. But the programme is also a form of intercultural exchange, as Ghanaian school children are able to interact with children in other countries, revealing that even though the learning circles were originally intended for school children, some teachers in participating schools used the programmes to acquire computer skills. School administrators have taken advantage of the programme to acquire database management skills which is helping them to manage their work better,” Malcolm said.

By giving school children employable education, schools which run GTP appear to be ahead of the Government’s aim of making all Ghanaian school children IT literate.

By far though, the most ambitious e-Learning programme underway in Ghana is the President’s Special initiative on Distance Learning (PSI-DL). Launched on April 30, 2002 to ‘demonstrate how open college system bolstered by ICT would work throughout the nation,’ the initiative, which is in 3 phases, is about to enter its second phase which will run along the first.

The first phase focused on delivering English and mathematics lessons to Junior Secondary students during school hours on the national television, because according to the Programme Coordinator, Abena Agyakoma Kwarteng, these were the two subjects which have prevented a large number of Ghanaian youth from continuing with their education.

The government settled on television as the mode of delivery for the first phase because studies have showed that it was the most cost effective way of delivering the lessons to widest number of pupils.

The second phase of the PSI-DL, which is expected to start before the end of this year, will involve using a multiplicity of media, radio, television and Internet to deliver vocational, technical and teacher training education. The third and final phase, which will aim at the teaching of English and mathematics is slated to begin next year.

For further information contact iConnect coordinator John Yarney john_yarney@yahoo.co.uk

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Computers in Malian schools: The ‘Petits Saints’ experiment

By Moussa Bolly Turning computers into an efficient pedagogical tool is one of the goals of the Malian authorities today. If things are taking off slowly nationally, private initiatives are constantly exploring this field with greater or lesser success. And the experiment currently underway at Bamako’s ‘Les Petits Saints’ (The Small Saints) elementary school is certainly one of the most promising.

The name, ‘Les Petits Saints’ is literally translated as the Small Saints, it reflects the underlying desire of the teachers to make their protégés into future competent managers for Mali. The really unusual thing about the pre-school and primary teaching establishment is an improvised computer room. The children are fascinated by the computers. Under the supervision of a technician, the children learn to use the screen as a blackboard on which the 26 letters of the alphabet march by. It is such a strange experience to see something like this in Mali at this level. It is the result of the desire of a couple

contracted a pedagogical advisor and a psycho-pedagogic to supervise this teaching. The impact of this initiation is clear.

The SchoolNet Mali achievements SchoolNet Mali Môgôyajuru (humanism link in the national language, Bamabara) is a division of the pan-African non-governmental organisation, SchoolNet Africa (SNA). Its goal is to guarantee the promotion of learning and teaching through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in African schools.

This is in partnership with a network of SchoolNet partners operating in over 30 countries on the continent.

According to the project coordinator, Mr. Sounkalo Dembélé, it can all be traced back to ‘Bamako 2002’, a preliminary meeting of the international summit on the Information Society. The project took shape after many meetings. Today, its achievements are undeniable in Mali. Thus, in November 2003, an ambitious programme to fit out the education establishments (primary, secondary and vocational) with computer equipment and train the computer centre managers, together with instructors and maintenance technicians, was set up by SchoolNet Mali. Thanks to the support of USAID it has managed to acquire nearly 200 computers for the schools. In order to back this initiative, SchoolNet Môgôyajuru has trained nearly 400 teachers and pupils in marketing and managing the computer centres and in basic computer and maintenance skills.

Becoming more structured

School girls learning computer in Mali

of Evangelists to offer each child, coming under their care, a full basic education in all subjects. The initiation begins during the last year of pre-school when the children are around 5 years old. Reverend Mahamadou Traoré, former international football player and economist by profession is today the Pastor of the Bethel Evangelical Church and runs the school with his wife, Sarah.

The introduction to computers was naturally included in the teaching programme of this school when it started in 2001. “We organised the children into groups and we took them to the Internet café to start using computers. That was very expensive as we couldn’t pass on the cost in the monthly fees,” stressed Mrs. Sarah Traoré, who originally trained as a lawyer. But, “thanks to the SchoolNet project, we now have several computers”. This project, with the backing of silent partners such as the US Aid Department (USAID), has trained Mr. Traoré in the management and a technician in charge of introducing the children to the computers. According to the couple behind the project, every care is taken to ensure that this training is in line with the abilities of the pupils. They have

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“At the level of the Ministry of National Education, there is no long-term programme for the teaching of the ICTs which would be transformed into specific subjects at elementary and secondary levels”, pointed out Mr. Ousmane Berthé, the author of a report on ‘Mali’s ICT Training System’. The general belief is that the private education sector seems to be ahead, thanks to computer classes and more or less sound courses or study in higher education.

According to the various players that we have come across, the current status of the ICTs in the Malian educational system is far from satisfactory. There are blatant shortcomings. These include the lack of centralised information in the Department of Education, which makes it difficult to identify the establishments that offer a course of study in ICTs. There is also the further difficulty of the lack of standardisation in the ICT vocational training courses due to the lack of standards and norms regarding the training of instructors, education and the assessment of the level and quality of the different training in this field. There is lack of human resources as many of the instructors are contract workers coming from other professional fields. This leads Mr. Lassana Fofana of the Information and Communication Technologies Agency (AGETIC) to say that “the different initiatives undertaken in these fields are noted for their lack of structure. They are less coherent and isolated actions. It is therefore impossible to assess their impact”.

The State therefore now wants to organise the field by setting i4d | April 2005

up a development strategy of the ICTs in school, together with a mechanism to monitor and reliably assess their impact. This desire can be seen in the national document entitled ‘Politique et Plan stratégiques TIC’ (ICT Strategic Plan and Policy) validated during a national workshop in September 2004 (which still has not been adopted by the government). As far as education is concerned, this plan is aimed at introducing the ICTs as a qualified pedagogical training and learning tool in order to reduce the digital breach at all levels and to integrate them in the education programmes (formal and non formal), as well as at the level of research and school administration. Preparing appropriate curriculum and

pedagogical tools for teaching and learning ICTs is a core feature of this national structure whose implementation has been entrusted to the AGETIC in partnership with the Ministry of National Education.

All stakeholders acknowledge that these actions are now fundamental to ensure that the ICTs are organised in the schools and to achieve a synergy of action between the different players.

For further information contact iConnect coordinator Filifing Diakite filifing@journalist.com

ICT in Education: Content issues as Kiswahili reigns

By Aloyce Menda Today, there are more people within the education sector in Tanzania who are aware of the benefits of the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) than it was probably just over 12 months ago. Despite the reported rapid adoption of ICT into administration, education and several sectors of the economy, the greatest challenge still remains in the traditional mode of thinking - how can ICTs be demystified to appeal to the majority of the local population who still view them as tools designed for the minority elite.

