Evaluating ICT for Education in Africa - Royal Holloway, University of ...

of cultural diversity and local specificities and also dismisses the longstandingrich educational heritage of the continent (Nyamnjoh 2004). Whilstthis view is not a universal perspective amongst educational technologistsengaging in Africa, it is significant due to the prominence it holds within thisparticular arena. This mindset is widespread and influential amongst US andEuropean technologists who are engaged, often from a distance, in Africaneducation and policy making and as such it exacerbates the tendency towardssuperficial approaches to monitoring, evaluation and assessment of impact.It is therefore clear that a lack of cultural awareness combined with naïveoptimism helps to ensure that proponents of ICT for education can ignore keythemes regarding the realities of education in Africa when designing,implementing and assessing programmes. African governments are pronealso to ignore the realities of their own education systems in this respect, butfor different reasons of political motivation and aspiration. Havingdemonstrated this, I now focus on specific implications, considering twoarenas within which there is a significant disconnection between assumptionand reality regarding decision making in ICT for education in Africa. The firstof these focuses on attendance and quality within primary education and thesecond on teacher training, capacity and approach to teaching.7.4.1 Attendance and qualityEnthusiasm for the potential of technology to redefine education frequentlyresults in proponents paying inadequate attention to the sustained challengesof attendance and quality in many African schools. The reason for this is anincorrect assumption that both these challenges have nearly been overcome,or will be bypassed through the anticipated paradigm shift of new technology(Keats and Schmidt 2007). I argue from the practical experiences of thefieldwork that, in order to be effective, ICT for education initiatives need tobe repositioned within an understanding that both attendance and qualityremain sustained and significant challenges (Sperling 2008, EFA 2010).284