Girl Summit 2014: The long term view of fulfilling potential and educational opportunities

Today marks the launch of the first Girl Summit in London, to raise awareness for the global campaign against FGM and the forced marriage of girls and young women. The summit is a major milestone in a long journey of promoting these causes by a range of NGO’s including Plan UK and the NSPCC, amongst others. The event has the backing of the UK government’s Department for International Development, who have given considerable support including moves to establish policy and to add strength to the UK’s position in condemning these abhorrent practices.

One of the key points of the summit is to highlight the long-term view of the social benefits to women and girls of bringing an end to these procedures and activities, by providing them with the opportunity to fulfill their true potential in society in their own right rather than be controlled, both physically and socially. The fight against FGM is clearly not just a case of preventing this cruel and appalling practice and the long-term physical and psychological harm it can cause, but coupled with preventing forced early marriage, it is a case of restoring pride and self-esteem, while working towards a point at which girls can look forward to a future with real possibilities of personal development, through making their own fundamental choices about their lives. Pursuing a structured education for instance, should be a right and a viable option rather than having their lives controlled and being led into forced marriage arrangements. When girls and young women in the communities concerned are able to take back control in this way rather than be controlled, the resulting rewards of educational attainment can provide huge benefits to them as well as their whole community, through greater employment opportunities and ultimately greater economic stability.

In the spirit of celebrating the concept of promoting opportunity for women and girls in some of the world’s more challenging cultural environments, and in the spirit of one of main themes of this blog – that is, highlighting where technology, innovation and education are applied to support and improve people’s lives in developing nations – my ‘tribute’ to today’s special event is to look at two recent ‘good news’ stories that focus on the rise of women and girls through technology and education, in South Africa and Kenya.

Digital learning programme for rural Kenyan girls

According to Vincent Matinde’s recent story on the itwebafrica.com website, a project is in place to provide digital learning to 25,000 girls in rural Kenya. ‘Project iMlango’ will provide the necessary computers and high-speed internet needed to connect 195 rural schools so that the girls can be educated within their communities. The scheme is supported by several UK companies (Avanti, sQuid, Whizz Education and Camara Education) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

Lynne Featherstone, International Development Minister for DFID is quoted in the article, as she draws a direct connection between the causes of today’s Girl Summit and the planned programme:

“…Education is vital to helping improve the life chances of millions of marginalised girls and protecting them from harmful practices like child and forced marriage…”

The full article can be viewed here:

Rural Kenyan girls to get e-learning boost
http://www.itwebafrica.com/ict-and-governance/256-kenya/233244-rural-kenyan-girls-to-get-e-learning-boost

‘Girls Invent Tomorrow’: Mentoring South African girls in computer skills

A new initiative to provide IT training and computing skills to girls in South Africa has been launched as part of the African EduWeek conference at the Sandron Convention Centre in Johannesburg. As reported in Arthur Goldstruck’s insightful article in the South African Business Daily Live website, the Intel-sponsored ‘Girls Invent Tomorrow’ workshop aims to provide as much emphasis on computer education as to the supply of IT hardware and equipment to schools. Combined with another Intel-backed scheme, the ‘She Will Connect’ project which is committed to bridging the digital divide by expanding the digital literacy skills of young women in emerging countries, the two projects aim to avoid the mistakes made with previous concepts of this nature, where resources were poured in to providing expensive equipment whilst training and educational resources were neglected, resulting in much of the investment in ‘kit’ being wasted and underused.

As quoted in the article, Thabani Khube, corporate affairs director for Intel South Africa explains Intel’s position, rationalising their sense of corporate social responsibility in relation to the aim to prioritise education and training as much as physical investment in technology:

“…Our approach is to change mindsets….In most corporate social investment, technology deployment is about ticking a box and then moving on. At Intel, education is a huge focus in itself…”

The complete article can be viewed here:

SIGN POST: A generation of IT girls on the rise
http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2014/07/20/sign-post-a-generation-of-it-girls-on-the-rise

Reducing the gender gap in access to ICT: some African initiatives towards change

In March of this year, the ITU and UNESCO-sponsored Broadband Commission for Digital Development met in Mexico City to endorse a new report coordinated by UNESCO, entitled ‘Technology, Broadband and Education: Advancing the Education for All Agenda’.