Kiswahili is spoken by over 80 million people in east and central Africa, making it one of the most widely spoken languages in subSaharan Africa. Students in Tanzania and Kenya are taught Kiswahili as a subject in schools. Yet, efforts have just but began to make Kiswahili ‘Internet and ICT ready’ for the benefit of the community that speaks this language. It is probably the richest language in the region in terms of culture, semantics and phonology. It is believed that the readiness of Kiswahili in ICT has a direct impact on the development of ICT in Education, particularly in Tanzania where most government owned schools still use this language as a medium of instruction.

Experts argue that in the top-ten inhibitors to the use of ICT in Education the first two would be the language and the cost. For instance, to roll out a network of all secondary schools in the country would require billions of shillings in infrastructure and software. For this reason, several models have been suggested including that of the use of open source and the so called ‘thin clients’, which are basically low specification computers largely depending on a much stronger server.

To accept this challenge, some academicians at the University of Dar es Salaam and officials at the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) formed the Open Kiswahili Localisation Team, also known as ‘KiliNux’, from the combination of two words – Kiswahili and Linux – aimed at e-enabling Kiswahili as a way of demystifying ICTs. Early this year, the team presented their first edition of a Kiswahili spellchecker (http://www.o.ne.tz/ spellchecker) that works natively with Jambo OpenOffice.org. The spellchecker has been developed as the result of the compilation of numerous Kiswahili word lists. Jambo Spellchecker contains a total of 70,000 Kiswahili words and is released as free software.

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The Kamusi Project is an ongoing work of collaborative scholarship developing a free online dictionary and learning resources for Kiswahili. Established in 1994, it is the world’s most-used resource for the Kiswahili language, and the first result for Kiswahili, delivered by most Internet search engines ( http://www.yale.edu/swahili).

Tanzania is leading all countries of this region in use of Kiswahili by population and application in state affairs, business and social activities. Kiswahili is the official national language of 34.6 million people of Tanzania. The African Union (AU) approved Kiswahili as one of its official languages last year. Other official languages of AU are English, French, Portuguese and Arabic.

All pupils taking primary education - except few in private schools - learn all subjects in Kiswahili for seven years of basic education, making the language so critical in the implementation of ICT in education. However, the situation changes at higher levels of learning when the language becomes only a subject and not a medium of instruction in secondary schools and all higher learning institutions. On the other hand, English language is taught as a subject in all public primary schools, but becomes a medium of instruction in all subjects after the seven years of primary education. This system of education has been criticised in several forums but the government has refused to change it.

The critics suggest that there is need for policy change in the education sector as regards the use of Kiswahili. For consistency, they propose that one language (either Kiswahili or English) be used as a medium of instruction from primary level to the university. But while this debate continues, a new challenge has emerged when recently the Tanzanian government announced its intention to integrate ICT as a compulsory subject and a training tool in all secondary schools.

The Tanzanian Ministry of Education and Culture (MoEC) unveiled its project for compulsory ICT training in secondary schools during a stakeholders workshop held in Dar es Salaam early this year whose theme was “The future of ICT in Secondary Schools Strategizing for Implementation”. The workshop was sponsored by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and coordinated by MoEC. It was a unique workshop that probed and eventually set a foundation for integrating ICT in secondary education in Tanzania.

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According to official government statistics, the Tanzania’s gross enrolment levels for secondary education are among the lowest in the world. Secondary enrolment is no more than about 6% of primary enrolment, says the government. However, the government says secondary school enrolment is gradually increasing and by 2001 an increase of 10.6% in total enrolment was recorded compared to 2000.

The government decision to reduce taxation on computer imports and the 2003 National ICT Policy, which emphasises ICT application in all sectors of the economy, accelerated rapid growth of the ICT sector. Recently the government placed ICT among

development priorities in the Tanzanian Vision 2025, which is a compass of the national development plan to year 2025.The Vision 2025 is a focal point for several government policies including the national Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) and the National Education Policy. It is also compatible with the UNDP‘s Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which emphasise, among other things, the advancement of knowledge and people-centred communication for development and poverty reduction.

For further information contact iConnect coordinator Harry Hare, harry@aitecafrica.com

ICT and connectivity in Ugandan schools

By John Eremu There is disparity in performance between the urban and rural schools. At the same time, digital divide between urban and rural schools is also growing. It was perhaps against that background that in 1996, the World Links for Development Programme, an initiative of the World Bank Institute started connecting schools in developing countries to the Internet. However, while the benefits of ICT are enormous and schools show enough potential to act as the launching pad to a computer literate society, Uganda is one of the developing countries still without an ICT policy, thus, making it miss the advantages of the information super highway. The would-be policy has remained in a draft form since 1997.

The draft policy document has an ambitious programme of ICT connectivity in schools, but it will be a tall order fulfilling the dream because of the colossal amounts of money that shall be required for capital investment. Albert Byamugisha, the assistant commissioner for planning in the Ministry of Education and Sports says no budgetary provisions could be made for ICT because the policy was still in a draft form and is yet to be discussed by the ministry’s top management before it is forwarded to Cabinet. The initial investment in computer hardware is usually enormous. Currently the ministry is trying to have a wide area network (WAN) and if the policy is approved, the roll out would be in phases starting with schools on the national electricity distribution grid.

Nevertheless, several initiatives have been taken to make ICT available to schools. The major initiatives in this direction include the Uconnect and the SchoolNet projects.

Implementation The implementation of both the Uconnect and the SchoolNet project is being done within the Ministry of Education and Sports ICT framework. The ministry has provided free office accommodation for the two projects at the ministry’s headquarters in Kampala.

The basis of hosting the two projects within the ministry is in anticipation of a comprehensive ICT policy as schools start implementing the reviewed curriculum that has an ICT component.

The Uconnect Project aims at promoting ICTs in schools. It was incorporated in Uganda as a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in 1996 with the objective of advancing public education in Uganda using ICT as well as improving the quality and efficiency of communications through the provision of the necessary hardware

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and software. Students get education resources, distributed through the Distance Learning partnerships with international schools, colleges and universities.

SchoolNet Uganda is another project establishing ICT capacity in Ugandan schools. Incorporated as an NGO in December 2003, the project is a national network of professional educators and schools whose aim is to transform the Ugandan educational system from an industrial model (learning by assimilation) to a knowledgebased model in order to prepare the youth of Uganda to effectively enter a global economy based on knowledge, information and technology. The project supports Uganda educators and learners by providing pedagogical and technical expertise and advice, infrastructure and human resources, coordination, training and capacity building and developing local and international partnerships in the areas of Internet Connectivity, content and curriculum development. It also nurtures ICT talents through ICT holiday camps, website development competitions and encourages and facilitates the generation of local content.

Although the Uganda telecommunication sector was liberalised in 1996 by a policy framework and the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) was established in 1997 to spearhead the development of the telecom industry, less than one percent of Uganda’s 26 million population has access to the Internet or ICT services.

