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| ACCESS TO EDUCATION: Information Communication and Technology the way forward |
 PRINTABLE VERSION |
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.
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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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