IC et Éducation en Afrique : portail d'actualité en continu

Les nombreux lecteurs de Thot se sont déjà fait une large idée des activités que conduit le Panaf, l'Agenda Panafricain de Recherche en Intégration des TIC, une excroissance du Rocare, le Réseau Ouest et Centre Africain de Recherche en Éducation. Le PanAf se présente comme une communauté de pratiques évolutives basée dans les universités de 11 pays à travers le continent africain. Il œuvre dans les établissements du primaire, du secondaire et dans les Institutions universitaires pour décrire et analyser les dispositifs favorisant l'intégration des TIC à l'école.
Le nouveau portail bilingue français/anglais, que l'on peut consulter sur Panaf, permet aux chercheurs en éducation, aux étudiants, au grand public, d'avoir une actualité en continu sur les Tic en éducation.

Plusieurs autres rubriques viennent enrichir le site, notamment,

TIC pour Apprenants
TIC pour Éducateurs
Banque de connaissance dans le domaine des Tic et de l'Éducation
Dans son observatoire, le Panaf présente l'ensemble de ses résultats, pays par pays, et selon une critériologie fondée sur 160 indicateurs relatifs à la politique nationale sur les Tic, à l'accès, à la formation des enseignants, à l'utilisation des TIC, à l'apprentissage, à la gestion de l'école, et au genre, etc.

Panaf

IC et Éducation en Afrique : portail d'actualité en continu

Les nombreux lecteurs de Thot se sont déjà fait une large idée des activités que conduit le Panaf, l'Agenda Panafricain de Recherche en Intégration des TIC, une excroissance du Rocare, le Réseau Ouest et Centre Africain de Recherche en Éducation. Le PanAf se présente comme une communauté de pratiques évolutives basée dans les universités de 11 pays à travers le continent africain. Il œuvre dans les établissements du primaire, du secondaire et dans les Institutions universitaires pour décrire et analyser les dispositifs favorisant l'intégration des TIC à l'école.
Le nouveau portail bilingue français/anglais, que l'on peut consulter sur Panaf, permet aux chercheurs en éducation, aux étudiants, au grand public, d'avoir une actualité en continu sur les Tic en éducation.

Plusieurs autres rubriques viennent enrichir le site, notamment,

TIC pour Apprenants
TIC pour Éducateurs
Banque de connaissance dans le domaine des Tic et de l'Éducation
Dans son observatoire, le Panaf présente l'ensemble de ses résultats, pays par pays, et selon une critériologie fondée sur 160 indicateurs relatifs à la politique nationale sur les Tic, à l'accès, à la formation des enseignants, à l'utilisation des TIC, à l'apprentissage, à la gestion de l'école, et au genre, etc.

Panaf

Africa ICT Best Practices : portail africain d'échange de bonnes pratiques TIC

Africa ICT Best Practices est un portail bilingue (anglais-français) qui vise à référencer les meilleures pratiques en utilisation des technologies de l'information et de la communication en Afrique par le secteur public, le secteur privé et la société civile.
L'idée qui sous-tend cette initiative, oeuvre de Microsoft auquel s'est associé le gouvernement du Burkina-Faso, est d'offrir aux décideurs africains un moyen de promouvoir et de partager des solutions technologiques réussies dans leurs pays respectifs. Cette initiative contribuera ainsi à reproduire plus facilement les solutions qui ont fait leurs preuves, compte tenu notamment du déficit de compétences dans la région.

Africa ICT Best Practices comporte :

une interface générale où sont présentés les dernières nouvelles sur les TIC en Afrique ainsi que d'autres informations générales, et
une interface « projets » qui fonctionne suivant le modèle d'une banque de données. Elle indexe les meilleures pratiques TIC validées, listées par domaine ; ce qui en facilite l'accès.
Le portail donne aussi des informations sur la soumission de proposition de pratiques TIC en vue de leur validation.