At the school level, the impact is still very low. Uganda has 13,353 primary and 2,070 secondary schools but only 106 schools have so far been connected to the Internet through both the Uconnect and SchoolNet projects. While the two organisations have taken the ICT initiative to the rural communities through telecentres, the services are still mainly confined to major urban centres.

Challenges The low level of Internet connectivity in Ugandan schools is due to the overall poor communications infrastructure, the low electricity coverage and the high capital costs involved in setting up a computer laboratory. One of the requirements for a school to benefit from either Uconnect or SchoolNet project is the installation of a telephone line in the computer laboratory. Until recently, Uganda had only one fixed line national telephone operator – the Uganda Telecommunications Limited, with a very poor and dilapidated network. This denied many rural schools a chance to get Internet i4d | April 2005

services. However, other operators, Mobile Telecom Network (MTN) and Celtel, with their advanced systems, have somehow alleviated the problem of limited network coverage, but they are very costly for an average rural school in Uganda.

The other drawbacks are the prohibitive recurrent telephone cost that makes it possible for only the so-called ‘First World’ schools in urban areas to afford a maximum of one hour of internet connectivity per day. Schools typically spend between US $200 and US $300 per month on telephone bills accruing from Internet connectivity, a cost too high for average rural schools, even where electricity and telephone services exist.

Solutions Due to the challenges and high costs of connecting Uganda schools to the Internet over fixed/cellular telephone line infrastructure, World Links/SchoolNet Uganda piloted wireless spread spectrum connectivity using microwave modems. This has proved to be both technically and financially viable for schools in and around the capital, Kampala. Currently, 13 SchoolNet Uganda educational institutions are all using microwave wireless links to connect to the local Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

Teachers from Lakeroad PTA School in Zambia

All these efforts in ICT and education in Uganda will encourage a more educated society that will contain the most skilled and financially rewarded workforce in the country.

For further information contact iConnect coordinator Davis Joseph Weddi dweddi@newmission.co.ug

Zambian teenagers’ ICTs skills boosted

By Tovin Ngombe In whatever human trait you view ICTs, most people have widely accepted that it plays a key role in shaping the social economic development of any society. However, the spreading of ICTs in the African countries, though at a slow pace, is a non-stop venture, and the benefits are many.

The Global Teenager Project (GTP), launched in 1999 by 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.

Twice a year, about 8 to 12 classes from different schools in Zambia have been linked up via email to form ‘Virtual Learning Circles’, which is the core activity of the GTP. 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. Students discuss a theme of their choice – selected from a list of 14 subjects – for a period of 10 weeks and the outcomes of their discussions are posted on the Virtual Campus, a place where students exchange knowledge.

The teachers and students participating in the GTP are enthusiastic about the topics discussed and the learning that takes place through access to other sources of information and chatting with students internationally, while at the same time acquiring ICT skills.

Rhodes Park School is the only school in the country that has introduced French in the learning circle to encourage pupils linking up with countries that do not speak English, thus getting an understanding of other cultures while, at the same time, improving their French. However, a recurring obstacle in participating in the project is the lack of access and connectivity.

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Teacher-in-charge of Lake Road PTA School, Robby Mukwato says that although they discussed very rich and interesting topics, the dissemination of information was not enough. “We had to go to the Internet cafés to complete our work, since only one computer is connected to the Internet and we had a time frame of using the Internet for one hour only, which it was not enough to communicate on the Virtual Campus.”

Chongwe High School, situated 45 km along the great east road from Lusaka city, had no computers before the GTP started. This school was picked for a pilot project and received seven computers from GTP and two second hand computers from the Computers for Zambian Secondary Schools. Although the pupils have learnt researching skills using the computer, the knowledge is not fully exploited owing to the lack of Internet connectivity at the school.

Students had to be travelling for a distance of about 45 kms to go to Microlink Technologies, an Internet service provider, where they used to have access to the Internet. The distance at times delayed the pupils in responding to e-mails from their friends in the Learning Circle. Students that participated in the 2004 Learning Circles and now have graduated, reported that they gained valuable knowledge and skills from the project, in some cases leading to finding employment requiring ICT skills.

Zambia is among the third world countries that have not realised much in the ICT arena yet, but its ICT draft policy has placed top prioritiy on achieving universal access by 2010. The policy has outlined that without adequate and reliable connection to information and knowledge networks, the country would be excluded from participating in the global village.

For further information contact iConnect coordinator Tovin Ngombe, tngombe@yahoo.co.uk

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M AXIMISING

THE

T ECHNOLOGY O PTIONS

ICT solution for schools Introduction Information and Communication Technologies have become an integral part in all aspects of life. Over the past twenty years, the use of ICT has changed the practices and procedures within business and governance. ICT has begun its presence within education, but the impact has not been extensive as it is in other fields. The use of ICT in education is more student-centred learning and with the world moving rapidly into digital media and information, the role of ICT in education is becoming more and more important.

To implement ICT in education, the teachers need to have ICT skills to create a powerful learning environment. The teacher’s role shifts from transferring knowledge to guiding the learning processes. In today’s knowledge-based society, information is growing rapidly and is becoming increasingly available. Thus education cannot merely focus on transfer of knowledge. The more important fact is that students learn how to search, select, process and use information. The teacher has to guide these processes.

ICT in the classroom Initially, educators saw the use of ICT in the classroom mainly as a way to teach computer literacy. Slowly technology is changing the way teachers teach and students learn. In the hands of students the computer becomes a powerful tool in gathering, manipulating, synthesising and presenting information. However, the traditional chalk and talk method in the classroom has continued.

The role of technology in the classroom Today learning is information processing and knowledge creation. This requires rich digital content that is flexible and customised to meet the need of different learning styles. Students use IT for active learning.

Technology is being used in education as a tool for learning, collaboration, curriculum development, and staff development.

Interactive software teaching packages are available for different levels of national curriculum. Once technology moves to the classroom under what we call the Smart_Class Model, the impact on teaching learning will be as follows: • smart_class™ programme has been conceptualised and developed to effectively overcome some of the key obstacles that schools encounter while adopting any technology initiatives:

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• 80% of time is spent by students and teachers in classrooms, smart_class™ moves technology right into the classrooms and makes it an integral part of the teaching-learning process in schools; • Teachers do not find time to create digital materials for teaching, smart_class™ provides teachers with ready-made teaching resources mapped to their specific timetables; • Teachers need real time support when they use technology for teaching, smart_class™ provides schools with dedicated manpower to hand hold teachers and support them whenever and wherever required; • Most technology initiatives attempt to change the role of a teacher, smart_class™ programme allows the teacher to use a mix of traditional and modern teaching tools while teaching without having to change the way they are used to traditional methods of teaching in classrooms.

How does smart_class™ work?

•

A powerful smart_class™ application engine enables teachers to make a request for digital teaching resources for a select set of topics/subject that they plan to teach during the forthcoming week/month or term.

They do this at the knowledge centre using one of the teacher PCs available.

