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| November 2008 |
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African e-schools battle for bandwidthBy Munyaradzi Makoni and Christina Scott
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Fewer than 100 schools in Africa have been linked to the internet through the e-schools satellite learning programme run by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).
The NEPAD programme, first announced in 2003, aims to connect more than 600,0000 schools on the continent.
The ambitious programme aimed to internet-enable all African secondary schools within five years of starting, and all primary schools within a decade.
‘The demo project is complete in nine countries: Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Mauritius, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda,’’ says Jeanne Meta of the Pretoria-based NEPAD e-Africa commission, which oversees the project.
According to Meta, "Six schools in each country have received at least 20 personal computers in a lab, training for both learners and teachers, administration connectivity, various educational software and other apparatus." The 54 schools also had health, agricultural and other materials for the benefit of the broader community.
Meta said "seven other countries have since joined the e-schools programme, bringing the number of schools participating to 96.’’ The schools – which have not yet been officially launched – are in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Mozambique, Nigeria and Senegal.
"NEPAD E-schools initiative has been a catalyser," says Meta.
For example, earlier this year Cameroon education minister Louis Bapes Bapes signed an agreement with Microsoft and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) for a 12-month-long NEPAD e-schools demonstration project to accompany Cameroon’s 17 new multimedia centres.
The e-schools programme was forced to provide a generator for Bungulubia high school in rural Uganda as well as for schools in Lesotho which were off the electricity grid. A school in Burkina Faso is the first to run their computers on solar panels.
Participating computer companies including Hewlett Packard, Oracle and Cisco Systems are apparently now waiting for financial input from national governments before proceeding.
The e-schools business plan prepared by project manager Katherine Getao was ratified five months ago and sponsors of the online educational portal are being sought.
''The pilot projects may have created a very high level of expectation among the private sector that NEPAD would drive the roll-out of large-scale technological infrastructure into schools across the continent,’’ warned Neil Butcher, an educational technology consultant from South Africa.
More information:
* Munyaradzi Makoni
is a Zimbabwean journalist based in South Africa.
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