Africa ICT Best Practices

Africa ICT Best Practices : portail africain d'échange de bonnes pratiques TIC

Africa ICT Best Practices est un portail bilingue (anglais-français) qui vise à référencer les meilleures pratiques en utilisation des technologies de l'information et de la communication en Afrique par le secteur public, le secteur privé et la société civile.
L'idée qui sous-tend cette initiative, oeuvre de Microsoft auquel s'est associé le gouvernement du Burkina-Faso, est d'offrir aux décideurs africains un moyen de promouvoir et de partager des solutions technologiques réussies dans leurs pays respectifs. Cette initiative contribuera ainsi à reproduire plus facilement les solutions qui ont fait leurs preuves, compte tenu notamment du déficit de compétences dans la région.

Africa ICT Best Practices comporte :

une interface générale où sont présentés les dernières nouvelles sur les TIC en Afrique ainsi que d'autres informations générales, et
une interface « projets » qui fonctionne suivant le modèle d'une banque de données. Elle indexe les meilleures pratiques TIC validées, listées par domaine ; ce qui en facilite l'accès.
Le portail donne aussi des informations sur la soumission de proposition de pratiques TIC en vue de leur validation.

Africa ICT Best Practices

The Open Access movement now enters education. After the well-known Budapest Open Access Initiative ( http://www.soros.org/openaccess/ ) and a number of related initiatives for for Open Access to scientific research, the Cape Town Open Education Declaration now extends this approach to education and calls for endorsement of the following (excerpts):

1. Educators and learners: First, we encourage educators and learners to actively participate in the emerging open education movement. Participating includes: creating, using, adapting and improving open educational resources; embracing educational practices built around collaboration, discovery and the creation of knowledge; and inviting peers and colleagues to get involved. Creating and using open resources should be considered integral to education and should be supported and rewarded accordingly.

2. Open educational resources: Second, we call on educators, authors, publishers and institutions to release their resources openly. These open educational resources should be freely shared through open
licences which facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone. Resources should be published in formats that facilitate both use and editing, and that accommodate a diversity of technical platforms. Whenever possible, they should also be available in formats that are accessible to people with disabilities and people who do not yet have access to the Internet.

3. Open education policy: Third, governments, school boards, colleges and universities should make open education a high priority. Ideally, taxpayer-funded educational resources should be open educational resources. Accreditation and adoption processes should give preference to open educational resources. Educational resource repositories should actively include and highlight open educational resources within their collections.

Details and the full text is available via
http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read-the-declaration , individuals and organizations may sign.

http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080109/full/451112b.html (subscription required). If you know free info on the topic, please post it here. Thanks

Have you ever wondered why most African bright minds who go to study in the west end up working there?
This is my simple analysis. When they land to Europe or America, African scientists work hard, sometimes harder than the "home-boys/girls". They are determined to reach the apex of science.
After completion of the training, they have "too much" knowledge that there are no labs available in Africa to accommodate them. So, instead of putting their knowledge to waste, they decide to stay in the west where they can be more useful with labs and equipment available.
Now it is a challenge for the African governments to set up high-tech labs so that they retain their "brains".

Introduction

The development of a modern civilization has a lot to do with advancement of science and technology. The quality of science education directly impacts on the extent of growth and development of science and technology. Consequently, it becomes evident that the amount of resources a nation or country puts into science teaching and research determines, to a fair extent, the level of scientific and technological advancement. Quality teaching of practical science is expensive. It is even more expensive to conduct research in science. In Africa, the private sector is not financially up to the task of execution of quality cutting edge research in science. It requires interplay of a strong private sector and keen interest and support from government. It is therefore important that African countries critically review their positions, support and involvement in programs that enhance science and technology.

The brains to excel in science are nurtured right from the early stages of learning. Africa has, over the years, produced these problem-solving brains. Some of them have their education completed here. Others have their advanced studies done in the developed countries. A good number of them leave Africa in search of greener pastures. It is important that the education system, instruction materials and teaching staff in Africa are of high quality. Working conditions that stimulate cutting edge science research need to be put in place to reduce brain drain. This can be possible with support from highly enthusiastic government organs that are charged with ensuring quality education and advancement of science. This presentation gives a brief overview of the state of science education in Uganda and gives a few suggestions to the way forward for science in Africa. This is based on the assumption that African countries and, indeed, most of the developing countries have a lot in common with the Ugandan situation.