• The resource coordinator deployed on a full time basis by Educomp in the knowledge centre makes a search for the suitable resources from the vast library of teaching materials, which are made available to her

by Educomp. She then allocates the relevant materials to the teachers as per their specific request.

• The teachers can choose to access the resources allocated to them at the knowledge centre and plan their lessons for the forthcoming classes.

• The teacher is then ready to use the digital resources in the smart_class TM room where she accesses the chosen resource with the help of a user ID and displays the materials on the multiple display monitors for students to view as she teaches the chosen topic.

• However, the real measure of the effectiveness of technologies and technology-enhanced educational programmes is the extent to which they promote and support students’ learning and collaboration activities.

Soumya Kanti Educomp Datamatics Limited, India soumya.kanti@edumatics.com i4d | April 2005

ICTD Project Newsletter

‘Imagineering’ rural friendly solutions Project ASHWINI of Byrraju Foundation With regard to Governance, ICTs can facilitate improved communication between government, private sector and civil society. Byrraju Foundation’s Project ASHWINI seeks to enable a platform for multi-dimensional interaction between experts and service providers in towns/cities and defined target segments in 32 villages in Andhra Pradesh in order to empower rural population through access to information and services.

The secret to Walt Disney’s success is not just dreaming, it’s IMAGINEERING. One can’t find this word in a dictionary.

The word combines the words ‘imagination’ and ‘engineering’. Imagineering has been responsible for more than 100 Disney-owned patents in such areas as ride systems, special effects, interactive technology, live entertainment, fiber optics and advanced audio systems. In the book ‘Imaginers’, Disney’s CEO, Michael Eisner, claims that ‘imaginers turn impossible dreams into real magic’. Walt Disney explained there is really no secret to their approach. They just

keep moving forward-opening new doors and doing new things, because they are curious. And it is this curiosity that leads them down new paths. They always dream, explore and experiment.

In short, Imagineering is the blending of creative imagination and technical know-how.

(Reference: http://disney.go.com/disneycareers/college/wdi/)

Introduction It has been established that information and communication technology (ICT) based delivery of services in rural areas

holds immense potential in terms of making large-scale delivery of quality services possible. But the issues of optimisation of resource usage and broadening the service delivery framework remain unresolved. Intellectual capital, more often than financial capital is the key to success in the knowledge economy. Ideas, information, innovation and technology are the new engines for rural transformation. A number of multilateral organisations have reflected on the elements of governance and their relation to development. For the World Bank, the essence of governance is sound development management, and the key dimensions of governance are public sector management, accountability, the legal framework for development, and information and transparency. Accordingly, and building upon the approach of the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank has identified four basic elements of good governance: accountability, participation, predictability, and transparency (ADB Policy Paper 1995).

With regard to Governance, ICT can facilitate improved communication between the government, private sector and civil society. The strategic choice is whether to accept the rapidly growing gap caused by a very asymmetric architecture of opportunities or whether to use ICTs in a creative manner to level the playing field in economic, social, cultural and political terms (Gerolf Weigel 2004).

Most of the rural areas suffer on account of lack of right information regarding the markets, products, agriculture, health, weather, education etc. and if all these can be addressed through connectivity, a sea change can be brought in the conditions of the rural communities. It can’t be denied that the interface between the governments and

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the citizens that presents a relationship of a benefactor - beneficiary has to be transformed to a principal-client one.

Technology can act as a strong catalyst in this regard (Sanjay Jaju, eSeva, 2003).

Byrraju Foundation Byrraju Foundation (www.byrraju foundation.org) is a not-for-profit organisation, working for rural transformation with over a million people in 142 villages across 5 districts of Andhra Pradesh. The Foundation seeks to build progressive self-reliant rural communities, with a holistic approach, by providing services in the areas of healthcare, environment, sanitation, primary education, adult literacy and skills development. The primary objective of the Foundation is to create a world-class platform for sustainable rural transformation based on the guiding principles that consider people as the wealth, knowledge and technology as tools.

The Foundation’s Project ASHWINI seeks to enable a platform for multi-dimensional interaction between experts and service providers in towns/cities and defined target segments in 32 villages in Andhra Pradesh in order to empower rural population through access to information and services.

Project ASHWINI caters to the village

in its entirety. It takes technology from a level where it provides information, to a level where it can provide online interaction. It uses a combination of terrestrial and wireless technologies to provide a 2 Mbps bandwidth to each of the 32 villages covered through a cluster system impacting over 500,000 lives in the 32 villages where the project is grounded and the neighbouring villages which will have access to the facilities, being provided through this project.

The services to be delivered have been classified under the domain of health, education, literacy, livelihoods, banking, government services, ‘Little MBA’ etc.

The key differentiator for the project is real-time interaction.

ASHWINI centres will be established in each village from where the village population will be connected to experts and service providers in variou fields of knowledge and practice. To bring focus into the endeavour, one subject (health, governance etc) is taken up each day.

Each day is further divided into Knowledge Blocks (KB) of 2 hours each. Every KB covers one sub-topic in the broad area (e.g. Gynecology, Pediatrics etc under the broad area of health). Using this system, people with specific issues/queries would be able to connect to the corresponding expert virtually at their doorstep. The other enabling feature of

A new learning experience: Explaining the concept of Ashwini to the students

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the system is that it links up online connectivity with offline activity as well.

During each KB, the relevant service providers (medical shops, diagnostic centres for health; fertiliser companies etc for agriculture) would also be able to communicate to the target customers.

Thus, a person from the audience who has interacted with experts as well as service providers, will be able to make the best decisions for his/her immediate concerns. These decisions can then be translated into action by further consultation/purchase of goods etc. The facility therefore provides a platform for the best in class experts to work with the rural population to evolve solutions to address their immediate needs, (a model propounded by World Development Report, 2004).

The local community in each village is an equal partner in the implementation of this project. It is represented by the Foundation’s Grama Vikasa Samiti, a democratically constituted 9-member body of men, women and youth of the village. The community would be responsible for: • Ensuring social sustainability of the project, • Managing collection and usage of user charges and other revenues, • Financial investment in the project.

In economic terminology, Project ASHWINI would be providing virtual market services, giving beneficiaries access for buying or selling of goods and services that go beyond their immediate territory, thus widening business/growth opportunities. This will facilitate an increase in the Gross Domestic Product of each village and create business life cycles that will benefit the entire community translating into : • providing urban quality facilities to rural areas in a focused manner for targeted population segments; • linking up online activities with their off line counterparts to shift the emphasis purely from technology to the USE of technology; • providing rural friendly solutions

which will enable each and every person in the village to take advantage of the facility; • ensuring community stake holding through financial as well as social investment.

Review of literature High-quality access, attainable through broadband, has great potential to help improve delivery of essential services required to meet basic human needs through applications such as e-Education and e-Health, e-Business and other ICT applications (Tokyo Declaration, 2003).