At the meeting, an ambitious target was set to reduce the gender gap that persists in terms of access and use of the internet, with a new advocacy target: “…to ensure gender equality in broadband access by 2220..”. This is against the backdrop of general recognition that a huge amount of work is required if the Millennium Development Goals of ‘Universal Primary Education’ and ‘Education for All’ are to be achieved. As an article from the UNESCO website on the meeting in March states:-

‘…Less than three years away from the target date for achieving these goals, 61 million children of primary-school age, and a further 71 million of lower secondary-school age, are not in school. In addition, close to 793 million adults – 64% of them women – lack literacy skills, with the lowest rates in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia…’

The article continues with reference to data that was presented at the meeting, highlighting a 25% disparity between men and women in terms of those who used the internet, with the figure being far greater in Sub-Saharan Africa, going up to 45%.

Having these stats to hand is hardly necessary to support the argument that much more needs to be done to close the gender gap – or gender divide (as part of the wider ‘digital divide’), in terms of the number of women in comparison to men who have access to the internet, training in ICT and access to ICT resources in developing countries. Thankfully there seems to be far more global recognition that the existing barriers to opportunity afforded to women in these communities, in terms of career development, social empowerment and global self-expression, will continue to perpetuate without a considerable improvement in the level of accessthey have to ICT education and resources.

Here I have highlighted a few examples of some of the projects and initiatives which have tried to tackle these inequalities, in various communities across Africa, which have been featured in the press in the past year.

Akirachix Training Project: Teaching ICT to high school girls from the slums of Nairobi

“Currently, our country is basking in recognition and appreciation of a robust tech. scene, but we only have a handful of women making an impact in this field”

These are the words of Linda Kamau, Akirachix Training Project Lead, in an article on their work in Nairobi in the BizTech Africa website in May of this year. Akirachix are an all-girl ICT organisation who started offering ICT training to a small group of girls from the slums of Nairobi back in 2010, with the project continuing to develop since then. She goes on to explain how they try to help with other issues as part of the initiative, that may be acting as an obstacle to students continued participation in the scheme:

“Teaching the girls about computers and building their appreciation of science is one thing, but we cannot achieve much when they have to withdraw from class to attend to personal issues. We therefore ensure that we facilitate school attendance with things like bus fare so that they don’t miss class, and give them personal effects for proper hygiene…”

As the article explains, in the coming year since publication the group were intent on further enhancing the curricula they could offer to students to include training in financial literacy and psychological support, with a view to gaining recognition and further input from stakeholders such as the Kenya National Examinations Council in the future.

Senegal: Aiming to educate 100 girls in ICT each year

This is the aim of Bitilokho NDiaye, Technical Consultant in charge of Gender Issues at the Senegal Ministry of Communications and Digital Economy, from an interview with The Soleil earlier this year.

In the interview, reported online in the Afrique IT News website in April, Bitilokho explained how they want to “…encourage computer access to women by giving them low-cost computers so that they can be trained in communications…” with the aim of “…promoting female entrepreneurship by making sure that that there are SME headed by women.” Summing up the interview, she explained that the scheme had been a success so far, and hoped to present those who had participated and the projects they had undertaken in ICT since attending the training course.

Telecentre Women Campaign: Joint Scheme in Rwanda, Kenya and Zambia to encourage women to embrace technology through ICT training

As reported on the telecentre.org blog last month, since July the Rwanda Telecentre Network (RTN) Southern Africa Telecentre Network (SATNET) and KenTel have been implementing a digital literacy program of training for women in both rural and urban communities. Working in conjunction with Microsoft, the aim if the initiative as explained in the article is to:

‘…empower disadvantaged community women with knowledge of ICTs for personal growth and expanded opportunities for better lives. Hence boost countries’ aspirations of transforming from an agricultural-based economy to a knowledge-based one….’

