Information and Communication Technologies for Education -

Education in Information Communication Technologies: Twin Opportunities and Challenges!

I. Introduction

With the increasing capacity of information and communication technologies, there is a rise in new learning opportunities beyond the traditional "book-teacher" model. Globally, the nature of learning and teaching is changing rapidly due, in part, to increasing interaction from more accessible global telecommunication networks driven by the content of the Internet. New options for distance education are driving the shift from traditional learning communities (schools, universities and colleges) - constrained by proximity - towards unrestricted lifelong learning possibilities. The shift from teacher-centered to learner-centered learning means teachers at all levels need to embrace new information and communication technologies and education and training need to keep up with the advances of new technologies. As new technology is being accepted as the catalyst for new learning environments, access to communication has become crucial. Access to communication and information is indeed a fundamental human right. This is easier said than done in developing countries. The challenges to access to information and communication are tremendous.

A substantive progress in implementation of information and communications and for that matter progress in quality of life and development cannot be achieved without preparing people for a knowledge society* [1]. This partially involves making an environment amenable for diffusing computers to schools, training the population in computer application and a building a solid national computer and communication science education. Advanced university training in computer communication systems, computer systems, information science, parallel and distributed systems, software engineering, simulation techniques and tools and telecommunication systems and creation of campus and nation wide network and information systems in education have no substitute for national development. The challenge here is not to put computers on the desks of schools but also to create the conditions for bright students to emerge with solutions to actual problems – perhaps this could lead to a national industry comparable to current agricultural production. This paper discusses some of the key opportunity and challenges facing information technology applications in education and computer science education in developing nations with particular reference to Ethiopia.

* [According to an excellent account by Manuel Castells, the impact of information and communication technology and development in information society cannot be achieved by rhetorical statements. It is important to create an enabling environment for the information and communication technologies for them to diffuse into the social fiber of the society. The "industrial society, by educating citizens and by gradually organizing the economy around knowledge and information, prepared the ground for the empowering of the human mind when new information technology become available." Woefully, developing nations continued to grapple with poverty, war, population explosion, etc. The irony is that developing nations are those that acutely need to organize their people around knowledge and information to break away from debt, destabilization, drought, desertification, demographic problems and dependency [2]!]

II. Challenges to information technology application in higher education

Education is full of challenges. Education costs, it is costly. Decision-makers often find themselves caught between conflicting political and efficiency objectives [3]. From political and social points of view they have to [4]:

give priority to increasing public access to education by reconstructing and enlarging school networks,

ensure that there is a balanced regional development within a country,

introduce improvements in the curricula, create equal opportunity of access at all levels of teaching,

promoting greater participation of women by means of incentive mechanisms of curriculum and materials, and integration into the educational system of all children of school age, and those in difficult circumstances,

support initiatives of groups of associations, religious groups, private organizations and other social movements,

increase the budget of the sector and improve the quality of teaching by the development of executable schemes of training, both initial and upgrading of the teachers.

From the efficiency point of view decision-makers are required to ensure quality education, better job prospects based on future workforce requirements of the economy. Well-educated, well-trained, motivated workers can produce high-quality goods and services at low cost, enhance productivity and competitiveness, and sustain high

living standards. However, striking a balance between educational efficiency and social and political pressure is not that easy! The consequence of political and social pressure on education in Ethiopia has for example led to a declining quality. Under the pressure to educate all and at the expense of limited financial resources, many schools have continued to operate badly managed infrastructure, low quality and standards in teaching and learning - resulting in ineffective and often less motivated workforce. As this conflict between public access to education and need for efficiency deepens the gap between quantity and quality will continue to widen. Unless actions are taken by all stakeholders Ethiopia will continue to suffer from such a vicious circle.

This vicious circle is similar elsewhere in Africa and is characterized by low numbers of qualified teachers and large numbers of students per class; inaccessibility and inflexibility of schools and universities; outdated and irrelevant curricula and lack of quality educational materials. On another level, there is a tremendous gap between relationships between schools and communities, teachers and learners, and learners and learners as well as a lack of interest in the endeavor of learning, critically thinking and reflecting. By all standard such education is vulnerable to obscurity and obsolescence!