Low-cost access to information infrastructure is a necessary prerequisite for the successful use of ICT by the poor, but it is not sufficient. The implementation of ICT projects needs to be performed by organisations and individuals who have the appropriate incentives to work with marginalised groups. An interesting example is ‘The Computer Assisted Learning (CAL)’ programme in Vadodara implemented by Pratham, an NGO, established in Mumbai in 1994 with support from UNICEF and has since then expanded to several other cities in India. It takes advantage of both a policy put in place by the government of Gujarat in 2000 as well as the established infrastructure of the balsakhi program.

The government delivered four computers to each of 100 municipal primary schools in the city (80% of the public schools). A survey conducted by Pratham in June 2002 suggested that very few of these computers were actually used by children in elementary grade levels. While some schools may have run programmes for older students or allowed teachers to use them for administrative tasks, most of the computers remained in their boxes, for want of anyone capable of operating them.

Pratham had previous experience with computer assisted learning, having run a small computer assisted learning program in Mumbai for several years. In particular, they had developed instructional software in the local language,

Gujarati. After consultation with the Vadodara Municipal Corporation, they introduced a computer assisted learning program in half of the VMC schools, using the computers already present when possible and replacing or adding computers where necessary. Pratham designed the program to Women exploring the probable income-generating opportunities through allow the children to learn Ashwini as independently as possible. The in- through interactions within and among structors encouraged each child to play the state, civil society and private sector games that challenged the student’s (UNDP Strategy Note on Governance for level of comprehension, and when nec- Human development, 2004). essary, they helped individual children Serving the Bottom of Pyramid (BOP) understand the tasks required of them consumers (poor) will demand innovato play the game. A motivated group tions in technology, products and can thus bring a positive change to com- services, and business models. More plement government initiatives. Fur- importantly, it will require large firms thermore, grassroots intermediaries and to work collaboratively with civil societhe involvement of the community are ty organisations and local governments. identified as the key factors that foster Market development at the BOP will also local ownership and the availability of create millions of new entrepreneurs at content and services that respond to the the grass roots level - from women, most pressing needs of the poor. (Simone working as distributors and entrepreCecchhini and Christopher Scott, 2003). neurs to village-level micro enterprises.

However, an analysis of over 30 These micro enterprises will be an inteprojects in India show that only a hand- gral part of the market-based ecosystem. ful of projects would satisfy both the It will require organisational as well as criteria of high quality services and governance innovations (C. K. Prahalcommunity participation. Government ad, 2004). This implies applying Business of India too has recently finalised a Process Reengineering (BPR) principles policy to accelerate the growth of Broad- in the design and delivery of several band services, recognising the potential government related services. of ubiquitous broadband service in growth of GDP and enhancement in Current progress quality of life through societal applica- Ram Gopal from Byrraju Foundation tions including tele-education, tele-med- says, “In order to assess the requireicine, e-Governance, entertainment as ments of the stakeholders, we have well as employment generation by way conducted a detailed Needs Assessment of high speed access to information and Study among the selected villages where web-based communication (Preamble, ASHWINI will be implemented. This is Broadband policy, October 2004). The in addition to a detailed mapping of other critical issue is the design of every family in these villages in terms of services/products for the rural poor their socio-economic profiles. This has including good governance. Governance given the Foundation an insight into the is the system of values, policies and expectations regarding the services as institutions, by which a society manages well as their preferences on timings, its economic, political and social affairs convenience etc.

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The Foundation’s project team has had detailed interaction with the communities in these 32 villages and the response has been overwhelming so far.

The village communities not only acknowledge their responsibilities, but are also willing to contribute their might, both in financial and non-financial terms.

Prelude to ASHWINI A pilot implementation prior to Ashwini called I-SHRAVAN(Improving School Education & Health in Rural Areas using Virtual Access Network) was successfully implemented in two of the villages. By taking advantage of the availability of qualified and popular doctors and teachers virtually in the small and large towns in the vicinity of villages, it enables a virtual experience to the patients and students to obtain quality healthcare and education services at their own villages. This project has helped in clearing some of the apprehensions that a few grassroot level implementation agencies had on Project ASHIWNI. Some participants commented:

“A useful effort” I-Shravan Program, and the teaching methods it involves currently, is benefiting our school. Usually, most of the schools have a tight fit timetable resulting in a situation where expertise on certain issues in subjects could have been unintentionally marginalised. Subjects like Mathematics, Physics, Biology and English need more attention. In this context, the efforts initiated by the Foundation in introducing teaching through Multi Locations Video Conference is exemplary, more so, as our school is one of those where this is being experimented. I say with conviction that this innovative method is gathering positive response from the students, especially to the Class X students who prepare for the Public Exam.

Experts in the above mentioned subjects from Bhimavaram are advising students-through their teaching and answering questions posed by the students’.

We, at our school, are practicing the lessons taught in the process by experts from Bhimavaram via this technology. We are confident to get better results in the forthcoming public exams and we are happy that the Foundation is involved in such a remarkable change in our school.

Mr. Peddi Raju, Head Master, ZP High School, Ardhavaram , Andhra Pradesh

“Listening to lessons through T.V” Teachers from Bhimavaram are currently teaching us through T. V for nearly 45 minutes in each subject every day, and are focusing on Mathematics, English, Physics and Natural Sciences. Apart from clearing our doubts, the teachers from Bhimavaram advise us on crucial questions to focus upon. In each of the class through T.V., concerned subject teachers from our school participate and subsequently make us learn. We like this teaching program and we are able to learn more though the T.V. Vijaya Lakshmi, Gautami, Ratna Kumari, Naga Srinu Students, Class X, ZP High School, Ardhavaram, Andhra Pradesh

“Good program” The method of teaching under Byrraju Foundation’s Project I-Shravan is very creative. It uses appropriate audio-video techniques in making education accessible to students in schools located in rural settings. Generally, students show more interest when they are exposed to teaching through a T.V. Teaching through Multi Locations Video Conference is also new to us. This enables teachers like me to address and interact with students from many schools in villages at any given point of time.

M.K.V. Bose, Expert Teacher (English)

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Some of the villages have readily agreed to provide the civil structures for the ASHWINI centres and in some cases appropriate sites have been earmarked.

Project ASHWINI’s vision is to be bring information, interaction, and eventually, transaction capability to villages, which will enable the village population to make informed decisions, and to translate such decisions into immediate action, thereby paving the way towards the goal of rural transformation.

Project partners: • National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) • Media Lab Asia

References 1. ADB, (1995) ADB Policy Paper Governance: Sound Development Management.

2. Sachdeva, S. (2002) E-Governance Strategy in India.

3. UNDP (2003) ICT for Pro Poor Governance (2003-07), UNDP India 4. Weigel, G. & Waldburger, D. ICT4d – Connecting People for a Better World - Lessons, Innovations and Perspectives of Information and Communication Technologies in Development, Published by SDC & GKP 5. Cecchini, S. and Scott, C. (2003) Can Information and Communications Technology Applications Contribute to Poverty Reduction? Lessons from Rural India.