One of the students who attended the training explained how she was able to benefit from it with the running of the cooperative of 25 women she was involved in, which produced sweaters and scarves:

“we can now use Microsoft Excel to calculate our profits, book keeping, design a flyer to market our product using Ms Word, and prepare a presentation Powerpoint…”

Chipatala Cha Pa Foni (CCPF): Mobile phone-based initiative in Malawi aims to help women responsible for sourcing medical services and facilities for their family and communities

An article earlier this month in the All Africa website, referencing the Malawi News Agency, explains how a recent development is helping women in rural areas of Malawi (with particular reference to the Nkhotakota region) in their search for medical services and health advice, a requirement that affects whole communities but inevitably falls to women to provide a solution for them.

Chipatala Cha Pa Foni (CCPF), which means ‘Health Centre By Phone’ in English, is a scheme that embraces mobile ICT to specifically help those women who have young children, are pregnant or of child-bearing age,  by provided them with vital healthcare information regarding maternal, neonatal and child-health concerns via their mobile phones.

The result of a competition jointly run by the Malawi Ministry of Health and global NGOs Concern Worldwide and Village Reach, the scheme uses contracts between Village Reach and mobile provider Airtel as its technology platform. Through this integration of mobile technology, it has been possible to extend the reach of existing women’s healthcare education programmes to those who need them most.

Village Reach Program Manager Zachanak Jezman explains the CCPF initiative in more detail:

“CCPF has two components, the first one being a toll free case management hotline which allows women of child bearing age, pregnant women and women of under-five children to talk directly to health workers by dialing 54747 on any Airtel number.

“The second component allows the three groups of targeted women to register with CCPF to receive timely and specialized tips and reminders on healthy information,” he said.

During the launch of CCPF in Nkhotakota, the article quotes National Chairman for the Presidential Initiative on Safe Motherhood, Senior Chief Kwataine as he described the launch:

“…a special day for the three targeted groups of women…CCPF is one way of promoting safe motherhood. It provides a platform to interact with (a health) worker for a long period without actually going to the (health) facility…Women who have reservations about going (to health a facility) will also be served. It’s up to us to use it so that Malawi should continue doing well on maternal health…”

Computer training on four wheels: Different approaches to ‘driving’ ICT education to where it’s needed

This week I’ve taken the blog down a mobile route, but not in the usual sense when it comes to ICT4D: It’s all about the different ways in which vehicles have been utilised to bring ICT training to those who might need it, in hard-to-reach, rural communities, where education in computing and the resources required are not normally readily available.

Many of the more remote communities in developing countries lack even the most basic in ICT infrastructure, let alone dedicated provision for ICT/computer skills training and internet access, and yet without some form of education in ICT, those communities and in particular their younger generation have restricted opportunities in terms of employment beyond their immediate environment, or access to further and higher education, because of their lack in ICT skills and training. In addition, the communities as a whole are less able to benefit from ICT-based innovations in health provision and agriculture, without access to the necessary training in order to utilise the developments available to them.

Mobile computer ‘labs’ and training facilities have existed in various locations in the developing world for some years now, through a local determination to overcome the lack of ICT provision that still persists in many communities, or a lack of any convenient location to provide lessons in ICT-related skills.

The vehicles used in the projects this post focuses on may vary, from converted four-wheel drive SUVs to full size buses, but the intentions are the same – to bring ICT training to those who may need it most, in the more remote and disconnected locations, and in environments where new skills and a greater understanding of modern technology could lead to greater opportunities for employment, and greater prosperity for the communities involved. Here I’ve looked at four of these stories, to give an overview of the different approaches adopted to provide mobile ICT education.

South Africa – ‘The Big Green eMachine’

One of original (if not the very first) attempts to deliver ICT education in a mobile format was the ‘Big Green eMachine’ on South Africa’s ‘Wild Coast’; a specially converted 4×4 truck that was set up as a joint venture between local NGO Friends of Chintsa, Volunteer Africa 32 Degrees and African Heartland Journeys, with additional financial assistance from other charities. The project has been running since 2010 and provides a mobile lab complete with server, laptops and all the necessary kit to provide ICT training, in as close to a ‘classroom’ environment as can be achieved on four wheels. As explained in a short piece from the E-learning Africa website, the initiative’s aims are all about bringing ICT to those who would otherwise have little access to it in their community environment:

‘…This directly addresses the lack of technology in the extreme rural areas by visiting schools and bringing computer based learning to children in these areas! Furthermore, the mobile lab has proved to be the solution to the lack of space, security risks to assets and the unreliable or non-existent electricity supply. It’s a fantastic project and the students absolutely love it!…’

Sri Lanka – Esoft’s mobile computer bus

Initially put together in 2011, this project provided by local ICT education provider ESoft, aimed to bring basic ICT knowledge and understanding to students and children in disadvantaged areas, where ICT resources and training were scarce or non-existent. At the centre of the project was ESoft’s ‘mobile computer bus’, fully equipped with all the necessary IT equipment required to provide a mobile classroom that is, as described in an article in Sri Lanka’s Sunday Times, ‘…on a par with any modern IT laboratory of an ICT training institute…’

As the CEO of a technology education company, you would expect Dr. Dayan Rajapaksa, ESoft’s Managing Director, to be vocal on the importance of providing ICT education to a mass audience. Yet what he’s quoted as suggesting in the Sunday Times article rings true and reads as a very concise recognition of the need to address the ‘digital divide’, between those with and those without access to ICT resources, education and understanding:

“…In the future world, nobody will be able to successfully steer his/her personal or professional life without depending on ICT. It is such a critically important component. Therefore, it is a national duty to impart knowledge and training on ICT to the younger generation who will take over as the country’s future leaders… It is bad enough that these students have no access to ICT due to a dearth of facilities, but it is still worse that they have no proper understanding of how important it is to be computer literate for their future prospects and wellbeing. There must be students among them who have the aptitude for ICT excellence. The objective of the ESOFT CSR project is to impart basic ICT knowledge and training and make these students understand the importance of academically arming themselves to excel in this important sphere. This will also open the door to better career prospects in a diverse field…”

St Lucia –  ICT for schools in the back of a mini-bus

A recent development on the Caribbean island of St Lucia has brought ICT to local schools, ‘centres for boys’ and correctional facilities, using a converted mini-bus packed with ICT resources and learning aids. When the bus pays weekly visits to two local schools, pupils are given the opportunity to use various ICT learning devices to help with their mathematics and language skills. Through an EU-funded programme (the EEICTP or Education Enhancement through Information Communication Technology Programme), the project is supporting the existing curriculum by providing the children with invaluable additional experience that would not normally be available to them, using digital devices and computers alongside their usual classroom teaching.

An article on the EEICTP St Lucia website explains the ethos behind the mobile facility, again recognising the need to address issues surrounding the division between those who do and those who don’t have ready access to ICT training and resources:

‘…The pioneering mobile ICT bus is equipped with Wi-Fi and electronic gadgets and visits the Boguis Primary School in Babonneau and the Les Etangs Primary School in Soufriere once a week…The initiative is part of the EEICTP’s outreach which has ushered in a new era of digital inclusiveness, bridging the gap between access to technology among students of urban and rural schools.…’

The Principal of one of the schools, Murina Julian of Boguis Primary, elaborates further on the importance of ICT education for her pupils:

“…In this technological world, our students need access to computers and since we are a rural school, we still have some students who are deprived of this access. You find as a result the students look forward to the visit of the Mobile ICT bus and are enthusiastic about learning…”

Uganda – One women’s mission to bring ICT to rural communities

The last focus of this post is perhaps the most appropriate to round off with, demonstrating as it does how one person’s drive and enthusiasm, with a little help from technology and a local NGO, can provide the solution to a communities lack of ICT knowledge, awareness or opportunity.

Ina Fried’s informative article from October 2012 in the All Things D website tells the story of Asia Kumukana. Asia was educated in Uganda and attended university there,  yet didn’t use a computer until she was 22, due to a dearth of resources or access to ICT at any stage of her education. Once hooked on technology, she decided she wanted to address the problem, particularly for those in rural areas:

‘…From the moment she got her first taste of computing, Uganda’s Asia Kamukama knew that she wanted more of her people to get their hands on this…Fast-forward a few years, and she helps run Maendeleo Foundation (see below), an organization that does just that — bringing a solar-powered mobile computing lab to rural villages. The effort brings together about 15 Intel Classmate PCs, along with the solar panels needed to power the machines…’

The article goes on to explain how Asia’s project planned to leave some of the computers and equipment behind at the schools and libraries that the mobile lab visited, hopefully providing a more permanent resource for those in the remote locations which up until then had not had access to them; – an additional benefit that this clever mobile solution was able to impart to those it has helped.