Already there are symptoms of lack of innovativeness in the current education system. Schools and universities have remained conservative institutions slow to adopt new practice and technology. They have remained less responsive to actual needs of the society. The education system is largely textbook driven. Absorption of textbook contents tends to be the measure of educational success. Teachers and instructors use "chalk and talk" to convey information. Students have remained bucket recipients of instruction rather than active participants in learning. Obviously these cannot be problem solvers or troubleshooters in a real life! There is limited link among schoolteachers except in a few cases. Although distance learning tools such as radios and television have been introduced these have not been used effectively. There is virtually no school with an elaborate network in the country – telephones and computers have not been seen by over half of the countries’ students.

While computers are becoming available in universities these are only available in computer science classrooms and training sites; graduate students and teachers usually use them simply as electronic workbooks. Interactive, high performance uses of technology, such as networked teams collaborating to solve real-world national problems, retrieving information from electronic libraries, and performing scientific experiments in simulated environments are not in practice!

The education crisis in Africa is deep and sometimes disturbing. All of these problems are often attributed not to faults of the bureaucracy and those involved in teaching and learning process but rather to severe shortage of resources. It is not yet established whether lack of funds remains the major source of declining educational quality!

Many governments in Africa, including Ethiopia, have recently responded to these disturbing challenges. South Africa for example has chosen the following strategies to deal with declining education [5].

placing premium on lifelong and continuing education that enables continuos production and dissemination of knowledge.

promoting the roles of public and private organizations to share in knowledge production with institutions of higher education.

adapting higher education to changes and sustaining its role as a specialized producer of knowledge

shifting from closed knowledge systems to more open knowledge systems that interacts with interests of 'consumer' or 'client' demands

offering a greater mix of programmes, including those based on the development of vocationally based competencies and skills.

making educational system ready for new innovations and new forms of accountability by linking higher education researchers to external constituencies.

improving interaction between researchers and intellectuals and knowledge producers to promote accountability of education to client/consumer regarding the cost-effectiveness, quality and relevance of teaching and research programmes.

responding to longer-term demands on education and retaining a sense of the more universal, wide-ranging nature and role of knowledge within human affairs.

developing strategies for new forms of management and assessment of knowledge production and dissemination specially in the areas of content, form and delivery of the curriculum.

promoting development, equity, quality, accountability and efficiency in all levels of education and research.

The Ethiopian government has also taken various measures to reshape the education system to meet pressing national needs and to respond to a context of new realities. However, these initiatives seldom refer to global issues and new ways of learning. The strategy subsumes information and communication technology to a peripheral technical support activity instead of a central element of the solution to the crisis in education [6].

Information and communication technologies have a major role not only in improving existing learning but also extending opportunities for lifelong learning. In many countries in Africa, there are few opportunities for second chances, and learning is conceived of as a discrete activity that one engages in only during the early years of life. Very little provision exists for lifelong learning opportunities. Many learners are not reached by the system. Today, there are 900 million illiterates in the world and 130 million children unable to attend primary school. Their access to education is limited by time and space, age, socio-cultural environment, work schedules and physical or mental handicaps [7]. Information and communications technologies could help to adapt teaching strategies and modes of delivery to the needs of larger student intakes and the diversity of lifelong learners.

However, information and communication technology is not a panacea. Development should not be framed simply on access to technology and information but rather on changing the attitude and preparing the population and institutions for knowledge. Layering the new technologies on existing processes or "old ways of doing things" and bureaucracies will not achieve development goals. It is important to understand where the opportunities of new information and communication technologies lie for national development and grab those opportunities quickly.

III. Opportunities in Applications of Information and Communications Technologies for Education

Successful in the past, the classroom model has reached its limits in a world where knowledge becomes rapidly obsolete. It is also increasingly challenged by new ways of learning, in particular new multimedia based on the merger of text, sound, still pictures and video as well as virtual reality (CD-ROM, Internet, software, video games, etc.)[8]. The use of information technology to offer education

programs over long distances is becoming an increasing necessity. Generally there are four key areas for information and communication technologies application in education. These include Information and Communication Technology Mediated Learning, access to information and communication via the Internet/Intranet, Education Management Information System (EMIS) and education office automation to support the education planning and management and the support of information and communication technologies to distance and lifelong learning.