Challenges of science in Uganda’s education system

Primary Education

The primary section is comprised of seven levels/years/forms of study. This is uniform in all government aided schools, except for private schools which may have nursery/kindergarten in addition. The curriculum mainly consists of Mathematics, English, Science and Social studies. Science at this level is mainly if not exclusively theoretical. The recent introduction of Universal primary education saw the teacher to pupil ratio greatly reduced. The increase in enrollment is not commensurate with the existing infrastructure. In some schools, make-shift classrooms have been improvised due to lack of proper and sizable buildings. These problems, coupled with poor remuneration of teachers lead to inefficient teaching and learning. Whereas some pupils make it to the good schools, most of which are privately owned, the majority of the Ugandan pupils are from poor families and can only access public schools which are less equipped to cater for the large numbers of pupils. For a large fraction of the primary going pupils, the development of scientific skills is crippled at an early stage in their academic life due to problems such as those highlighted above.

Secondary School Education.

The education system, especially in secondary school, is characterized by teaching a wide range of subjects in the ordinary level (up to 19 in some schools). This leads to a more theoretical coverage of subject material. The situation is not improved by the low teacher to student ratio, especially in most of the public schools.

The few teachers on the government payroll are poorly remunerated. As a result, most of them take up part-time employment or private business enterprises in order to make ends meet. This sees their commitment to the teaching of science (which demands for sacrifice) greatly reduced. Therefore, even the few available resources for teaching of science are not put to use.

There are few science laboratories in secondary schools. A good number of these are ill equipped. Most private schools do not seriously handle science disciplines. All these do not only deny the students the chance to acquire scientific practical skills, but also kills their interest in science disciplines. The other disheartening issue is the fact that the national examination board assumes an ideal situation and sets the same national exam without regard for the local conditions of study in each school.

University Education

The above scenario translates into a very small percentage of students joining University for science courses. A small percentage of these students are on government sponsorship.

University science education in Uganda is not devoid of problems that hamper the effective imparting of knowledge and practical skills to these few science students. A few of these problems include the following:

There is poor remuneration of university staff and simultaneous deliberate attraction of the same staff into politics. This creates “internal brain drain” leaving departments with limited highly skilled manpower to train other scientists and engage in research. Other staffs seek greener pastures which in most cases are not geared towards science development. This means that the number of research projects going on in the university is greatly reduced.

Their few organizations in the private sector which support research in science. There is no government sponsorship for postgraduate studies. Government puts in little or no effort to solicit for funding for research projects. Individual researchers struggle on their own to obtain sponsors for projects within the researchers’ interests. Because sponsors provide limited funds specifically for the research project, it is increasingly difficult to develop capacity to create continuity within departments. There are minimal efforts by government to establish schemes for this capacity development.

Institutions do not enthusiastically promote collaborative research, be it interdepartmental or interuniversity within the country, region or even further. This in effect reduces the quality of research done in these institutions.

Students study to get degrees and seek jobs. There hasn’t been much emphasis on publication of research findings. This impedes quality research and dissemination of knowledge to the international community. Therefore we have more theses/dissertations than publications from the work they do.

Other challenges to science development in Uganda include the following:

The presence of internal and external conflicts, such as wars, has led to the resources allocated to education and research to be greatly reduced. The allocation of resources is further influenced by politics which in most cases never consider science development and research. A look at budget allocation to the ministry of education for the fiscal years 2003/2004 and 2004/2005 (Table below) confirms the limited support for University education to conduct meaningful research.

Table 1. Education Sector Shares By Sub Shares By % FY 2003/2004 – 2004/2005

Sub sector FY 2003/2004 FY 2004/2005
Primary Education 68.4% 66.2%
Secondary Education 14.9% 16.7%
BTVET 3.9% 3.7%
Tertiary Education 9.9% 10.8%
Other (including universities) 2.9% 2.6%

Source: Ministry of Education and Sports, Planning Department.