6. Prahalad, C.K. (2004) Fortune at the Bottom of Pyramid – Eradicating poverty through profits, Wharton Publishing.

7. Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India Broadband Policy 2004 - File No.813-07/03-LR, Department of Telecommunications 8. Jaju. S. (2003) E-Seva 9. World Bank, (2004) World Development Report NISG and i4d reserve the right to reprint articles produced for the ICTD section of the i4d magazine and website, with due credits to NISG and i4d. Please write to the editor for any request of reprints.

Books received New Technologies and Education in Developing Countries Assessing the application of multimedia to improve education in rural Niger and Burkina Faso Publisher : International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD), pages 29 Author: Jechiam Gural The participants in this research project are SNV (Netherlands Development Organisation), IICD (International Institute for Communication and Development) and Noterik & Doonder Multimedia.

The rural areas of West African countries are suffering from lack of basic educational resources. SNV and IICD join together in order to improve the conditions of the rural community schools as part of the ongoing battle against poverty. They have requested Noterik & Doonder Multimedia to conduct a study on the applicability of multimedia technologies in the field of education in the West African countries like Niger and Burkina Faso. The recent developments in satellite technologies have activated this study.

The study shows that the combination of satellite services, multimedia technologies and community radios can mount up to a very powerful and cost-effective information architecture for rural areas. SNV has implemented communication infrastructure in rural areas with the help of community radios.

A growing interest in the use of new technologies for educational programmes is the core thrust within the framework of this research project. The topics that have been addressed within the scaffold of this research project are: Interest in applying new multimedia technologies for educational purpose (SMIL/Realnet works); Interest in participating in pilot projects in this field; Skill level to adopt new multimedia technologies; Possible distribution channels for multimedia content; Ability to develop multimedia and educational content; Costs for implementing an ICT based educational platform; Identifying partners for this platform and Sharing of digital educational information and related political issues in West Africa.

Memories and Marvels Using Mind Maps to Design Web Sites & CD-ROMs about Heritage and Culture in the Asia-Pacific A Guide for young people and youth organisations Publisher: UNESCO Bangkok, pages 115 ISBN 974-680-219-4 April 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

This handbook furnishes practical advice on building multimedia CD-ROMs and websites. But multimedia experience will become informative and enjoyable only when technical skills are perfectly blended with careful project design. This book is offering principles of Mind Mapping which helps design multimedia project.

Mind Mapping is already popular among people and organisations worldwide. This system helps to assimilate information in an easy manner and then directs the best way to disseminate it across.

This handbook also encourages using one’s new multimedia skills to explore the cultural and natural heritage of Asia and the Pacific. The instances drawn in this book are from the region’s heritage recognised by UNESCO as belonging to the world and humankind.

The book is divided into few parts such as Mind Maps and Project Design, Creating Multimedia, Creating CD-ROMs and Web Sites and Memories and Marvels.

Speaking Out Women’s economic empowerment in South Asia Edited by: Marilyn Carr, Martha Chen and Renana Jhabvala Publisher: Intermediate Technology Publications Ltd., pages 238 ISBN 1-85339-382-7 The book assimilates the experiences of seven South Asia NGOs in organising rural and urban poor women for economic empowerment. It also analyses and defines economic empowerment of women from the perspective of themselves.

The book has depicted various case studies, which reflects how women are achieving the control and leadership over several economic resources and that is leading to some far-reaching influences on the socio-cultural and political changes at the individual, family, community and wider economy levels. It also describes how women are being able to build up control over their own organisations, which are becoming increasingly more autonomous and financially self-reliant.

The case studies are divided into various parts such as the Village and Community Organisations that tells about the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) in Northern Pakistan, Transforming Women’s Economies: Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and about the organisation named Proshika in Bangladesh.

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March 2005@BytesforAll Discussion Group, as usual was another exciting and happening month with very interesting and insightful discussions. Here is the brief summary of various discussion threads.

Open Source Whether or not FLOSS theories and philosophies could be applied in other intellectual fields A new course on FLOSS politics at Goteborg University, Sweden has been started. The course focuses on whether FLOSS theories and philosophies could be applied in other fields of intellectual endeavours or not. This is an opportunity to study the philosophical foundations and theories that have developed in the open source/free software field. The course participants will continue their study of the phenomenon and also be given the opportunity to discuss the new issues these development philosophies have given rise to. www.gu.se/English/default.html Code.google.com - place for FLOSS code Code.google.com is Google’s place for external developers interested in Google-related development. It’s where Google publishes free source code and lists of API services. http://code.google.com/index.html VTU-FLOSS Campaign This is a very interesting FLOSS Campaign initiated at the Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) Belgaum, Karnataka State, India. A written online petition addressed to the Vice Chancellor requests opening wider software avenues for students through Free Software in the university. The petition covers benefits and new opportunities FLOSS brings to the users. More and more people from all over the world are signing up this petition. http:// bangalore.gnu.org.in/?VTU-FLOSS_Campaign Open access archiving: an idea whose time has come Frederick Noronha shared a very informative article by David Dickson written in the context of various burning issues around open access to scientific publications and archiving. The article covers on-going controversy around demands for open access to refereed published research, the viewpoint of publishers and challenges for developing countries. There is a need that OA archiving should be given much higher attention in policy circles within developing countries that it does at present. It is hoped that a larger consensus on issues will be arrived at during forthcoming second phase of World Summit on the Information Society. http://www.scidev.net/ Editorials index.cfm?fuseaction= readEditorials&itemid =150&\language=1 Open Source Law Centre opens doors An article on ‘Open source law centre’ was shared with bytesforall members. This article is about $4 million investment made by the Open Source Development Labs, which have created a centre to provide free legal support to free and open source software (FOSS) projects. This article can be found online at the following location: http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3466751

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Bangla Firefox Omi Azad shared this exciting news about new Bangladeshi version of FireFox 1.0.2. Mozilla Firefox is getting popular day by day as Internet browser. Looking at FireFox’s increasing popularity and to ease Bangla computing for Bangla speaking community, Mozilla has introduced FireFox’s Bangla interface to Bangla users and released a Bangla language (bn-BD) extension for Mozilla FireFox 1.0.2. Bytesforall requests all the members to share similar developments in their countries (if any) so that a repository of such initiatives can be maintained at the website. http://firefox.ekushey.org New Zealand’s health ministry dumps Windows for Linux Sreekanth of mahiti.org shared this news that New Zealand’s Ministry of Health is going back to Linux for its mission-critical applications. It is due to windows poor management controls and problems with data centre operations. This can also serve as a reference for any large-scale implementation of open source software.