Further Information: The Maendeleo Foundation

The Maendeleo Foundation, a United States registered NGO, was set up with the aim of promoting the development of a productive computer services industry in East Africa, in part by helping local communities to have greater access to ICT through the use and promotion of solar energy sources at a local level. This is particularly relevant in Uganda, where some sources suggest that less than 10% of the rural community has access to a continuous electricity supply.

Their mission statement available from their website explains the organisations’ aims: ‘…Maendeleo Foundation’s mission is to complement the existing education system by making computers available to people of all ages, providing customized training, and encouraging and supporting the formation of Information Communication Technology businesses. We operate innovative training programs in a network of primary schools, and cooperate with organizations of similar interests that share our commitment to the promotion of technology for development…’

Central Asia and the success of ICT4D initiatives: continued support as vital as initial investment

Whilst looking at ‘ICT4D’ projects in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, two major themes seem to come to the fore, time and time again. These were the marked disparity between the levels of ICT investment and internet connectivity between the various neighbouring countries in the region, and how the success of the projects and initiatives that had been undertaken seemed to be determined not so much by the level of initial investment, but by the amount of continued, on-going support that was provided, post ‘launch’.

A fairly obvious link between levels of economic and industrial prosperity and levels of access to ICT and the internet can be drawn from most of the information that is available about Central Asia. The region as a whole has much more restricted levels of internet access, both in practical and censorship terms, than is typically enjoyed in Eastern Europe and elsewhere in the West, whilst ICT education is generally limited if not completely unavailable, and there is a lack of freely available information on what is actually provided in this area for people and their communities. Added to this, with several of the countries that occupy the region maintaining severe restrictions on what can viewed online, it is understandable that any drive to substantially increase access to ICT is seen as an up-hill struggle by those with more than a passing interest in the subject. It is also not simply a case that the wealthier and more economically advanced a country is, the greater the access to the internet, both in terms of number of users and the content that is available to them. It seems the situation is more complex, with certain comparatively wealthy nations in the region only allowing highly-restricted web access that is severely censored.

In an article from April this year in the Eurasian.org website, and with reference to the latest Global Information Technology Report, David Trilling casts his eye over the stark contrast in ICT fortunes between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, two former-Soviet states at the heart of Central Asia, but who’s levels of ‘relative’ prosperity – and adoption and deployment of ICT resources – are very different:

‘…They might be neighbors on the map, but Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan couldn’t be further apart in how they utilize information and communications technology (ICT). A model for the former Soviet Union, Kazakhstan is charging ahead, according to a new report measuring how ICT affects competitiveness, leaving much-poorer Kyrgyzstan in its digital dust…’

The article goes on to explain the basis of its findings (the report itself), which uses various indicators as a means of measuring the effectiveness of ICT provision in the region in relation to social development:

‘…In its 12th year, the Global Information Technology Report uses the Networked Readiness Index – computed with 54 indicators – to compare how 144 economies “leverage ICT for growth and well-being.”
This year Kyrgyzstan ranked last among former-Soviet states, at 118, between Suriname and Bolivia. Kazakhstan on the other hand, at 43, beat out all post-Soviet countries, save for the advanced Baltic states…’

The article adds further clarity to these statistics, elaborating on how they are calculated based on various scores, such as ‘strong government vision’ , continued development in ICT infrastructure, and a support for ‘…stronger ICT uptake – as evidenced by the number of Internet users…along with households with a personal computer…and those with Internet access…’

As suggested with greater detail in the article, by contrast Kyrgyzstan struggles in pretty much every criterion. A simplistic view is that this is purely down to being a poorer, less-developed state, which despite having great potential mineral wealth has not been able to harness it to the extent that the oil reserves have provided for Kazakhstan. But there also appears to be a problem of sustainability, which may be down in part to a lack of education and understanding of how to make ICT work, long-term, to the benefit of the nation’s communities.

