Technological Infrastructure and Use of ICT in Education in ... - ADEA

Technological Infrastructure and Use of ICT in Education in Africa: an overview
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Ù Calculate all costs involved;
Ù The relationship between fixed and variable costs when comparing
ICT to conventional education approaches;
Ù Do not exclude opportunity cost;
Ù Bear in mind the unit of comparison when comparing different
educational approaches.
In terms of calculating all of the costs, it is very important to understand
that providing hardware is a very small component of the total cost
package associated with the introduction of any technology (Murphy,
et al. 2002). Incorporated in this is inclusion of both fixed and variable
costs, and, as will be shown below, the need to consider how many
students are to be served (Puryear, 2002).
The relationship between the fixed and variable costs of education is
also critical (Murphy, et al. 2002). Fixed costs are the upfront investments
needed to put in place the necessary infrastructure for making
technology available, regardless of the number of learners served. These
include the investment costs of, for example, developing and distributing
lessons, broadcasts, and software (Murphy, et al. 2002). Fixed costs may
also include the cost of setting up a central management and training
system necessary to produce, distribute, implement, and maintain the
technology (Puryear, 2002).
Not surprisingly, fixed costs are different for different kinds of technology.
For example, the fixed costs of radio and television include payments
to produce and broadcast programmes, which are generally much
higher than those of print material. But fixed costs are always spread
over all the students served, which can result in significant economies
of scale. By contrast, some approaches that have low fixed costs, such
as conventional teaching, but rely exclusively on the time of teachers,
offer no significant economies of scale (Puryear, 2002).
Variable costs are those costs which vary with the number of students in
the system after it has been set up. It is the cost of serving an additional
student (Puryear, 2002). These are costs that depend directly on the
number of learners in the system and generally comprise educators’
salaries, facilities, books, and other materials. For example, the number
of radios, televisions, and computers required in a programme often
depends on the number of learners (Murphy, et al. 2002). Training
educators to use new technology is also principally a variable cost:
they must be trained every time a new technology is introduced in
13. Financial Implications