Information and Communication Technology Mediated Learning

Information and Communication Technology Mediated Learning (ICTML) covers Computer Aided Instruction (CAI) for teachers and the use of multimedia technologies for producing course materials and Computer Aided Learning (CAL) for students. Computer assisted instructions have been in use elsewhere in developed countries especially at early years of learning. They provide ample opportunities for students to broaden their learning skills and for teachers to develop better multimedia and interactive courseware. Studies indicate that learning takes place through communication. This is generally poor in the classroom model. Classroom models are largely "one-way teaching models" in which the teacher plays the acting part whereas pupils and students are merely reacting. Computer assisted instructions can greatly complement traditional teaching techniques to help students to learn much more much faster.

Access to information and communication via the Internet/Intranet

Internet and Intranet have become a source of vast amount of information and interactive tools. Intranet is a closed user-group Internet. An example of Intranet could be a school campus network where students and teachers share to local information such as teaching materials and course schedules while at the same time accessing the Internet. The Internet is a set of linked computers characterized by protocols that allow it to be used across a wide-range of hardware platforms. Each machine on the Internet contains information to be shared across the globe – (the content of Intranet is only available to a small closed community such as schoolteachers and students). Information on the Internet could be accessible from any location regardless of the type of computer system being used. It also means one can have access to and/or publish information regardless of the subject, location, age, race and time limitation. Internet is thus an empowering tool for all that are involved in education. Denial of

access to the Internet to schools compares to denial of vitamins and proteins but carbohydrates to someone!

A wide array of techniques have been developed to access to information on the Internet ranging from logging onto a remote server, chatting over the Internet with colleagues on specific subjects, sharing information via mailing lists and user groups, file transfer protocol to get files on servers to the World Wide Web - an interactive multimedia based information access tool. The World Wide Web has now gained the momentum due to its ease of use and its multimedia capability.

Other techniques have also been developed to work for those that do not have access to the Internet. One such technique is the use of "offline browsers" where the valuable information on the Internet is downloaded on high capacity storage media such as Digital VideoDisk (DVD) and distributed to remote schools. The Internet is accessible in around 150 countries including Ethiopia. However, the Internet is being under-utilized for education in Africa in general and no use of it reported in Ethiopia except by researchers at university level. The key obstacle is lack of adequate communication infrastructure throughout the country. Lack of resources, fear, apathy, lack of encouragement and ignorance are other significant impediments.

Education Management Information System (EMIS)

Education Management Information System (EMIS/or EDMIS) is a multi-user, interactive information system and a planning tool for storing and retrieving education information on students, student grades, test results, courses, personnel, finances at school, district or regional levels. Student information such as demographics and attendance, subject, program, and performance, staff information such as demographics, employment related data, classroom schedule, vocational education course taken by the staff and staff performance report could be gathered in a standard format and entered at school, district and national level to inform decision-making. The EMIS financial data include information on budgets, cash balances, expenditures, receipts, schedule of indebtedness and miscellaneous financial reports for higher level management and others such as building profile information. Although it has been in use elsewhere in developed world EMIS use in developing countries is often limited to offices of the Ministries of Education. Data on education planning is usually gathered using manual techniques and is often prone to errors and inconsistency.

At school level EDMIS could allow its users to schedule educational events, notify key personnel/organizations of the events and ultimate outcomes, print a calendar of events, and schedule counseling sessions for classes. EDMIS provides education staff members with a standard set of reports that can be used for managing education activities or reporting to installation or external organizations. Staff members can also perform standard and special purpose (ad hoc) queries to obtain data not available through existing functions. Coupled with office automation and networks EMIS promises efficient allocation of resources and centralized planning as well as resources management at national level. The application of computer as a tool for communication and problem solving in schools would provide schools to see its continuous impact on education and day to day activities of the staff.

