A Case Study on Necessity of ICT Education and Practical Solution for Implementation
[Introduction]
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the 17 ambitious goals designed and announced by the United Nations to balance social, economic, and environmental sustainability efforts. I first learned about these significant goals when I began to attend my current high school, Branksome Hall Asia in Jeju, South Korea. Since the 17 goals have been applied as a fundamental concept to our school education, we have been encouraged to present on the topics of global issues relevant to the 17 SDGs in classes or various school events. In addition, the school motivates us to be engaged in discussing the SDG goals and finding our own solutions. Even though SDG goals were one of the first things I learned on my first day, it was not until I joined the Sustainability Development Club at school that I became familiar with SDG goals and determined to pursue one of the goals in my life.
Having a strong unique motto to spread the importance of SDG in the school community, the Sustainability Development Club members and I selected two SDG goals every semester. The first goal I was responsible for and became seriously interested in was the quality of education. The more I researched and discussed the issue, the better I came to know the seriousness of inequality in education, especially for women and children in underdeveloped countries. By researching IT education in less developed countries, I was able to find a topic that I felt passionate enough about to create and carry out a year-long research and development project: researching IT conditions and ICT in education in Africa.
However, I initially encountered a number of difficulties in studying real cases and interviewing the people currently working in the field. Due to the severity of the Covid-19 pandemic, it was hard to contact the offices of schools and Non-government organizations (NGOs) that used to work actively for the educational rights of African children. After numerous attempts, I was able to find several NGOs in Rwanda, which convinced me it was a suitable country to form a case study around. The fact that Rwanda was trying to change its IT education system by investing a lot of capital and effort into improving systems and implementing new strategies convinced me even more to focus my research attention on Rwanda. After that, I corresponded with the NGOs in Rwanda that are supporting education; in the process, I met a passionate NGO director, the Director of Good Neighbors, who helped me to contact local Rwandan schools and conduct interviews to find their needs for IT support. Through this project, I aimed to distinguish the major problems, propose an effective solution that could improve the quality of education, and achieve the fourth Sustainable Development Goal: Quality Education.
[Problems in Education System and ICT Education in Rwanda]
Before describing the project, I would first like to establish some context about the current status and issues of the Rwandan education system, then elaborate on my findings about Rwanda’s ICT education.
The Republic of Rwanda is a country in Central Africa. Realizing the importance and necessity of IT education, the education ministry of Rwanda aims to transform public schools into a ‘Smart School’. Smart schools provide students with different IT experiences in education through interactive white boards, cloud services, and local area networks [2].
As much capital and effort have been invested, this project is being applied in many schools every year. According to the Rwanda Education Board, “760 secondary schools, representing 54% of secondary schools, have smart classrooms” [6]. Additionally, 12,000 secondary school students are already enrolling in Smart schools [1]. The ministry believes, by providing better accessibility to resources, this project brought notable achievements and improvements to the quality of ICT in education.
However, problems within the education system that had so far been neglected slowly began to make an appearance during the pandemic. Uwasenga and Niyizamwiyitira, who are the directors of ICT in the Education Department, claim not all schools are fully capable of setting up a smart classroom. Specifically, to have smart classrooms, a school needs to have one or two rooms available and have access to electricity [6]. But in reality, only schools within “30 Kilometers of the fiber network” have smart classes with mobile broadband and 1,796 schools (43%) remain without it [4]. Therefore, the Head of ICT in Education points out the number of smart schools in Rwanda is far below the government’s target goal which is to implement technology by establishing smart classrooms and increasing the presence of smart classrooms to 84% of schools in Rwanda within 2017-2024 [4].
Despite the good intentions and idealism of realizing such a high proportion of smart schools, there are several barriers to realizing this goal, and several reasons commonly mentioned in many studies and directors for Rwanda’s lack of ICT in education. First of all, compared to other developed countries, Rwanda has limited access to the internet because of its expensive maintenance cost [2]. Angelo Munezero, a public digitization analyst at Rwanda’s Ministry of ICT and Innovation, claims his team and the education ministry are collaborating to invest in Giga pilot so that it can reduce the burden of internet access cost [4]. The second reason is hardwares and computers are in short supply. Currently, even though the government is executing a “one device per child” policy, the ratio of computers to students in secondary schools is 40:1. In other words, this limits educational opportunities and access to the internet [5]. Lastly, training and resources provided to teachers are limited. This is one of the problems that arise after the project is fully implemented. Most of the educators in schools, like students, have no experience in IT education. Thus, “lack of expertise” hinders Rwanda from providing a high-quality education to students [5].
It is not that there was no effort at all to overcome these obstacles. As mMentioned previously, to improve ICT in education, many companies and government ministries were involved. For instance, Microsoft, an American multinational technology corporation, launched an initiative “4Afrika”' to support ICT in education. According to the Minister of Youth and ICT, Jean-Philbert Nsengimana, 4Afrika will provide various technological skills, education, and entrepreneurial skills that could be used to improve Rwanda’s economy. Microsoft also provides free software products such as Microsoft Office 365 to train educators [3].
Despite the multifaceted approaches and profound efforts to solve this issue, dramatic results were absent. not visible. The Ministry of Education mentions “lack of ICT culture and understanding of its possible application and benefits” as one of the problems that recently arose [2]. This is because their efforts are focused on the applied rather than the fundamental. Specifically, I want to point out that the unimproved infrastructure is limiting internet access in school. Additionally, the education policy and training only work for those who have internet access. Thus, to figure out a proper solution, I contacted a local director in Rwanda to initiate and collaborate on a project with a school located in the suburbs of Rwanda. The following section delves into descriptions and analysis of interviews with Rwandan NGO and ICT Education experts, in order to build upon the background provided in this section.
