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.
The economic empowerment is the description of relating economics to the work of the people in relation to the growing demands of the society in relation to the global needs.
Cultural empowerment aspects are related to the values and belief systems and integration of legal rights and duties to have the ability to fulfil the needs of the people. The social and physical empowerment is relative to a safer environment which promotes security for food, shelter, heath and finances which disparaging fear based on corruption, harassment and discrimination.
For education access to be measured it must reflect on the needs of the people. Economically many nations in the development world would fare poorly. This is because there is a lot of mismanagement of resources, lack of political will and poor information on the need to adapt change in ideals.
Although a substantial amount of national budget is driven towards education (40%in Kenya) little impact in terms of ICT is felt except for the well to do private schools; public funded schools have a weak or no ICT programme within. Private schools have excellent facilities the ratio of teachers to learners (say 1:25) and the teachers are motivated while public funded schools are synonymous with dilapidated and inadequate facilities, poorly trained and under-motivated teaching personnel, inadequate learning materials and the student to teacher ratio is twice or thrice the recommended capacity(say1:60). This aspect broadly lowers or lifts the level of education (depending on one’s standpoint) and generally affects the whole pedagogy methodology.
In order to improve the learning needs of the citizen, integrating ICT in schools will enhance the kind of education the society gives to the young people. A teacher with many students can be able to conduct lessons without exhausting himself. Rather, the carrying out of lessons will be done in a friendlier and reflective way – thus easily becomes an access to education. The Dakar goals for education are however silent on the integrating and appreciation of ICT for education improvement, leaving this to policy makers and countries to interpret for themselves.
QUALITY vs. QUANTITY, the stepping stone
The 1990, World declaration of Education for All holds that quality education – which is specific and reflective – effectively meets the learning needs of learners. Individual and collective learning needs differ across the board, identifying relevance as an integral part of quality education. In the face of globalisation, the need to highlight the specificity and universality of education cannot be ignored.
Quality learning constitutes assessing prevailing learning conditions which include diverse mobilised resources to effectively make education accessible and of a quality standard. Physical resources have to be improved and drawn on the wider and accelerated learning needs. ICT needs facilities that are conducive to the enhancement of education in structure and form. These resources have to be met in the financing of educational programmes. Inadequacies physical and human resources affect instructional time. With ICT, the human resource will not be worried about education dissemination. Information technology will improve the teaching time in cases where there are problems of student and teacher truancy.
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. This relies on backing on informative students’ assessment and examination systems. Teachers are the renders of education. They are therefo0re expected to provide educational instruction following the identified curriculum and syllabi. Most of them however, suffer general job insecurity, lack of steady incomes; have a low quality of work life, including poor accommodation. Excessive workloads instituting multiple shifts compel the teacher to hurriedly finish the syllabus within the stipulated time without being aware that learners are of different classes: slow learners, mid-learners and fast learners.
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. This approach will create a learner-teacher motivation strengthening the assessment and monitoring capacity for educational improvement, achievement and development, hence producing education of a quality standard.
Moving Against the Tides
Achieving quality education is usually a major step ahead through which flexible learning programmes are drawn. Information communication and technological tools can surely enhance access to quality education which optimises the development of learners’ potentials and talents. Although economic aspects determine how far a country is aimed at adapting ICT, the provision of sound infrastructural facilities including lowered Internet costs, available software etc, are factors that determine how serious the Education for All of a quality standard are drawn and capable of riding against the tides.
Conclusion
Education in developed countries should be reflective of the needs of the 21st century. But at the same time, it should acknowledge that integrate and interesting innovations could provide the impetus for a positive change in pedagogy facilitation
Through ICT, the repackaged educational facilities will include complements for keeping the society abreast with the new trends revolving around the global village. Needless to say, the early investments in human development, through ICT is a prerequisite and is only fair to say that this is an exciting and promising time for quality education.
The lessons are small, but the whole has got to move than the forgotten past. Most importantly, 2015 is just nine years away!
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