Freescale makes Linux move in China Freescale makes Linux move in China by planning to establish a lab based in Beijing to develop complete evaluation systems for the open operating system (OS) and PowerPC core. In addition to establishing the joint lab, Freescale and CSIP are planning a joint PowerPC Linux Developers Forum in Beijing. The forum will provide Chinese OEMs, software companies, universities and government entities hands-on training with PowerPC processor and Linux OS technologies, and it will also update the participants on the PowerPC architecture and Freescale product roadmap. http:/ /www. reed-electronics.com/electronicnews/article/CA507035. html?industryid=21371

e-Governance Drug Control Department – e-Governance CD The Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, India, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, released a CD comprising an e-Governance solution for the Drug Control Department. Commenting on the project, he said eGovernance ensured transparency, while saving time and energies for stakeholders in getting information and downloading applications. With comprehensive information on various issues related to the subject, the CD details 336 court judgments. http://www. nalsartech.org/tiki/tiki read_article. php?articleId=3018 ebase - Community Relationship Management Prayas Abhinav shared an interesting piece of information on ebase - Community Relationship Management tool. ebase is powerful software which is a completely nonprofit database solution.

With its comprehensive features, ebase provides a set of robust and powerful tools to help with contact management, prospects and donor tracking, volunteer management, gift and pledge management, creating letters, labels and envelopes, email broadcast list management, response analysis and exporting and importing data. In fact, ebase is designed to help organisations become self-sufficient. http://www.ebase.org i4d | April 2005

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Maharashtra - Parivartan.net Parivartan.net is growing into a full-fledged portal with 25 different services, under the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation.

Its goal is ICTs for agriculture, and it has a network of info-mediaries, offers information to farmers’ queries, and promotes courses like a certificate course in good agricultural practices. They also have 6-7 CDs on mango cultivation, bio-fertilisers, mushroom cultivation, medicinal plants, dairy management and with a couple more under development. www.parivartan.net Survey on SME in India This survey is part of a larger study to examine the growth of entrepreneurship in India with the growth of information systems.

The study is being done with the sponsorship of ICSSR, in association with IIT, Delhi. Dr Susan Sharma, who holds a Ph.D Degree from IIT Delhi in Management Information Systems with inputs from Dr. Sudhir K. Jain, Chairman, Entrepreneurship Programme and Associate Professor, Department of Management Studies, IIT, Delhi, will analyse the results of the study. http://www. indianwildlifeclub.com/mainsite/icsb.asp

University’s School of Environment and Development, including details on how to apply, can be found at: http://www.sed. manchester.ac.uk/postgraduate/funding/gtf/ Amader Gram Second Knowledge Fair 2005 Amader Gram (Our Villages) is an ICT4D initiative of Bangladesh Friendship Education Society (BFES). The project is based on the village society and it is conceived/planned to build up as a demonstrative social innovation. The second knowledge fair will be held on 15-16 December 2005 at the Sreefaltala Village, Rampal, Bagerhat. http://www.amadergram.org

Publications The Journal of Community Informatics: The “Sustainability of Community ICTs” issue The second issue of the peer reviewed Journal of Community Informatics is available online. This issue focuses the theme ‘Sustainability of Community ICTs’. The journal is available online at: http://ci-journal.net

Internet Governance

Miscellaneous

Regional Survey on Internet Governance APDIP/UNDP is conducting a regional online survey on Internet Governance. NGOs/CSOs/ People’s Organisations in the AsiaPacific region have been particularly requested to participate in this survey. The purpose of this survey is to gather inputs around the ongoing global discussions within the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). APDIP informed that about 850 responses to this survey were received to which only 10% came from civil society organisations. CSOs from around the region are requested to respond to this survey so that their voices are adequately reflected. http://survey.igov.apdip.net/

New PC-based communication tool for children with cerebral palsy A special type of foot-operated PC-based communicating tool for children with cerebral palsy has been developed by the industrial design centre of the IIT, Mumbai in cooperation with the Happy Hours Centre from suburban Khar. This special tool can be used as an effective communication device by physically disabled children, including those affected by cerebral palsy. http://www.idc.iitb.ac.in/

Draft Electronic Data Protection and Safety Act 2005 – Pakistan The Draft of Electronic Data Protection and Safety Act enacted by Ministry of IT and Telecommunication in Pakistan is placed on the website of Pakistan Software Export Board for critical comments and feedback. The Draft is available at the following link : http:// www.pseb.org.pk/study/Electronic%20Data%20Protection %20&%20Safefy%20Act%202005%20-Draft.pdf

Events and Announcements ICTs and Development PhD Fellowships at Manchester The University of Manchester, UK has announced to provide a set of graduate teaching fellowships which can be used to support PhD study in topics on ICTs/information systems and socio- economic development. The deadline for applications is May 6, 2005.

Further details on the fellowship scheme, which is provided by the April 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

36 percent of software used worldwide is pirated A survey has reported that around 36 percent of the software installed on computers worldwide in 2004 was pirated, representing a loss of about 29 billion dollars to companies. The survey was conducted by research firm International Data Corporation for Business Software Alliance. The study found that while 80 billion dollars’ worth of software was installed on computers worldwide last year, only 51 billion dollars’ worth was legally purchased.

Cyberlinks and religion: Gita now on a CD-Rom A new religious CD-Rom on Gita has been launched. The CDROM a ‘Collectors Edition’, provides an explanation of Shlokas in English, recitation of Shlokas in Sanskrit, a huge Contents of interactive glossary, written formats in Devnagri, Sanskrit and English. http://fn.swiki.net http://goabooks.swiki.net Bytes for All: www.bytesforall.org or www.bytesforall.net Bytes for All Readers Discussion: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ bytesforall_readers To subscribe: bytesforall_readers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com Compiled by Shahzad Ahmad of Bytes for All, Pakistan

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D ISASTER F EATURE

Battling disasters!

British Prime Minister to push global warning system at the forthcoming G-8 summit An early global warning system against natural disasters such as the tsunami has been mooted by the British government, and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is expected to push it at the forthcoming summit of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrialised countries to be held in Scotland under his chairmanship. Media reports say that the summit, to which India has also been invited along with China, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, will be urged to commit itself to plan for an international ‘alarm network’ aimed at reducing the devastating impact of disasters such as tsunami, earthquakes and volcanoes.

Nagapattinam to install India’s first warning system on weather conditions An NGO at Nagapattinam, a district of the Indian State of Tamil Nadu is going to install the country’s first warning system on weather conditions for fishermen of four coastal districts of Kovalam in Kancheepuram, Cudaloor, Nagapattinam and Kanyakumari. The knowledge centre will use data from ISRO, ICRISAT and Microsoft, besides many Canadian and US sources. The Tata Relief Committee, an NGO promoted and funded by the Tata group, in association with the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, is setting up the Rural Knowledge Centre, the first of its kind in the country. They will use the public address system to disseminate information on weather conditions, fish catch availability, sea tide behaviour, etc.

DST ties up with Japanese government to develop an early tsunami warning system The Department of Science and Technology (DST) in India proposes to have a longterm collaboration with the Japanese government to develop an early tsunami

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Guide to your disaster plan Following the recent earthquakes and disastrous Tsunami in South Asia, it is evident that disasters can strike quickly and without warning. Sometimes even the local government authorities fail to issue warning at the right time. Local officials and relief workers will be on the scene after a disaster, but they cannot reach everyone right away.

