|
education plugs into tech tools
by rehab el-bakry
a new education initiative is not only putting
computers in the classroom, it is attempting to change the way teachers
instruct their students. launched during the world economic forum
(wef) regional forum in sharm al sheikh last may, the egyptian education
initiative (eei) seeks to use both formal and informal education
tools to reduce the gap between egyptians and technology.
the eei is a public-private partnership (ppp) between the ministries
of communications and information technology, education and higher
education on one side and eight leading technology firms on the
other. its basic premise is that in order to upgrade the it skills
of egyptians, instructors should use technology in ways that make
education more efficient and enjoyable to students. “we’ve
always believed that the most effective way to reach the largest
number of young egyptians so as to improve their computer literacy
and help create an understanding of the impact of it on their lives
would be through the education system,” eei project director
hoda baraka told business monthly.
four years ago, the ministry of communications & information
technology (mcit) and the ministry of education jointly launched
the smart schools program, a pilot project for incorporating it
into the education curriculum targeting 100 experimental public
schools nationwide. lessons learned from the pilot project, and
similar programs, have been applied to the eei. but make no mistake
about it, the eei is not simply a rebranding of the smart schools
program. “the eei is a much more comprehensive program that
includes preparatory students as well as university students with
the main goal of using it as a tool to improve the way in which
they learn,” says baraka.
the eei works on four parallel tracks: a pre-university track targeting
students in preparatory schools; a higher education track targeting
university students; a lifelong learning track that creates tools
to access education facilities online; and an e-learning industry
development track that facilitates the training of professionals
to create e-content that can facilitate the implementation of the
first three components.
the government has earmarked $85 million for the eei, with the program’s
eight private sector partners pitching in their products and services.
the bulk of this budget, over $55 million, has been allocated to
the pre-university track, which encompasses 2,000 preparatory schools
that include over 820,000 students. the country’s remaining
6,000 preparatory schools will be covered by other mcit initiatives.
the pre-university track aims to set up a computer lab in every
preparatory school stocked with 20 computers for the students and
one for the teacher. another four computers will be added to the
school’s staffroom for the teachers to work with, and another
two will be for the administration. “this is very cash intensive,”
says mohad hallouda, eei pre-university track leader. “you
have 27 computers per school at around le 3,000 per computer. then
you have to do that for 2,000 schools. then there is the cost of
the lan connection and to ensure the room is fit to become a computer
lab. you do the math.”
the decision to focus on preparatory schools, for children aged
12 to 15, was based on the belief that elementary school students,
ages 5-11, are too young to appreciate the access to computers while
secondary school students, aged 16 to 18, are often too preoccupied
with their grades, studies and university. “[preparatory school]
students are at just the right age between maturity and the desire
to have fun,” explains hallouda.
he admits that introducing computers only to the classrooms of preparatory
schools may seem strange, but the government does not have the budget
to provide pcs for students at all levels. “at least all students
at a certain level will be able to have access to computers. they
can then refer to these tools on their own in secondary school or
even university. but we will have given them the basics at the age
when they are most interested in learning,” he says.
while computer labs are a familiar sight in cities, for egyptian
students in rural areas, computers still hold magical appeal. “you’re
dealing with many kids who have never actually seen a computer before,
let alone worked with one,” says hallouda. “to them,
this program is a dream come true. our best results are from schools
in the rural areas where a simple class in the computer lab is a
motivator for students to go to school all week.”
but baraka insists that the eei is about a lot more than just well-stocked
computer labs. “the computer labs might be the expensive part,
but training the teachers to use these computers to better deliver
their lessons is the important part,” she explains.
a central focus of the eei is to train teachers on how to use computers
to make their lessons more interesting to their students, moving
away from traditional teaching methods where instructors either
read from a textbook or write on the board. “instead, we’re
showing them that they can use computers to make their lessons three
dimensional, add visual tools and bring them to life so as to expand
their students’ comprehension,” says hallouda. “around
65,000 teachers will be trained as part of the eei to think of alternative
ways to deliver their content and to make being in class more engaging.”
school administrators will also receive training to use computers
as a management tool that can cut down the time spent on tedious
tasks such as attendance and grades. “we didn’t want
the teachers to receive the benefit of training while the administrators
feel left out,” he says. “besides, we want to introduce
computers to the management process to [increase] efficiency by
managing everything from attendance to grades. this information
would be accessible to the administration in the ministry and in
the school, as well as teachers and parents. we want this to be
a link that will make the stakeholders more involved.”
to make this vision a reality, the government turned to the private
sector for support. intel is one of eight different international
private sector partners participating in the initiative along with
ca, cisco, hp, ibm, microsoft, oracle and siemens. yasser wahab,
intel’s education manager for egypt, explains that the eei
presented the networking and communications products manufacturer
with a unique opportunity to help in the development of the education
system on a much larger scale than earlier projects. “this
is not our first initiative in cooperation with the government and
mcit to help develop the education system,” he says. “this
time, however, we’re working to reach a very large number
of students and teachers not only to provide them with access to
information technology, but also by providing teachers with the
latest teaching techniques so they can get information across creatively.
we also train them on how to get kids to think for themselves and
how to open the floor for the children to share their thoughts.”
at the moment, 53,000 of the program’s 60,000 teachers have
completed the first phase of their training. intel is providing
8,000 computers for the project, as well as two wimax stations that
cover up to a 20-kilometer radius, wahab says.