NB: During the financial year 2004/2005, the education sector budget share of the GDP was 24.1% while the education sector share was 31.2% of the national discretionary recurrent budget.

Due to varying socio-economic situations in different parts of the country, it is difficult equally implement the same educational programs in these parts. For example, Karamoja (north eastern Uganda) has the “Alternative Education for Karamoja” deemed the best suitable for this region. Some of these factors make it extremely difficult to have quality education, later on quality scientific principles.

The inability for government and the responsible authorities to ensure optimum operating conditions that support the smooth conducting of research e.g. constant electric power supply.

There is misappropriation of funds by people in positions that are meant to foster science research and technology. This is not helped by the lack of vigilance, on the government side, in combating such behaviors.
It is my hope that the situation will improve sooner than later though there are few signs of a bright near future. What’s the situation in other African countries???

What is government doing to support science?

Government though is not entirely silent on improving the science education. The following are some of the attempts by government to promote science in the country:

With effect from 2006, the government made the study of science subjects, namely; physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics compulsory for ordinary level of secondary school. Although this is a good idea, it is still difficult to be done efficiently given the limited resources available for science instruction in most of the schools.

Government plans to construct central science laboratories for secondary school education. These are to be optimally equipped with apparatus chemicals and staff so that schools with poorly equipped laboratories can access these central laboratories for practical lessons. However it remains to be seen whether this plan will be implemented since there is no timeline set.

In his budget speech for the fiscal year 2006/2007, the minister of Finance, planning and economic development, Dr.Ezra Suruma mentioned that government has prioritized the provision of support to scientists who are undertaking research and innovations related to the country’s production processes. In the budget, Shs 8 billion was provided towards research in banana development, fruit juice processing, and malaria research. He also mentioned that in addition, Government had negotiated a five-year US$ 30 million project under the Millennium Science Initiative funded by the World Bank, to support research, education and training in science and technology with linkages to the industry. He said that work on strengthening the Uganda Industrial Research Institute, under this project had already started.

Government has recently (2006) accepted to increase on the salary of the academic staff in public universities. This was, however, after the academic staff at Makerere University had gone on strike, leading to a temporary closure of the University. So if remuneration of the staff is to be improved after such scenarios, then we cannot expect the output of similar quality and magnitude to that of a well motivated staff.

Government is in the process of establishing technical colleges and polytechnics to impart practical skills to school leavers so that they can be economically productive.

What can/should be done?

Government should take a leading role in promoting scientific research in higher institutions of learning. This can be through project sponsorship, scholarships to science students, and loan schemes for postgraduate students engaged in science research. They should help solicit for research grants on behalf of research organizations to supplement the efforts of the individual researchers.

Government should appropriately remunerate academic staff at institutions of learning.
Institutions should engage in collaborative research. Researchers should establish forums, such as WAYS, ANCAP, NUSESA e.t.c, through which they could share knowledge and experiences. South – south and north – south collaboration is important and it would be much easier if our governments took keen interest in supporting these issues. This could enable one to gain access to better technologies easily and cheaply without necessarily having to own them.

Regular meets, fellowships and conferences offer a unique experience in as far as dissemination of knowledge is concerned. Scientists involved in research should frequently organize these meets. Efforts should be made to improve access to high impact science journals, especially to universities and research organizations.

It is important that young scientists in Africa get to have the passion to do quality research and efforts should be made to attract as many as possible since the future of science in this naturally gifted continent largely depends on the activity of the young generation.

Conclusion

One can only reap where he sows. The excellence of science research and technology requires excellent training in scientific skills. This calls for concerted efforts between the private sector and government to greatly improve the education system right from the primary level to the tertiary level. The teaching of science and research are expensive ventures which require governments to try as much as possible to improve the systems. Sharing of information and instrumentation is vital for the development of science in Africa. This justifies the need for collaborative research, conferences, training workshops and networks such as WAYS e.t.c. through which experiences can be shared. It is upon us the young scientists to strive to uplift the standard and frequency of such fora for the future of science and technology is largely dependent on the performance of our generation.

