Transforming education: the power of ICT policies - Commonwealth ...

In addition, the Policy proposes training courses for ICT trainers, considered to be a group with higher levels of
competence who are tasked with training education stakeholders in the use of ICT, evaluating their performance
and monitoring their development.
What is apparent in the formulation of the Policy is that at the time when it was adopted, the development of
teachers in particular was understood to assume the form of “training.” Training was conceived and practiced as a
short-term, often one-off learning opportunity focused more on learning about the technologies and less on how
to use them in the practice of teaching, learning and administration. Few if any references were made at the time
to the institutionalization of teachers’ professional development with the use of ICT. Professional development,
as opposed to “training”, is considered to be a continuous, modular process based on the authentic contexts of
teachers and the development of individual learning pathways for teachers.
The design and articulation of Namibia’s ICT in Education Policy is clearly very practical, informed by evolving
experience of various education stakeholders since the 1990s. This is evident from its attempt at a holistic approach
to the integration of technologies in learning and teaching practice and linking this to the development of a clearly
articulated maturity model together with desired levels as targets to be achieved. The Policy also refl ects the
collective understanding of Namibia’s policy-makers and stakeholders of the meaning and implications for the
integration of the education system with technologies in the period up to 2005 when the Policy was adopted.
Policy Implementation Framework
The GRN also developed an implementation framework based on the ICT in Education Policy. This implementation
framework is spelt out in the Tech/Na! Implementation Plan (hereafter, Implementation Plan) which adopts a
“holistic, demand-driven and end-to-end solution” approach .
TECH/NA!’s main goals are to equip educational institutions with the technologies and all associated educational
and technical services and support; to educate stakeholders in ICT literacy and ICT integration and to empower
communities to bridge the digital divide and meeting the goals of Vision 2030. The Plan includes ten key elements,
shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Holistic Approach to Policy Implementation
Monitoring
and
evaluation
Monitoring
and
evaluation
Maintenance
and technical
support
Educational
management
Monitoring
and
evaluation
Infrastructure
readiness and
platform development
Leadership
Educational
objectives
Project
management
Training and
usage support
80 | Transforming Education: The Power of ICT Policies
Monitoring
and
evaluation
Curriculum
development
Content
availability
Monitoring
and
evaluation
Monitoring
and
evaluation