much like its pre-university counterpart, the higher education track
aims at improving university students’ access to it as a way
to access information throughout their university years. “one
of the reasons that we opted to split the program to cover both
pre-university and higher education is because we couldn’t
afford to ignore higher education until things [took shape] in the
pre-university track,” explains baraka. “we needed to
work on both [simultaneously].”
for the higher education track, the focus is not on building computer
labs, since they already exist. instead, it is on training university
professors to use it as an effective teaching tool for students.
baraka hopes technology will give students an alternative way to
learn without physically having to be in class. “i’d
love to be able to convince university instructors to use it to...
put all their material online for students to access at any time,
whether in the university, at home or at an it club via the internet,”
she says.
unfortunately, it’s not that simple. higher education track
leader howeida ismail explains that the key to the success of the
track will depend on the ability of instructors and students to
accept the changes proposed by the eei. “we’re working
on giving professors the tools they need in order to best utilize
it,” she pointed out during an eei board meeting. “there
are some technical issues that need to be addressed such as access
to adsl connections and the ratio of students to computers available.”
yet the challenges this track faces are very different from those
facing the pre-university track, where the shortage of hardware
is a big factor.
the key to the higher education track, says ismail, is to convince
instructors that there are benefits to using these high-tech tools.
the program will be implemented in four universities: cairo, ain
shams, alexandria and the american university in cairo.
while the track involves less students and instructors than its
pre-university counterpart, its challenge is arguably greater, ismail
argues. adults are less prone to change old habits, and instructors
often have ulterior reasons for adhering to the status quo. “it’s
hard to convince a university professor to set up all his lectures
online so students can access them at any time, [particularly] since
professors author textbooks with all the material their students
will need. these books are sold to students, which means there’s
a financial component involved that could make professors reluctant
to embrace the use of technology.”
baraka explains that mcit and the ministry of higher education are
working together to develop a compensation scheme for instructors
who choose to use it. ‘we don’t want them to just put
notes online,” she stresses. “we want them to use everything
from notes to videos to powerpoint presentations to ensure that
the student fully understands the subject.”
overcrowding in public universities has become a chronic problem.
most classes have 500 students on average, making it very difficult
for students to interact with their professors or ask questions.
the eei aims to eliminate the need for students to attend classes
daily by making distance learning a standard component of their
education. “this will become possible if the material is placed
online,” says ismail. “but we’re also working
to allow the students to access a variety of tools and resources
online to help them with their understanding of concepts and [how
to] conduct research on the information they’re learning.”
while more than half the teachers in the pre-university track completed
a phase of their training over the summer, pinning down university
professors to do the same has been a lot trickier. “university
professors only get a month or so off and they simply aren’t
willing to sit through any training,” explains ismail.
for the eei to succeed, the two remaining components will also be
needed. the lifelong learning track is built on the idea that once
fresh university graduates become accustomed to using it, they will
use the same tools to further their overall abilities. “we’re
working to place a variety of educational tools for the public online
so that they can teach themselves whatever skills they require,”
explains baraka. “we geared this information towards entrepreneurs
because we believe that an engineering graduate starting off his
own firm, for instance, might need some material on how to successfully
run a business. the lifelong learning track will ensure that this
information is available and accessible.”
but for that to happen, it is essential that people have the right
skills to create the content electronically. “that’s
why we’re working to give it technicians the needed skills
to have [cadres able to] do this work in egypt,” says baraka.
“this way, we’ll have the needed components for this
program to succeed in the long term.”
cisco systems is providing support for the lifelong learning track.
yasser el kady, cisco’s managing director for the middle east
and north africa, says the network solutions giant was more than
happy to commit to the initiative even before the details were known.
“we support mcit’s initiatives because we believe that
[these initiatives] will bridge the it gap,” he says. “this
program was especially interesting since we believe that integrating
it into the education system is the most effective way to streamline
it.”
cisco previously supported the development of the e-learning industry
by establishing a training center at the smart village. el kady
says the company will be working closely with mcit and the ministries
of education and higher education to create curricula that can be
delivered through e-learning. “we will make our competency
learning center available for the eei to help create the talent
needed to provide the technology and the technical focus needed
to develop e-curricula [in both] english and arabic,” he says.
the company will also use its existing center to help facilitate
the lifelong learning track’s technology needs.
cisco is also providing some training to preparatory school teachers
as well as providing students with the tools to see it as a tool
as opposed to something to fear. “we’re also doing the
same for instructors at the university level, where we’re
working to give them the latest tools in education techniques. this
will make them very highly skilled,” he says.
both cisco and intel point out that taking part in the eei as a
public-private partnership has no direct benefit for them. it does,
however, create potential consumers – and employees –
in the very long term. “there is actually no way for us to
gauge whether or not our support of education will translate into
someone using our brand,” admits wahab. “from our perspective,
it’s part of our responsibility to give back to the communities.
on another level, it also ensures that we will be able to find qualified
employees in the future who have the right skills upon graduating
from university. in that sense, there is a benefit for us.”
although the eei is only a few months in, baraka says they will
waste no time because the program is due to end in may 2009. over
the next three years, she believes government will make serious
strides in increasing the integration of it in the education system.
the program will also benefit from its association with the wef,
which is providing technical support to the management of the program.
“they have for some time now had a long-standing education
component in their work,” she says. “by creating this
program in cooperation with the wef we are getting the benefit of
their long experience in what works and what doesn’t.”
baraka insists the timing of the project was crucial. “we
simply couldn’t afford to wait any longer to give this boost
to the education system by [marrying] it to information technology,”
she says. “it will not fix everything that is wrong with the
education system, but it will certainly go a lot further than merely
lamenting over the problems of the system.”
submit
your comment
top
|
