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Teaching
Africa's teachers about ICTs
id21.org
March
20, 2006
http://www.id21.org/education/e4cj1g1.html
African teacher
training institutions are doing little to train teachers how to
incorporate information and communication technologies (ICTs) into
their teaching practice. Teacher training institutions and schools
need better resources to ensure that ICTs are properly integrated
into education.
A study from
SchoolNet Africa (SNA) examines how African teachers are taught
about ICTs before and after they enter classrooms. It identifies
ICT courses and programmes and recommends ways in which ICT capability
can be integrated into teacher training programmes.
In the few African
schools equipped with ICTs, computers are often second-hand and
cannot run complex software; electricity supplies are unreliable;
access to computer rooms is limited by the competing demands of
teachers, students and administrators. Due to lack of training and
familiarity with computers, teachers do not know how to browse and
find internet materials and are not familiar with educational software.
While there
are some initiatives to train teachers in ICT skills – the authors
identified 61 courses targetting teachers in anglophone Africa –
these are usually small and of varying quality. Most ICT training
is delivered through face-to-face instruction; there are very few
online courses linked to African teaching systems.
Researchers
also found that:
- Very few
African teacher training institutions offer any form of pre-service
ICT training.
- Even those
countries with national ICT policies have not developed a coherent
strategy to develop teachers’ ICT skills.
- There is
little sharing of experience between countries and no moves towards
a united African framework for teaching ICT.
- Africa lacks
accreditation systems to acknowledge ICT skills obtained by teachers
or rank courses by quality.
- Many ICT
teacher education projects have been created with time-limited
donor funding so it is doubtful whether they will remain sustainable.
Most African
teacher training institutions are too under-resourced to meet existing
expectations of ICT training. The addition of an ICT curriculum
requires extra infrastructure, the development of teacher trainer
ICT skills and production of ICT training materials. A shortage
of public funds is the fundamental challenge to building skills
in ICTs in African education.
Many educationalists
have yet to realise the transformational potential of ICTs. And
given there are so many other spending priorities, as long as ICTs
are considered non-essential, they will continue to struggle for
attention.
SchoolNet Africa
calls for:
- integration
of ICTs at the pre-service teacher training level by building
ICT capacity at teacher training institutions
- production
of content within training courses relevant to the cultures and
languages of Africa
- ensuring
that content is supported by user communities excited about using
it and that it is rigorously evaluated
- greater effort
to ensure sustainability of existing initiatives
- improved
collaboration and information sharing between countries
- providing
accreditation to teachers who have undergone recognised ICT training:
the motivation of acquiring a qualification could be increased
with better pay or promotion possibilities.
Source(s):
‘Towards
a Strategy on Developing African Teacher Capabilities in the Use
of Information and Communication Technology (ICT)’ by Cassie Janisch
and Neil Butcher, SchoolNet Africa, October 2004 Full document.
Funded
by: Commonwealth of Learning, International Institute for
Communication and Development, Microsoft’s Partners in Learning
Program, Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
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