References:

The National Report on the Development of Education in Uganda at the Beginning Of The 21st Century: Report to the 47th Session of the International Conference on Education, Geneva, Switzerland 8th-11th September 2004; Ministry Of Education And Sports, Uganda.

Budget Speech; Financial Year 2006/07, delivered at the Meeting of the 1st Session of The 8th Parliament of Uganda at The Parliament Buildings on Thursday, 15th June, 2006 by Honourable Dr. Ezra Suruma Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.
UGANDA: Changing attitudes to education in Karamoja; UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, IRIN News.org.
Margarita Focas Licht (2000); Alternative Basic Education for Karamoja (ABEK) – Uganda. EENET Newsletters : Newsletter 4 Contents.

EDUCATION OF THE GIRLS: A CHALLENGE TO PICK UP

Several forces slow down the education of girls in developing countries: child labor, forced and early marriages, the insufficiency of academic infrastructure, the lack of sufficient attention by parents to the academic evolution of the girl child, the existence of sexist stereotypes in academic manuals, amongst others. The consequences generated by these actions are enormous and far reaching and constitute a base for poverty and underdevelopment.

But why the education of the girls in the first place and how do we pick up this challenge?

In fact women make up about 52% of the world’s population, thus the education of the girl child; the women of tomorrow, must be at the center of all the preoccupations of development. An educated woman constitutes a check to the difficult dilemma faced by the girl child such as:

- Child labor, a situation faced mostly by girls in developing countries.

- Early and forced marriages, which masks other problems such as the sexual exploitation of the girl child.

- Maternal and infant mortality, which is a consequence of the lack of proper hygiene and health related information.

- The rapid growth of the rate of reproduction and thus the lack of a mastery of planification, which leads to malnutrition and its related deadly outcomes.

- The “excision” also responsible for very high rates of infant mortality and the propagation of sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV and AIDS. We are well aware that AIDS has a huge impact on the activities of the primary sector, and is thus one of the several causes of famine in many countries.

We uphold two recommendations which we consider pertinent to overcome the challenges underlined in the millennium objectives:

- To support and encourage the education of the girl child to at least the secondary level, concurrently with the empowerment of women.

- Integrate in an educational manner, the revision of educative programs, school projects, school manuals and the training of trainers in Gender approach.

As a matter of fact the program on the actual education of the girl child executed this far, is limited to sending girls to school, although the official report is that, the abandonment of this process also begins pretty early. A case in point is Senegal, a country which is like the head light and model in West Africa, which champions the campaign and efforts for the education of the girl child, has registered a gross rate of the education of the girl child, which has steadily progressed from 63% to 80,60% in five years (1999/2000 to 2004/2005).This is however generally limited at CEI; three year of primary education, meanwhile the boys on their part always complete at least the elementary level (source: DRA: Ministry of Education-Senegal).

The maintainance of girls at school is obviously a complex issue, however pro-development programs which are oriented towards “the financial autonomisation of women”, coupled with the enhanced sensitization and conscientisation of the society could generate tangible and anticipated positive results in the long run.

Besides some related socioeconomic and cultural factors it is also vital to revise on the other hand, such as:

- Educative programs which influence the type of man to train and educate.

- School and education projects whose formulation makes more reference to men.

- School manuals with stereotyped contents, in which girls are attached to and associated with secondary roles. Worse still, in some cases, reference to women and girls is almost inexistent in scientific manuals.

Finally, it is important to emphasis that there is need to train qualified trainers, especially teachers and educators, in such a way that existing sexist attitudes and sentiments will be checked and possibly effaced entirely.

The way forward is long and difficult, and the year 2015, has been underlined as the year to evaluate the efforts concentrated to attain the fixed objectives and the projections. The solution to the afore mentioned problem generates another problem, namely that of the education of the girl child and the maintenance of the girl child at school, consequently it is important to actually start taking into consideration the problem of maintaining the girl child at school, in order to handle other related future problems, such as the under representation of women in high professions and functions. /.

