African governments adopt computers and phones in education

African governments have turned to mobile phones and computers in order to mitigate the effects of the teacher shortage facing the region.

Zambia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ghana and South Africa have all come up with ICT projects involving mobile-phone messaging and computer-generated classrooms to be used in both primary and secondary schools.

About 200 primary schools will benefit from Tanzania's program, which will launch in October, said Professor Jumanne Mughembe, the country's minister of education and vocational training. It will be rolled out mainly in districts that face acute teacher shortages.

"This IT project will also be using projectors, which would be operated from one control center manned by a few instructors in a bid to reach many students," Mughembe explained in a telephone interview July 28.

Tanzania is currently facing a shortfall of more than 40,000 teachers.

The Zambian Ministry of Education is putting together a similar program to promote e-learning and ensure that ICT is integrated into the Zambian education system, said the ministry's director of distance education, Victor Muyatwa.

"Its time that our education system moved away from the tendency of just putting computers in schools, but integrating ICT into the education policy," he said at the ICT Open Day in Lusaka on July 26.

Across Africa, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has eased the shift in teaching methodology with its US$180 computers. South Africa, Rwanda, Ghana and Ethiopia have all ordered the laptops from OLPC, with the aim of distributing a laptop to each student. Learning materials will be posted regularly to a Web site, which students will then access through their laptops.

Initiated by the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), such e-learning programs are part of a consolidated plan of action aimed at enhancing knowledge sharing through the application, adaptation and usage of ICT in education.

NEPAD's e-Africa Commission -- based in Johannesburg, South Africa -- has been chartered to develop the continent's ICT infrastructure. The program is set to equip approximately 16,000 African schools with computers and Internet connections by 2015.