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| ACCESS TO EDUCATION: Information Communication and Technology the way forward |
 PRINTABLE VERSION |
Introduction
Education as a basic, inalienable and human right empowers the society to directly control its own life wholly. Being intelligent and social animals, human beings have the ability to reflect and prioritise on their needs in educational achieving.
Education is generally categorised into three forms: informal, non-formal and formal.
Informal education takes place in the family unit/home structure. Realistically, it works with understanding codes and ethics governing a family or homestead and drawn from culture. This form of education includes personal hygiene, cooking, eating habits, communicating with and respecting other members of the family. It entails social norms governing a member of a family unit and the requirements of each member in regards to the traditional ways of living. It might be limited to favouring one gender over the other and the mode of teaching is restricted to ‘experienced’ older family members
Formal education takes place in a school - and follows rules and regulations encoded and decoded by the national requirements. Unlike the informal education, it does not discriminate against gender. The givers of this education strictly get training in recognised formal institutions and not limited to family relations but to anybody who has achieved the set standards for teaching. This is the most commonly adapted form of education subscribed by many nations the whole world over.
Non-formal education on the farthest hand falls between the informal and formal except that its target groups are people in close knit societies who need to address a certain problem/ issue while integrating other skills in their daily activities.
It usually does not follow conventional defined rules as it is based outside the formal system attached to functional literacy for adults and youths. Functional is directed towards improvement skill management in fields such as business, human rights, civic education, farming (both large and small scale), reading, writing and numeracy.
Goals of Education and Information Communication and Technology
In April 2000, the international community converged in Dakar, Senegal for the World Education Forum and adapted the Dakar Framework for Action, commonly referred to as the Goals of Education. The six Dakar Goals for education are:
i. Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood care and education, especially for the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children
ii. Ensuring that by 2015, all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality
iii. Ensuring that the learning needs of all young people and adults are met through equitable access to appropriate learning and life skills programme
iv. Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women and equitable access to basic and continuing education for adults
v. Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality by 2015 with a focus on ensuring girls’ full participation and equal access to and achievement in the basic education of good quality
vi. Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills
Since ICT is not directly mentioned in the goals, it becomes imperative to identify the need to forge ICT facilitation of pedagogy. This means that educational training programmes are focused on classroom skills but less inclined towards the use of ICT. The technological tool provides learners with practical use of communication equipment for a greater harnessed learning approach and methodology.
Education does not necessary have to be ‘conventional’ – based on getting information from a textbook. As the societies progresses more towards the information age, learning is only practical when the world balances the need do have a fully-fledged educational perspective. The currently heightened global concern for education quality can gradually be dissociated from the concern for universal and equitable access to education, fuelled by different social-factor from local to the international level.
Indeed education is so vital that among many other rights – to worship, vote, associate, expression – education is the only compulsory right. Unlike other rights that are left to individual choices, nations deem it appropriate to compel their citizens to exercise this right. It therefore becomes a pat and hard slap in pedagogy facilitation.
For the transformation sound educational and environmental capacity, the commitments by the world needs some aspects for self- organisation, expressing and promote conducive cultural social and economical milieu according to their needs and talents; which is drawn in three empowerment aspects.
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Writer Profile
Mbũrũ
I am a researcher on educational issues especially in the rural areas, with much emphasis on girls' education.
As a trained journalist, I have a lot of concern with the handling of the education sub-sector in Kenya and take a critical role in viewing the reforms currently being conducted to integrate education structures for the sake of the youth in Kenya.
One major aspect, sadly, is that Kenya has been sovereign for over four decades but has been the only African country besides Somalia not to have made education compulsory, free and basic. For Somalia it can be understood - the country had been in civil strife since 1992- but for Kenya the politics of the day have played a negative role in reducing the promotion of education to a system sheer competition, instead of progressive
Apart from that, I write fictitious literature.
Currently I am working on prose on love and betrayal and a collection of poems.
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Comments
Great Article / ICT and Education Eugenia Bivines | Mar 31st, 2007
For education to be of quality standard, the curriculum and materials used need to be effective and of good support (books, and learning materials) can be replaced by single downloadable software which can be installed in computers for both teachers and learners.
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All these can be reduced or completely eliminated with the adaptation of ICT. Most definitely ICT intervention will improve education quality as it increases the capacity of teachers to explore the channels for expanding knowledge access to learners.
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Good article but also please bear in mind that the teachers also have to be taught on how to utilze these computers, maintain them and also learn the software themselves.
which can in turn mean that the teachers also have different levels of learning.
EB
BearySpecial
GREAT PIECE INDEED RICHARD GITHINJI | Apr 19th, 2012
Am a high school teacher and i think its a high time we embrace ICT in our teaching. That's where the rest of the world is heading.
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