In a report published by the Asian Development Bank last year, entitled ‘ICT in Education in Central and West Asia’, the key theme that keeps appearing is how those nations under the spot light have far greater success with their community-based, educational ICT initiatives when a sustainable approach is used, prioritising (beyond initial investments) the additional on-going support and maintenance of  IT hardware, adequate ICT training to teachers and practitioners, and maintaining investment to ensure ‘kit’ is kept up-to-date with software updates and an adequate antivirus solution.

Under the heading ‘Budget and Financing’ and with particular reference to issues with on-going support, the report first looks at Kyrgyzstan:

‘…Among its recommendations, the study notes the urgent need for governments to adequately fund school ICT operational costs and avoid under-use, misuse, or even non-use of the hardware provided and the widespread waste of scarce investment resources.
In the Kyrgyz Republic, for example, 25%–30% of computers supplied to schools were non-operational when surveyed in 2008. Participating countries reported high levels of non-operational hardware, also a common finding in developing countries outside the region; in some cases, more than 50% of computers in surveyed schools were reported to be non-operational. This is usually caused by difficulties in affording, or even accessing, reliable maintenance services. Difficulties in accessing maintenance services tend to be greater in rural and remote areas and this also widens the domestic digital divide…’

Elsewhere, the report echoes the findings illustrated in the Eurasian.org article, particularly in relation to ICT education, both in terms of student assessment and of the education of teachers themselves to be better equipped to teach via ICT resources:

‘…Kazakhstan has a significant training requirement because of the high level of subject-based activity in e-course materials development and the sophisticated hardware profiles of some schools specified by the Ministry of Education. Kazakhstan recognizes that its advanced ICT activity means that its training requirements are more complex and need to be upgraded, intensified, and widened as rapidly as possible.
This means that teachers need to be trained in ICT use on a subject basis using basic teaching and learning methodologies…’

In contrast, with reference to student assessments:

‘…Neither the Kyrgyz Republic nor Tajikistan has yet developed an approach to the assessment of ICT on student performance across subjects and has no effective monitoring of ICT use in schools.
Kazakhstan is confident of the beneficial impact of ICT, both in informatics and across curriculum subjects, and has produced case studies of innovative approaches after intensive research into ICT use and impact in the classroom…’

The report goes on to mention a fundamental factor that seems to appear throughout the region, particularly in more rural areas, and that is the lack of a reliable power supply, especially in school environments. A town or community may be hooked up to the national power grid, but this doesn’t guarantee that the schools there have continuous power available to them, uninterrupted, throughout the school day and beyond, which presents serious challenges when trying to maintain ICT infrastructure at a local level. In what little research material there is available, the power issue keeps coming up and is clearly a major hurdle to sustainable improvement and development of ICT in these areas.  

Another factor that appears to be resonating throughout the region and in particular with the least developed states is the dependence on NGO investment, rather than local government or commercial, in maintaining any real longevity for ICT community projects. This appears to be even more of an issue when extra staffing is required to fulfil ICT training and education requirements, which may not have been allowed for when planning the budgets at educational establishments in the region. It is fair to say that dependence on NGO’s for financial assistance is inevitable in developing nations throughout the world and particularly when maintaining ICT projects and initiatives, which may not be initially prioritised at a local level. But when those states are not as open to international assistance and support as other parts of the developing world, as appears to be the case in some of the more complex environments in Central Asia, NGO assistance may not be as abundant or as easy to access than with the more public and well-documented initiatives in many African and Latin American countries.

What is clear is that whilst the initial ideas and enthusiasm to provide communities with ICT training, education and the required resources is admirable and has been taken up with great zeal in many developing countries, if it isn’t backed up with the necessary on-going support, continued training and essential maintenance, the dream of closing the ‘digital divide’ soon fades. The net result is not only a low uptake in digital connectivity for the communities involved, but a huge waste of resources when the original investment in hardware and training comes to nothing. If the real goals and aims are to improve people’s lives and opportunities through embracing the digital age, then the support has to be there from day one and to stick around until it’s no longer needed.