Information and communication support for distance education and lifelong learning

Information and communication technology support to distance and lifelong learning is one of the most exciting opportunities to developing countries that face two major challenges. These countries are facing a sociopolitical demand for access from larger cohorts of school leavers, and from population groups and social classes largely excluded from higher education and a socioeconomic demand for highly trained human resources with wider ranges of skills and competencies. Ethiopia for example is one of those countries that have been facing considerable gap in refreshing school leavers and its trained workforce. A quick observation shows that the majority of the workforce in the country is highly ineffective partially due to lack of up to date training, refreshment and inability to keeping up with new developments in their areas of expertise. At extreme some "experts" have not touched or read books or articles ever since they left schools or colleges. The problem of lack of refreshment is sever specially in decision making process where middle and senior management have not been able to keep abreast with new developments in their fields or other related areas. Knowledge doubles itself faster than the capacity of an average person. Human understanding of the area gets outdated within 2-5 years if this has not been refreshed continuously – thus it is clear that Ethiopia has one of the most exciting opportunity in using information and communication technology for distance and lifelong learning. In the face of limited resources and time, distance education seems the only alternative for bridging the knowledge gap of the workforce that has limited time and convenience. Data in the most developed countries shows that only two out of five college students fit the traditional learning profile [9].

Problems facing the spread of distance education in developing countries are not technical but rather political and administrative. Distance education faces a number of difficulties such as, money, staff, equipment and time and a number of underlying problems such as resistance to distance education by educators, different learner characteristics and needs, the influence of media upon the instructional process, equity of access to interactive education delivery systems, and the new roles of teacher, site facilitator, and students. Its spread in Ethiopia has been hampered by all these difficulties. A qualitative assessment undertaken in 1997 [10] shows that in Ethiopia:

the open learning concept is far less recognized and heavily depends on correspondence courses

policies regarding accreditation, students and learner support have not been put into action although they have been "under-construction". This has delayed expansion of distance learning and impaired activities of institutions that have intentions to setup distance learning schools.

until recently, there has been a high resistance to distance education by educators - limited endorsement of distance education and overall confusion about its effectiveness among traditional educators.

broadcast radio and television have been in use for a long time, however these media have not been fully exploited by learners and conventional teaching institutions.

there is limited understanding of the impact of new technologies on the delivery education. Resource limitation and bad telecommunications infrastructure are two main obstacles.

the culture for motivation, limited incentives to growth, inadequate reading culture have made considerable blockage to distance learning.

there is considerable difficulty by the learning centers to develop more interactive student-centered curriculum due to lack of experience, incentive and limited understanding of new high and low bandwidth interactive communication technologies.

Another concern of distance educators is the economic standards of learners. Most learners cannot afford new tools and technologies such as computers and telephones. These tools are not accessible to students in remote areas. However, community-centered broadcast technologies such as digital radios and low cost computer mediated communications such as the Internet and World Wide Web, are opening new opportunities for distance education to reach students at a distance and also to serve students who need flexibility.

Compression technologies combined with improved computer speeds at reduced costs are making interactive, multimedia instruction readily available to the desktop. Internet access (the WWW) has become the most popular media for distance education. Telephone-based audio-conferencing; videoconferencing with one or two-way video and two-way audio broadcast using cable, telephone, fiber optics, satellite, microwave and closed-circuit or low power television are around as menu of choices for distance education planners.

A mix of these technologies centered-around "multipurpose community learning centers (telecenters)" will continue to dominate the next wave of distance and lifelong learning in Africa. The following table shows some of existing technologies and their suitability to Ethiopia.

Table 1. Various communication technologies for distance education and their suitability to Ethiopia

Information and communication Technology

Areas of application and components

Feasibility in Ethiopia

Correspondence courses

Traditional method where students write or call their teachers

It is being applied in Ethiopia and believed to continue to exist until more high-tech methods arrive

Computer mediated communication

Computer sends materials, lectures notes and messages, computer conferencing, electronic mail, bulletin board systems, phones, modems, computers are required, two-way communication, costly. Computer conferences can be implemented in IRC format, Multiple User Domains, etc.

