Is there a role for Information and Communications Technologies in rural schools and their communities (original) (raw)

Story 1: This was a very rural school. It was our first visit. By the time you arrived, you hoped it wasn't going to rain because it would be difficult to drive out on a rainy day. A company had donated a top quality set of computers to this school approximately 12 months before. I sat down with the entire staff team and asked them to tell me about the school. They began to tell me everything that they did wrong. They spoke softly, emanating a sense of failure. I asked them about what was going well at the school-a small thing that made them proud. They looked down. The principal said she could not think of anything. I started asking about the computer lab. They said they had received the donation. They said they were extremely grateful. They said that they knew that computers made a good school. They said that the community had started to send their children to this school in more numbers, seeing now that the school would be 'high quality'. They had received a small amount of training in a nearby town. There was a generator that could light a small city that they feared to turn on. We went to the computer lab, and all of the computers were still wrapped in plastic. We went to the generator and showed them how to turn it on. We then turned on all of the computers, and the software seemed to be loaded properly. Finally opening up, they talked about the heaviness of what they carried. They said that the relationship between the community and the school had reached a low. Parents blamed teachers for having 'everything that is needed' to provide a high quality education, and still they were 'failing'. As we were pulling out, the teachers asked us if we could please turn off the computers. They were convinced that they might break them if they turned them off themselves. Story 2: She was a teacher. She said the problem was with the training. And the problem was with the idea of a 'champion.' She said that businesses liked to make donations of computers to schools. But they did not like to provide funds for extensive training. And so they would identify the 'computer champion' at each school. A computer champion could be the person with some experience with computers, or it could be the person who was the most excited, or it could just be any person for any reason. They would be sent usually on a one-week computer literacy course in a nearby town-maybe Mthatha, maybe East London. She said that maybe you did understand while you were sitting in that course. She said that then you came back to your school and were supposed to be the 'champion', and to train others. Meanwhile, when you pushed a button in Mthatha a certain thing happened. When you came and tried it on your own, it did not quite work out the same. If you barely understand yourself you are not going to be a champion. And there starts the problem. It becomes a frustration rather than a good thing. Story 3: Several of the schools had received computers from independent private sponsors over the past two years. We went to visit to understand the experience. Of 9 schools we visited, 4 of them had outsourced the 'computer training' to town-based 'consultants' who charged learners R100 or more per month to participate in the training. The children who could not afford left school early on 'computer' days. Story 4: He was a principal of a secondary school. A company had made a donation of several top quality computers at his secondary school. No one in the school went for training. He kept the keys, and would not allow anyone to use the facilities. After training was provided, he still kept the keys. The educators said that simply put, the computer centre was not used. In the next meeting he described how terrible the relationship was between the school and the community. He said that the only solution was to get more computers. He said that the community loved computers, and if there were more in the school it would make him look like a good principal. Story 5: We were in a meeting focusing on ICT in schooling, with an organisation doing some of the most important planning for the provincial Department of Education with reference to ICT. They were reflecting on the poor skills in rural schools to support ICT investments. They began discussing an 'ICT Champion' at a well-resourced urban school serving a mixed student population, within a middleincome community base. They were saying that 'if only' this 'type of person' could go to rural schools, then ICT investments had a good chance of becoming productive. Story 6: This educator taught in Butterworth. She was one of the lead teachers considering mobile technologies in the context of her school. She engaged with the progarmme deeply and with colleagues developed many ways in which she could effectively integrate ICT into learning within the classroom using a laptop. After the intensive programme she participated in a number of video conference calls with colleagues in the UK. When she heard of the resistance some teachers in the UK showed toward ICT developments, she said that educators in the UK must learn from their colleagues in Africa about the potential for ICT in education