Further Information on Source Material

EurasiaNet.org

EurasiaNet.org is a New York based website, providing information and analysis about political, economic, environmental and social developments in the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as in Russia, Turkey, and Southwest Asia.
For more information, visit http://www.eurasianet.org/

Asian Development Bank
Some background information (from their website – www.adb.org)

‘Since its founding in 1966, ADB has been driven by an inspiration and dedication to improving people’s lives in Asia and the Pacific. By targeting our investments wisely, in partnership with our developing member countries and other stakeholders, we can alleviate poverty and help create a world in which everyone can share in the benefits of sustained and inclusive growth.’
For further information, visit: http://www.adb.org/

ICT for education in Iraq: In search of good news

In a recent announcement from the regional industry news website arabianindustry.com (and also featured on a number of other similar sites), we were told that a deal had been signed to bring the first LTE TDD (Long-Term Evolution Time-Division Duplex) network to Iraq, thus paving the way for 4G capability further down the line. The deal, signed between Tishknet, an Iraqi internet service provider, and the mobile communication giant Ericsson, breaks new ground in the region, bringing high speed mobile connections to Iraqi customers fortunate enough to have the necessary technology to utilise them.

Somewhat inevitably, the services are planned for launch in the Kurdistan region of north east Iraq, which has been a well-documented and celebrated success story compared to much of the country over the last ten years, in terms of its rapid progress in social and economic development. As a BBC article put it back in March of this year:

‘…In the troubled security and political landscape of Iraq, the autonomous northern province of Kurdistan has emerged in the past 10 years as an inspiring success story…’

As most people with an interest beyond general global news stories are aware, let alone those with a specific interest in the region, ‘…troubled security and political landscape…’ is putting it mildly in Iraq, and the success of the Kurdistan region, with its autonomy being initially gained in 1991 and a proud and determined history of self-determination and identity, is the exception to the rule.

So what of the progress in the rest of Iraq, not just in terms of the expansion of telecommunications, but in relation to greater access to ICT-related education, and the increase in opportunities that it can bring? Access to 4G is a ‘nice-to-have’, but is it really what people need, in a country that only five years ago had an unemployment rate of nearly 30% among young people up to the age of 24, and where the fear of violence and death is still an everyday concern for much of the population?  The number of those out of work has ‘improved’ since then, but many argue the improvement is as much down to people giving up looking for work and thus taking themselves out of the equation, because the lack of security and stability continues to make regular work an unsafe and unsustainable option. So, whilst personal security and the safety of their communities is still the primary concern for many Iraqis, it is understandable that specific concerns about education, both at school age and college level, and in terms of the focus of this blog (that is, the expansion of ICT through education and the opportunities and benefits that can bring), are not perhaps their top priority.

That is not to say that people don’t want them to be. Up to 1991, Iraq’s rich cultural history and oil wealth had provided for very high levels of literacy and educational attainment, and had it not been for several periods of civil war, unrest and oppressive crack downs by incumbent regimes (Saddam Hussein, for instance, banned internet access when it started to become widely available), many argue that the country would at least be on a par in terms of education and technological development with the other states in the region.

As it stands, after 2003 there was little infrastructure to support widespread internet access in the country, and those few individuals who had the knowledge and resources to gain access were having to rely on dial-up networks for some time until limited broadband services were put into place, largely through partnerships between government and foreign third-party providers. Added to this, the ruination of the education system resulted in a drought in the ICT educational skillset; first through years of repression which led to much of the academic community leaving the country due to security fears, or in the worse cases facing death or detention, and the subsequent wholesale destruction of educational buildings and infrastructure. As a result of the invasion in 2003 and the aftermath of violence that followed, many schools and educational establishments were destroyed, and with particular resonance here, thanks to the looting and lawlessness that followed the invasion, the vast majority of public-owned ICT resources were also lost.