It is the easiest tool to implement in Ethiopia where-ever computers exist, low cost communications opens various opportunities whether this is on LAN or WAN

Interactive video network

Video and audio being transmitted on the same network on ISDN, Fiber, T-1 (cooper, microwave) networks

Except copper that has poor quality, it is very expensive to have this in Ethiopia. Microwave connections are obsolete and costly

although they provide comparable results to Fiber.

Low- power television network

Sending education materials using regular television signals, not interactive, student often telephones

This is being used by Ministry of Education, easy to implement, requires more work towards packaging than infrastructure

Satellite Provides full motion video and audio, sometimes two way audio

A one way audio and video mode is being implemented by the African Virtual University project. Lacks interactivity

Audio conferencing Two-way telephone based discussion

Limited applications, easy to implement locally, international implementation costs high

World-Wide-Web Interactive multi-media, communications can be initiated to make it two-way, possibility for on-the fly interactive pages (virtual classrooms)

Easy to implement in universities, learning centers, costly for individuals, requires a high speed leased line and development of local loop

Pool of low cost technologies

audio cassettes, CD-ROM, DVD ROM, video cassettes, telephone, fax

Relatively simple, but lacks interactivity of the best magnitude requires

Planned to be implemented by the National Vocational Correspondence Enterprise.

Broadcast radio Involves digital radios that incorporate both as text and video

Very attractive for mass education

World Space is planning to launch these tools next year. Ethiopia has not signed agreement for operation of Worldspace in the country.

IV. Education in information and communication technologies

Computer education covers a wide range of areas from understanding the computer itself (running it for day to day application) to using it for the development multimedia teaching courseware using a fairly straightforward graphic user interface tools to software development, software design and engineering using complex object technologies. Education in information and communication technologies covers branches such as hardware or inteface design, assembly langauages, networking and a growing area of information systems design in a complex organizational environment. While learing basic application is very useful, the benefits of a solid computer, information and communication science education remains fundamental for competitiveness in the next centuray.

In Africa, education in computer application and learning to use it for day-to-day activities has improved significantly over the last few years through active participation of the private sector and improving user interface. Computer support centers providing basic training in applications such as world processing, spreadsheet, database management and electronic use of communications technology have been growing. Qualitative assessment elsewhere in Africa including Ethiopia shows that the impact of this training is often limited due to little motivation of the students and inadequate teaching techniques to impart basic concepts that help individual users to experiment and expand their knowledge [11]. A current survey that analyzed African Regional Informatic Networks states that " most people only use a tiny portion of the available features of software packages and even do not know how to use the help facilities [12].

Except in most advanced countries in southern and northern Africa the situation of computer sciences education in the region leaves much to be desired. The urgency of expansion of solid computer science education is significant for countries like Ethiopia. Software development is one of a growing industry worldwide and it does not require more than a few hundred thousand dollars investment and solid training and focused brain to produce millions of dollars worth industry. Anyone with good programming skills in new object oriented tool can now get a job without moving from his home or lining up for vacancy announcement. The world has a very few skilled programmers to cover a vast array of problems ranging from maintaining network reliability to cleaning year 2000 bugs. The good news is that software development capacity does not require economic strength. India for example is one of the most advanced countries in exporting billions of dollars worth software. The success of India is a result of the availability of high quality personnel, English-speaking technical work force, low cost of labor and the

presence of high quality satellite links helps maintain strong communications links between India and foreign clients [13].

Ethiopia needs to broaden its research and development capacity in computer and information science as much it needs better quality of education, health to the community or telephone access in urban and rural areas. Communication engineering, network studies, network design research are almost in non-existent in the country and are very much desired to compete in the global information society. It is as if the country has to start from a scratch.

A few strategies that would enhance computer education that would create a new industry for Ethiopia include:

Setting up computer and information science schools in major universities and strengthening existing ones. This could be achieved through the development of a comprehensive curriculum that brings graphics, animations, and interactive visualization of algorithms and data structures and object oriented design and programming into lectures, labs, and into student projects. Although three intellectual paradigms: design (of programs, algorithms, and hardware), theoretical analysis of algorithms (and its supporting mathematics), and experimentation interact in the practice of computer science, the current trend seems to concentrate only on programming.

