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

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Technological Infrastructure and Use of ICT in Education in Africa: an overview 59 Most countries employ a cost-sharing mechanism, where part of the cost is met by the student and part through public expenditure. While this is a common approach globally, affording tertiary education is difficult for many students in African countries, especially if they are not able to work whilst studying. Saint (1999) notes that public expenditure per student decreased during the 1980s from $6300 to $1500, and during the 1990s there has been a further decrease of about 30%. This means that for many African countries, expenditure per student is now below the level of $1000, which is estimated to be the minimum level required to provide an acceptable quality tertiary education. Given the above, it is clear that policy makers have to contend with the dilemma of deciding how to make scarce funds go far enough to address the wide range of educational needs, from basic to tertiary education. It is also evident that, together with a predicted increase in demand for tertiary education as primary and secondary level education improves, current modes of tertiary provision will not be adequate to meet the needs of most sub-Saharan African countries. The role of distance education in this context becomes increasingly important. Africa has significant experience in use of distance education and technology to increase access to educational opportunities. In some instances, this has been achieved through extending existing systems, while at other times new systems have been developed. Almost all African countries have at least one distance education programme at the tertiary level (Murphy, et al., 2002), while Saint (1999) notes that more than 140 pubic and private institutions currently provide some form of tertiary distance education service. These programmes use mostly print media, written assignments, and some face-to-face tutoring. A survey conducted in 1998 by Roberts & Associates found that, of 143 tertiary institutions surveyed, 52% of Anglophone and 67% of Francophone distance education programmes were aimed at teachers and school administrators (cited by Saint, 1999). 12% of all programmes were targeted at university students. 5.3.....ICT in Education Given that the focus of this study is on ICT in education, it is useful also to provide an indication of the technology status of education in Africa. There is a scarcity of data on this topic, but the statistics presented below do provide some indication of the technological context within which efforts to use ICT in education take place. Chart 6 and Table 4 provide 5. Socio-Economic Context of Sub-Saharan Africa
60 Working Group on Distance Education and Open Learning an indication of the penetration of radios and computers in selected African countries. Chart 6: Number of radios per 1000 people Source: Murphy, et al. (2002), taken from World Bank (2000). Table 4: Computer penetration ratios at schools in selected African countries 5. Socio-Economic Context of Sub-Saharan Africa Country Number of schools Schools with computers Percentage schools with computers Egypt 32 000 10 000 31.25 Ghana 35 000 500 1.43 Mozambique 7 000 20 0.29 Namibia 1 519 60 3.94 South Africa 28 798 5 000 17.36 Source: Isaacs (2002) Of the countries depicted, South Africa has the highest penetration of radios per 1000 individuals at 316. Egypt has the highest percentage of computers in schools, at 31.25%. In Mozambique, only 20 schools currently have access to computers. Across the continent, radio is the most widely available technology. Looking at Ghana and South Africa, the countries for which both radio and computers in schools data are available, it is clear that in Ghana, for instance, only 1.43% of schools have access to a computer, 238 in 1000 (23.8%) people have access to a radio. Similarly, for South Africa, 17.36% schools have access to a computer while
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