In his speech to the Geneva International Centre for Justice earlier this year, Dirk Adriaensens summarised this bleak situation, which goes some way to explain why it is taking such a long time for Iraq to recover in this area:

‘…Iraq’s education system, once vaunted as the most advantaged in the region, has suffered a patterned process of degradation and dismantling. Iraqi schools and universities were bombed and destroyed. Under the occupation, according to a report by the United Nations University International Leadership Institute in Jordan, some 84% of Iraq’s institutions of higher education have been burned, looted, or destroyed. Some 2.000 laboratories need to be re-equipped and 30.000 computers need to be procured and installed nationwide….’

Progress and Initiatives

As suggested in the title of this post, good news stories about education, particularly in relation to ICT, are hard to come by when researching on Iraq, but some efforts have clearly been made in order to create an environment in which people can once again flourish and gain the skills they need to take advantage of the new opportunities that ICT can bring, in a safe and hopefully stable environment; and not just in the relatively prosperous region of Kurdistan.

UNESCO recognised the importance of ICT as being central to any modern educational curriculum, and a driver for social prosperity towards improving the lives of Iraqis and their communities. This understanding led to the setting up of the ICT in Education for Iraq project, which began in 2007 and was the first major initiative to try to tackle the problems the country faced in this area. Their awareness of these problems is expressed clearly on their website:

‘…The education system in Iraq, prior to 1991, was one of the best in the region. However, following Iraq’s wars and years of international sanctions, the education sector has suffered greatly. Moreover, the country’s ICT facilities and applications are very weak; most teachers have either very little or no ICT literacy at all, and thus are ill-suited to play their role to help create a new generation of ICT literate students. Delivering ICT in education system in Iraq will help overcome this problem by fostering greater ICT literacy among students, teachers, school principals, and Ministry of Education (MoE) staff. This renewal of Iraq’s educational system is vital because Iraqi youth will determine their country’s future…’

The site goes on to list the progress that has been made in achieving the goals that the project set out. In summary, these mainly consist of a considerable amount of training and development for Iraqi Ministry of Education staff and practitioners, as well as providing more trained teachers and the restructuring and remodelling of areas of the curriculum, so as to take advantage and gain experience from e-learning facilities and similar resources.

More detailed information can be found here: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/iraq-office/education/primary-and-secondary-education/ict-in-education/

The USA International Development Agency (USAID), perhaps for obvious reasons bearing in mind the country’s continued involvement in the country since the invasion in 2003, has also been heavily involved in various developmental and humanitarian efforts, and these have focussed in part on the improvement and rebuilding of the educational infrastructure. Under the banner ‘Ensuring Iraqi Communities Benefit from Local Oil Wealth’ USAID’s Yana Spasojevic documents the efforts made towards rebuilding through their assistance of local community action groups, in her blog post from April last year:

‘…USAID’s Community Action Program has fostered partnerships between Iraqi communities, local governments, and other stakeholders that have empowered over 160 community action groups to implement more than 630 projects focused at restoration of essential services in southern Iraq since 2008. Iraqi community groups have rebuilt schools, bridges, and roads, and have promoted entrepreneurship, the use of information technology, and sports. These efforts have benefitted and improved lives of over two million people in southern Iraq…’

The rest of the blog post can found here: http://blog.usaid.gov/2012/04/ensuring-iraqi-communities-benefit-from-local-oil-wealth/

There have been other initiatives, mainly by similar organisations (The British Council, for instance, have provided significant assistance to support existing initiatives in teacher training and school standards), but perhaps because of the complex and continuing high-risk security situation in the country, there is little to speak of in terms of positive, personal accounts at a local level of improvements in access to ICT education, or improved connectivity and digital infrastructure making a difference to people’s lives, the like of which I have focussed on elsewhere. This is a great pity, considering the once proud nation in terms of its cultural and educational sophistication that Iraq was.

What I hope is that like many of other locations I have ‘visited’ through this blog, I can look again at Iraq in the not too distance future, and refer to some real ‘good news’ stories, written by people on the ground who’s accounts show a country that has moved on enough from its civil strife to provide its people with freely available education in new and emerging technologies, that can help to improve their lives and those of their communities. Practical education, that can equip them with the ICT skills needed to open doors, develop home-grown solutions to the challenges the country faces, and take advantage of the opportunities that the world has to offer, in a safer, more secure environment.