Match computer science education to the realities of the market. This could be achieved by (1) introducing students to key software development concepts such as modularization, abstraction, information hiding, separation of concerns, and software reuse, as well as object-oriented concepts such as objects, entities, classes, inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism, and dynamic binding, early in the programming sequence; (2) enable students to develop moderately large and realistic group projects that emulate application development in industrial settings; and (3) provide students with contemporary application development environments and graphical toolkits, appropriate to their areas of specialization. teaching of a new design, analysis, and programming paradigm, integration of modern software engineering principles at an early stage. Ethiopia is lagging generations behind in this area.

Furnishing computer laboratories with state state-of-the-art hardware and software. The current laboratories in all universities are very much outdated and inadequate. Students often queue for over 24 hours to touch computers. All efforts should be made to build state-of-the art laboratories for students to work together through a series of exercises

designed to encourage teamwork and brainstorming. Exercises should then be based on large hardware/software systems, incorporating actual industrial/corporate hardware and software problems into account.

Introducing computer programming concept at high schools. High schools could provide basics of programming that would allow students to seek employment opportunity and participate in life long learning and distance education and that could lead to a solid background for college education.

Restructuring of undergraduate curricula in universities to add introductory computing courses for all students whether these are attending social sciences, business and pure sciences or not. It is also essential to acquaint the student with the fundamentals of digital technology through the use of multimedia-based lectures such as that advanced by the African Virtual University, electronic course ware, and a highly interactive classroom structure.

Mount a national computer Odyssey through the popular media. This would help (1) to illustrate the major themes of computer science and engineering using popular topics relevant to the activities of the society (2) encourage students to undertake careers in computer science and engineering; (3) foster technological literacy among the population; (4) promote the concept that computer science and engineering are fields open to minorities, women and the physically disabled.

However, the future of growth of digital technology and a national information and communication industry cannot be realized without introducing computers to the younger generations. Efforts should be mounted to encourage children in elementary and high schools to use computers. A number of countries in Africa including South Africa, Kenya and Mozambique have already begun to experiment with school networks that bring elementary and high school students from these countries together with their counterparts elsewhere. Although K12 networks in developed nations have show considerable impact on teaching and learning, cultural and social exchange, globalization of concepts, infrastructure challenges (human resources, adequate computers, content, etc.) make it difficult to benefit from school network. The potential of school-nets and introducing computers to schools is obvious even where basic infrastructure such as roads is unavailable. Computers are one of the tools that empower both teachers and students equally.

V. Conclusion

Obviously there will be high cost of these technologies that often lead to the expression "we do not have chalks and proper bench, how do you dare thinking of computers". Experts agree that although the cost of information and communication technologies is high the cost of not applying them to social and economic development is much higher [14]. The cost of not using information and communication technology in education is by far higher because denial of access to information, communications and innovativeness means keeping the next generation in the same cycle of poverty, war, civil strife. It also means losing one of the easiest ways of supporting employment. Since Africa is equidistant between North America and Asia there is a possibility for employment to process mundane data entry or complex tasks using high speed networks, computers, hands and brains!

Various models have been developed to deal with raising cost of information and communication technologies. These include using a mix of technologies such low access to Internet and more reliance of CD-ROM, and the emerging Digital Video Disc (DVD) format, setting up community access points for all to contribute and benefit from new information and communication technologies and use of low cost reconditioned computers.

Internet is a window to the world. It opens a vast store of information and communications. Connectivity has become as important as building a new school for community advancement. Schools that do not link to the Internet will continue to be marginalized both in terms of resources to improve physical infrastructure and in content of education. Universities, schools and businesses should integrate new telematic technologies into their teaching methods. Teachers and trainers should learn how to use and integrate the new technologies. Teachers should be encouraged to develop curiosity in new technologies. The best educational technology applications are the result of collaboration among universities, businesses and government agencies.

Networking is here to stay and education has no choice but embrace it. The primary barriers to the deployment of new learning environments such as limited institutional inertia, recalcitrance of teachers, lack of appropriate infrastructures, and lack of funding are also here to stay [15]. The beginning of the next millenium is a time to strike a balance between opportunities provided by information and communication to education and these challenges! It is time to pay price for education and connectivity!

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