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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9. ICT in Primary
and Secondary Education ..................
Having discussed some of the theoretical and contextual issues pertaining
to ICT and education in sub-Saharan Africa, this section of the report
focuses more closely on how ICT is being used in the context of schooling.
The aim is, first, to provide, descriptive evidence of the types of activities
taking place, and second, to consider some of the lessons learnt thus far.
While the overall focus of this report is on distance education and open
learning, other uses of ICTs in schools will also be considered.
Murphy, et al. (2002) note that distance education is seldom used for
primary education, and, although there have been initiatives in secondary
education, these are generally unsuccessful, have high dropout rates,
and low levels of achievement. There are likely to be several reasons
for this, including perceptions about distance education being of lower
standard than conventional schooling, inadequate government funding
and problems with the quality of materials. Also of significance is the fact
that younger learners may need the support provided by face-to-face
teaching, since success at distance education requires high levels of
student motivation. Nonetheless, Dodds (2002) points out that in some
countries where much of the population do not get the chance to go
to or to complete their secondary schooling in the normal and formal
way, distance education is often used to provide an alternative route to
secondary qualification.
As noted above, there are several different technologies available for
use in schools. The focus in current debates tends to overemphasize
computers at the expense of print, radio, and television, all of which
have important benefits for schooling. Table 9 below shows the range
of technologies used in distance education at the secondary education
level for selected countries that responded to a World Bank survey in
2000. The table also provides an indication of the types of distance
education offerings at this level.
9. ICT in Primary and Secondary Education