Red Cross provides a four-step guide, which can help you and your family to cope with disaster by preparing in advance and working together as a team.

STEP 1 Find out what could happen to you Ask what types of disasters are most likely to happen. Request information on how to prepare for each.

Learn about your community’s warning signals: what they sound like and what you should do when you hear them.

Find out how to help elderly or disabled persons, if needed.

Next, find out about the disaster plans at your workplace, your children’s school or daycare centre and other places where your family spends time.

STEP 2 Create a disaster plan Discuss the types of disasters that are most likely to happen. Explain what to do in each case.

Pick two places to meet:

warning system which includes real-time monitoring of earthquakes and data handling and R&D. This is a separate initiative by the government apart from the recently proposed Rs 125 crore-Indian Ocean Early Warning System project. RK Chadha, scientist at NGRI said that DST, through the

1. Right outside your home in case of a sudden emergency, like a fire.

2. Outside your neighbourhood in case you can’t return home. Everyone must know the address and phone number. Ask an out-of-state friend to be your “family contact.”

Discuss what to do in an evacuation.

STEP 3 Complete this checklist Post emergency telephone numbers by phones (fire, police, ambulance, etc.).

Teach children how and when to call your local Emergency Medical Services number for emergency help.

Show each family member how and when to turn off the water, gas and electricity at the main switches. Check if you have adequate insurance coverage.

Teach each family member how to use the fire extinguisher (ABC type), and show them where it’s kept.

Stock emergency supplies and assemble a Disaster Supplies Kit. Determine the best escape routes from your home and find the safe spots in your home for each type of disaster.

STEP 4 Practice and maintain your plan Quiz your kids every six months so they remember what to do.

Conduct fire and emergency evacuation drills.

Test and recharge your fire extinguisher(s) according to manufacturer’s instructions.

National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI), Hyderabad and Japan Society for Promotion of Science are planning a collaboration project to understand the problems and experiences of tsunami. They are trying to create a knowledge base with Japanese expertise, he added. i4d | April 2005

What’s on Australia 02-03 May, 2005 Connecting Up 2005 Hyatt Regency Adelaide, South Australia

Success Factors UNESCO Headquarters, Paris http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID= 17638&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

www.communit.info/conference

Italy Austria 02-03 June, 2005 ICT and Creativity, Vienna www.wsa-conference.org

Canada 27 June-02 July, 2005 ED-MEDIA 2005 Montreal http://www.aace.org

24-28 October, 2005 E-Learn 2005 Vancouver, British Columbia

05-09 June 2005 Digital Communities 2005 Benevento and Napoli, Italy www.ssc.msu.edu/~espace/DC2005Location.html

13-16 June, 2005 2nd International Conference on Communities and Technologies, Milan http://www.cct2005.disco.unimib.it/

11-15 July, 2005 OSS2005: International Conference on Open Source Systems, Genova http://oss2005.case.unibz.it/

http://www.aace.org/conf/eLearn/call.htm

Kenya China 04-05 June, 2005 4th Wuhan International Conference on E-Business Wuhan, China www.ibii.org

06 July, 2005 IEEE 3 rd International Workshop on Technology for Education in Developing Countries, Taiwan http://ifets.massey.ac.nz/tedc2005/

17-21 May, 2005 1st Continental Exhibition, Conference and Media Event on ICT, Broadcasting Media and Environment Nairobi, Kenya http://www.multimedia-accelerator.com/ ICT%20Africa0505/Conferences ICTeAFRICA.pdf

Mozambique 10-11 May, 2005 3rd International Open Access Conference, Maputo

Finland

http://www.wideopenaccess.net/

27-29 June, 2005 Landscapes of ICT and Social Accountability University of Turku, Turku

Nigeria

www.cs.utu.fi/ifip/WG9.2_Conference_2005

France 11-13 May, 2005 ICT for Capacity-Building: Critical

South Africa 24-26 August, 2005 CIRN2005: The 2nd Annual Conference of the Community Informatics Research Network Cape Town http://www.cirn2005.org/

Spain 06-08 July, 2005 7th ISKO-Spain Conference Barcelona http://www.bd.ub.es/isko2005/

Tunisia 16-18 November, 2005 WSIS: World Summit on the Information Society Phase 2 Tunis http://www.itu.int/wsis/

United Kingdom 22-24 June, 2005 First International Conference on e-Social Science Manchester http://www.ncess.ac.uk/conference_05.htm

10-12 July, 2005 Euro Conference on Mobile Government Sussex University Brighton http://www.icmg.mgovernment.org/ europeanmg.htm

14-16 July, 2005 6th International Women into Computing Conference Greenwich http://www.wic.org.uk/conference/

United States

25-28 May, 2005 Enhancing Human Resource Development through ICT Abuja

12-14 June, 2005 The International Symposium on Women and Information and Communication Technology Baltimore

http://is.lse.ac.uk/ifipwg94/pdfs/2005firstcall.pdf

http://www.wtci.org/CWIT/CWITsite.htm

Get your event listed here. www.i4d.csdms.in/events April 2005 | www.i4d.csdms.in

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I N F ACT

Education equations There are still 103.5 million out-of-school children, of which 57 percent are girls. The positive side is that more children are going to school than ever before. But still, many drop out before grade 5 of primary school due to low quality of education, lack of resources, etc. The graphs below give a few indications towards the disparity that lies between regions.

Literacy rates of 15-24 year olds by region, 2000-2004

The Education for All Global Monitoring report 2005 tells that over 8 out of 10 adults (15 years and over) are literate, which means globally there are 800 million illiterates. However, behind this figure lies great inequalities between the world’s regions - in South and West Asia for example, more than 4 out of 10 adults are illiterate.

Net enrollment in primary 2000-2002 Source: www.uis.unesco.org

High enrollments may not produce high completion rates. For example, in Madagascar, 80 percent of the students do not manage to complete the primary school education despite the country’s high enrollment rate.

LLDCs - Landlocked Developing Countries SIDS - Small Island Developing Countries

Therefore, primary completion rate is considered as the most direct measure of national progress toward the MDG of universal primary education. Primary school completion is the number of students successfully completing the last year of primary school in a given Source: www.uis.unesco.org year, divided by the number of children of official graduation age in the population.

Primary completion rate, 1995-2001

Percentage of relevant age group Less than 50% 50-74%

75-84% 85-94% 95% or more No data

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Most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have very low primary completion rates, many less than 50 percent.

Source: www.developmentgoals.org i4d | April 2005

Map India 2006

Map Middle East 2005

30 January – 2 February, New Delhi www.mapindia.org

23-25 April, Dubai www.mapmiddleeast.org

Map Asia 2005 22-25 August, Jakarta www.mapasia.org

Can you afford to miss these? www.GISdevelopment.net info@GISdevelopment.net