Martine Makira
Today’s world is witnessing a fast transition towards an integration of the virtual world in numerous daily activities. However, some regions remain lagging. East Africa’s scarcity of digital integration is an important obstacle for its student community. The rural areas find themselves at an even greater disadvantage.
Challenges of limited access to digital devices
With the recent technological advancements, the presence of digital infrastructure has the power to assist its users to gain access to new opportunities. The basic skills of using a computer, are an entry ticket to the contemporary labor market. Nevertheless, in East African countries, the statistics of computer literate people are staggeringly ow. According to a study conducted in East Africa in three main universities in Kenya, Tanzania, and Burundi only 16% of these university students had access to their personal laptop (Niyigena, 2020). This constitutes an entry barrier for most graduates. With the widespread globalization, this issue is amplified by the fact that these East African graduates are at a disadvantage in comparison to their peers.
Africa-wide estimates show that “only 14% of students in sub-Saharan Africa have access to the internet at home” (UNICEF, 2021). This hinders these students’ access to the international labor market compared to their counterparts from more developed countries and regions. Two main challenges that the digital infrastructure meets are the lack of knowledgeable staff to maintain the ICT equipment and the internet connectivity which is lacking in mostly rural areas.
Lack of digital literacy is furthermore a challenge that most African students face as lessons are limited to the time allowed in class. Additionally, there is limited access to equipment due to the very uneven ratios of students to computer availability which stems from a lack of funds. Therefore, these students as well as the whole East African community would benefit from increased access to these e-tools on top of the incorporation of digital education in all sectors at all levels. Indeed, neither one of these developmental solutions could stand by its own.
Figure: Introducing information and communication technologies (ICT) to children from primary schools in Burundi (Ngendakuriyo, 2019-2020).
Urban – Rural divide
Education wise, in Ethiopia, over 30% of rural children had never been to school in 2011, while the figure in urban areas was only 10%. These numbers are closely linked to the illiteracy of the previous generations in rural areas. By location, only 12 per cent of children living in rural areas complete upper secondary education, compared to 34 per cent living in urban areas (UNICEF, 2021).
In East Africa, the rural areas have an additional barrier to access digital tools; they are less catered to, given the lack of complementary infrastructures which discourages the network providers since some of these regions do not yet have access to electricity.
Looking at the African continent, even though urbanization has been spreading, the African people who reside in urban areas are estimated at 40% of the population (Agence Française de Développement, Agence universitaire de la Francophonie, Orange & UNESCO, 2015). This might lead to less population density and less purchasing power which renders the service providers reluctant to equip these regions. “Electricity access to households is 44%, with a major difference between urban (96%) and rural (31%). Internet quality and reliability is generally poor.” (Kommers, van der Zijde, Elfferich, & Thravalou, 2021)
In order for the students and teachers to use the digital tools, they need access to electricity. Otherwise, the lack of technical appliances sets these students back on a national and international level. Indeed, when these students compete with their urban counterparts, they find themselves at a huge disadvantage. On one hand, these students rely solely on knowledge acquired in class and lack access to digital tools to practice outside of school. On the other hand, the teachers need a constant access to electricity to properly cater to their students.
Rural students also meet the financial burden of being able to purchase access to the internet outside the classroom. These students find themselves not being open to diverse career paths within the technological domains as they either do not know of these opportunities or in the rare occasions that they do, they view themselves as less likely to succeed. These disparities regarding access to digital education are and should not be hindrances to the intellectual developments of the rural students. The government’s projects and its education objectives should urgently focus on bridging this gap.
Current solutions
Although this situation is extremely unpleasant, there has been some initiatives which are encouraging and whose results bring an optimistic stance to this issue.
Looking at Kenya as a specific example, there has been a project named Digischool working to promote digital skills and literacy within the country. It was a collaborative effort that was initiated in 2016 where “over 22 thousand schools have been connected to power and over 6000km of fibre has been laid out country wide to support digital learning” (UNICEF, 2021).
In addition to these infrastructure initiatives, there have been a few projects geared towards providing sufficient training for teachers who indicated they did not have enough pre-requisite ICT knowledge. For instance, the joint UNESCO-Nokia initiative aims to continue providing distance learning to teachers which is extremely beneficial to rural (Agence Française de Développement, Agence universitaire de la Francophonie, Orange & UNESCO, 2015). These different initiatives are being implemented in the East Africa community nation-wide.
As access to digital learning is closely linked to access to electricity, there has been an increase in the interest of the youth communities in East African countries who have decided to tackle these issues by brainstorming and attempting to find solutions which would be more sustainable. For the population not connected to the grid, there are entrepreneurs such as Ms DeCou’s Juabar whose innovation was to initiate and run a network of solar charging stands in Tanzania. These stands are leased to local entrepreneurs; they then contribute to distributing electricity services to their communities(Jackson, 2015). These initiatives have been observed in other countries such as Rwanda where a similar business model was adopted by Henri Nyakarundi with the added option of internet access (Jackson, 2015). This not only eases the integration of digital learning into the community, but it also allows the students to have a first-hand experience outside of class as a self-taught process.
This use of solar panels extends to private homes within the communities with no access to electricity. This is also a huge addition to the learning experience of the students who can now work from home especially in the current covid-19 pandemic.
The digital gap present in the East African community education system is being addressed through catering to the specific problems that affect the rural areas on top of the slow global integration of East Africa. Proposed solutions tackle the SDG 4: Quality Education as well as SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities. Bridging this digital gap between urban and rural areas can in turn address some aspects of poverty through the solutions being currently implemented and overall tackles the SDG 1: No poverty.
Bibliography
Agence Française de Développement, Agence universitaire de la Francophonie, Orange & UNESCO. (2015). Digital Services for Education in Africa.Agence Française de Développement, Agence universitaire de la Francophonie, Orange & UNESCO.
Jackson, T. (2015). Africa’s new breed of solar energy entrepreneurs. BBC.
Kommers, S., van der Zijde, M., Elfferich, A., & Thravalou, E. (2021). Digitalisation of education in East Africa: Needs, experiences and opportunities for the future. NUFFIC.
Ngendakuriyo, E. (2019-2020). Introducing Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) curriculum to kids from primary schools in Burundi. Bujumbura, Burundi.
Niyigena, J.-P. J.-S. (2020). Modeling the Measurements of the Determinants of ICT Fluency and Evolution of Digital Divide Among Students in Developing Countries—East Africa Case Study. Applied sciences, 10(7).
UNICEF. (2021). TRANSFORMING EDUCATION IN AFRICA An evidence-based overview and recommendations for long-term improvements.UNICEF and the African Union Commission. UNICEF and the African Union Commission.