Patrice Charlemagne ADOKPO

Teacher - researcher

Brussels

adokpat@yahoo.fr ; Padokpo@ulb.ac.be

L’ EDUCATION DES FILLES : UN DEFI A RELEVER

Beaucoup de pesanteurs freinent l’éducation des filles dans les pays en développement : le travail des enfants, le mariage précoce, le mariage forcé, l’insuffisance d’infrastructures scolaires, le peu d’attention des parents à l’évolution scolaire des filles, les stéréotypes sexistes dans les manuels scolaires…. Les conséquences de ces actions sont énormes et à la base de la pauvreté et du sous-développement. Mais pourquoi l’éducation des filles et comment relever ce défi ?

Au fait les femmes constituent environ 52% de la population mondiale et l’éducation des filles – femmes de demain – doit être au centre de toute préoccupation de développement. Une femme instruite constitue un frein :

- au travail des enfants dont les filles en majorité dans les pays en développement

- aux mariages précoces ou forcés, qui cachent d’autres problématiques telles que l’exploitation sexuelle des filles

- à la mortalité maternelle et infantile, conséquence d’un manque d’hygiène et d’information

- à la croissance rapide du taux de reproduction dont la maîtrise par une planification convenable évite pour beaucoup de familles la sous-nutrition et ses conséquences

- à l’excision, responsable aussi du taux élevé de la mortalité infantile, et surtout de la propagation des maladies sexuellement transmissibles dont le SIDA. Cette dernière, nous le savons, prive de bras valides pour les activités du secteur primaire et est une des causes de la famine dans beaucoup de pays.

Deux recommandations nous semblent pertinentes pour relever le défi des objectifs du millénaire :

- Soutenir la scolarisation des filles, leur maintien à l’école jusqu’au niveau secondaire au moins et en même temps l’autonomisation des femmes.

- Intégrer dans l’éducation l’approche Genre ; ce qui suppose la révision des programmes éducatifs, projets d’écoles, manuels scolaires et la formation des formateurs à cette approche.

En effet le programme de la scolarisation des filles exécuté jusqu’ici consiste à envoyer les filles à l’école. Or le constat est que le décrochage de celles-ci commence tôt. Pour preuve le Sénégal, pays phare pour l’Afrique de l’Ouest dans les efforts de scolarisation des filles, a connu un taux brut de scolarisation (TBS) des filles qui est passé de 63% à 80,60% en cinq ans (1999/2000 à 2004/2005), mais celles-ci décrochent généralement au CE1 (troisième année du primaire) alors que les garçons terminent au moins leur cycle élémentaire ; (Source :DRH – Ministère de l’éducation – Sénégal). Le maintien des filles à l’école paraît moins aisé mais des programmes de développement orientés « autonomisation financière des femmes » couplés avec une conscientisation de la société peuvent aboutir aux résultats escomptés.

Outre les facteurs socioéconomiques et culturels, il faudra aussi penser à réviser :

- les programmes éducatifs qui influencent notablement le type d’Homme à former

- les projets scolaires dont la formulation se réfère plus à l’homme

- les manuels scolaires dont les contenus sont stéréotypés, où les femmes se voient attribuer des rôles secondaires. Par ailleurs des références aux femmes sont presque inexistantes dans les manuels scientifiques.

En fin il faut assurer la formation des formateurs, notamment des enseignants, à l’approche Genre afin de réduire les attitudes sexistes de ceux-ci.

Le chemin qui reste à faire est long et 2015 servira à évaluer les efforts consentis pour l’atteinte des objectifs fixés et les avancées. La résolution de problèmes engendre d’autres problèmes (de la scolarisation des filles au maintien des filles à l’école) et il faudra commencer à prendre vraiment en compte le problème de maintien des filles à l’école afin d’atténuer le poids d’autres problèmes futurs tels que le problème de la sous représentativité des femmes dans les hautes fonctions. /.

Patrice Charlemagne ADOKPO

Enseignant – chercheur

Béninois à Bruxelles

17/08/2006

adokpat@yahoo.fr ; Padokpo@ulb.ac.be