[Discussion of Rwandan ICT Education Expert Interviews]
Attempting the initial research of Rwanda IT condition and education, I found that most of the previously attempted IT education funds or aid programs were conducted not as fully inclusive and all-encompassing programs, but as partial and limited in approaches to providing assistance. By the latter, I meant to say thatwhat is meant is that, most funds or aid programs had inappropriate and ineffective methods provided only some devices or funds, but these were not appropriate or effective methods of encouraging IT education and providing assistance in those schools or areas.
For instance, when I contacted the local Rwanda NGO director and researched the status quo of the school IT condition, I was surprised to find that even though some companies have provided the schools with computers, students and even teachers cannot use them because they had never been exposed to any IT education. Moreover, as most schools in Rwanda are located remote from the capital, Kigali, the schools must spend a lot of money to install the internet lines, which are even more expensive than the devices. The findings led me to devise a more thoughtful approach to providing schools in these settings with more realistic and tangible technological support and education.
The project was preceded by contacting the school through the director and getting updates about the local situation. To start the project and calculate the minimum cost to support IT education in one school, I decided to list up the needs and resources to build a smart classroom in Rwanda. After discussing with the school, we decided to focus on the 4th grade (currently the highest grade at the school). While identifying necessary equipment and the net cost for creating a smart classroom, I realized that the Internet maintenance fee, which is mentioned in many studies as one of the reasons for lacking ICT in education, is expensive enough to account for 26% of the total cost.
The director who is working on this project said that Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, is the only city with proper Wi-Fi. However, even the current internet service is overloaded and unable to expand. In other words, the school has to use its own system in order to use a stable Wi-Fi. Furthermore, he said that the line to access the Wi-Fi service was not accessible to the village and school. Thus, the school would need to independently extend the fiber wire, requiring even more additional fees and effort. From this point, we could see why Wi-Fi could not be established properly and easily. The director also complained that the Wi-Fi company is charging a high price for this project because we are foreigners. However, there were no alternatives that could provide a stable and guaranteed internet connection.
Apart from financial problems, the biggest challenge is that teachers have little experience with using computers. According to the director’s anecdote, he had to repeat his instructions “three or four times” for the teachers to understand how to draw shapes and fill colors in Microsoft word. This means the necessary process of education would inevitably be time-consuming and difficult.
[Conclusion]
Throughout the process, I realized the disparity that exists between the level of interest in the various SDGs. Unlike donation programs that provide easy access to buy nutritional supplements or food, programs that could support the educational environment in less developed countries were poorly funded and lacked popular support and interest. Furthermore, I have noticed a tendency that the public, private corporations, and other parts of society are focusing on supplying end/finished products such as laptops or pads to African children(see photos below). When, in reality, fundamental access to the internet has not been provided. In other words, the efforts made by others are too hasty to build a strong foundation in providing a proper IT education.
Through this project, I believe it is important to discuss future problems that will arise from the development of the world. Consequently, I propose several solutions. First of all, we should create a donation model that is able to provide actual support and to truly develop infrastructure, starting from the foundation. Specifically, the donation model should guide people with various methods because we never directly or indirectly supported this kind of IT education before. We should also raise awareness that a lot of contribution is needed. Since providing proper IT education recently became an important issue, many people are not aware of its real cause and effect. Thus, details about the status quo should be needed to convince others to join our solution. Lastly, we should provide IT education for teachers first and then students. Our support will not only improve the quality of lessons but also enable teachers and students to develop and utilize the education that suits them in the future.
References
Iriza, Diana. "Youth in Rwanda Innovation on E-learning." africanews., www.africanews.com/2021/11/30/youth-in-rwanda-innovation-on-e-learning//. Accessed 9 July 2022.
Ministry of Education. "ICT in Education Policy." Ministry of Education, Apr. 2016, www.mineduc.gov.rw/fileadmin/user_upload/Mineduc/Publications/POLICIES/ICT_In_Education_Policy.pdf. Accessed 9 July 2022.
"Rwanda: 'Microsoft 4Afrika' Launched in Kigali." balancing act, www.balancingact-africa.com/news/telecoms-en/27562/rwanda-microsoft-4afrika-launched-in-kigali. Accessed 9 July 2022.
Sabiiti, Daniel. "EdTech: Rwanda Making Progress in ICT in Education." KT PRESS, 8 Mar. 2022, www.ktpress.rw/2022/03/edtech-rwanda-making-progress-in-ict-in-education/. Accessed 9 July 2022.
Twagilimana, Innocent, and Sirkku Mannikko-barbutiu. "ICT in Education Policy in Rwanda: Current Situation, Challenges and Prospects." EAI International Conference for Research, Innovation and Development for Africa, 6 Apri 2018, eudl.eu/pdf/10.4108/eai.20-6-2017.2270006. Accessed 9 July 2022.
Uwasenga, Diane Sengati, and Christine Niyizamwiyitira. "Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis in Basic Education." URUNANA rw'Abarezi, 10 July 2020, pp. 4-6. Urunana rw'Abarezi, rwanda.vvob.org/sites/rwanda/files/final-urunana_rwabarezi_10_v0.0_20200907_web_version_0.pdf. Accessed 9 July 2022.
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