Ugandan schools need to start operating like ICT companies

Schools are being provided with PCs and internet connections while technical experts and teachers are setting up courses. The question, however, is whether these projects can continue under their own steam once the generous donors have removed their support.

Boniface Efata peers through the window of his battered four-wheel drive at the sports field lower down the slope. Something like a growl escapes his lips as he catches sight of some dozen cows grazing by the goal posts. Efata is principal of the Uganda Technical College (UTC) in Masaka, a few hours drive from Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The city has never quite got over Idi Amin’s rule or the Tanzanian invasion that followed it. As the Indians, driven out by Amin disappeared from the city, so did most commercial activity. The many skeletons of buildings, left over from that dark period and never restored, give the city a disconsolate air. The renaissance that has brought about a reawakening in Kampala, has not yet reached this far.

The city mainly serves the district’s small farmers, like the one who has led his cows to the sports field of the UTC in the early morning. Efata negotiates his four-wheel drive up the hill, deftly avoiding the deep potholes and ruts in the unsealed road. From this elevated point the school terrain offers a view over the city and the land surrounding it.

UTC provides secondary education to some 400 students who live in the school grounds during semester time. The school is one of three technical colleges in Uganda to which IICD provides assistance with the setting up of ICT management and maintenance. The first course year will start in the autumn of 2003 with 25 students. Three teachers are meanwhile being trained by the Uganda Communications Institute (UCI) in Kampala. For the time being, the UTC has started off with a comprehensive basic ICT course for all the students held in the new computer room.

Curriculum

IICD is investing 125,000 dollars on purchasing computers, on the training course at the UCI, where the curriculum is also being drawn up, and on the satellite dishes that will connect the three UTCs with the internet. The subscription costs of the Afsat satellite connection, around 250 dollars per month, will also be paid for by IICD in the first year. After the first year, the schools will need to carry on under their own steam. Efata sees no alternative but to pass the costs on to his students. “At this point in time, a student costs 500,000 shillings, some three hundred euros a year, of which 260,000 will be paid by the government. To be able to fund the ICT lab and the internet connection we need to ask each student for an additional 50,000 shillings, something that presents a problem for many parents.”

The average annual income in Uganda is 300 dollars. Nevertheless Efata thinks that quite a number of the parents will manage to come up with the money. With a wide grin, he explains why this is so. “Quite a few of our students hail from the district where president Museveni was born, an area where people earn more than in other districts.” But his face clouds over when he speaks of the other UTCs. “The schools in Lira and Mbale are asking for only 20,000 shillings more, but even that is too much for most of people.”

While walking past the sheds that house the practical training rooms for automotive engineering, metal and wood work and electrical engineering on the hill, Efata admits that the school is not able to make ends meet on parent contributions and government subsidies. “During the hours when there are no practical classes, the rooms and facilities are used by a local entrepreneur. As a way of avoiding accusations of unfair competition, these activities have been made into a separate business. That business pays rent like anyone else.” Efata also intends to capitalise on the ICT facilities. “I am hoping that after school hours we will be able to carry out maintenance and repairs for businesses in the area. At the present moment they still need to go to Kampala for such things.”

There are not many large enterprises in Uganda to be found outside the capital. Most ICT activity takes place in Kampala. Efata anticipates that there will not be enough jobs for the students that will be completing the ICT course. “The same applies with our other courses. Most of those who have finished their courses start a workshop of their own. The majority of the ICT students will end up in Kampala or in another country altogether.” And when asked whether the draw of the capital will not ultimately also prove to be irresistible for the ICT teachers, the principal just smiles.

The Kibuli Secondary School in Kampala is more strongly placed as far as its financial resources are concerned. The school is situated in the shadow of the mosque of the same name and is the most renowned Islamic secondary school in the country. Muslims make up approximately 15 per cent of the Ugandan population. The parents are predominantly middle-class and have no difficulty coming up with the two hundred dollars per semester in school fees. Once the lessons are finished for the day you will find twenty boys in the computer room busily using the opportunity to check their e-mail or play computer games.

Schoolnet

Kibuli SS is part of Schoolnet, an initiative of the World Links program of the World Bank and is also financed by the Bill and Melissa Gates Foundation. IICD provides the school with support through the Global Teenager Project, which enables schools from various countries to work together via the internet. Schoolnet, which operates in 26 countries, provides the computer facilities, internet connections, training of teachers and curriculum development. At the present time there are at least forty Ugandan schools that have joined up, and this number will have risen to a hundred by the end of the year.

That the picture provided by Kibuli SS is rather too rosy is something that Schoolnet coordinator Daniel Kakinda is aware of. “This is more or less an elite school. Once the donor finance comes to an end after two years, many schools will find it difficult to carry on with their ICT activities, nor will the helpdesk be able to continue to operate in the way that it is operating now. The school will need to have the technical knowledge under their own roof: teachers can follow Cisco network courses. This way we can build up human potential that the school can call on. Even at this stage we are trying to create a situation that is sustainable. Schools in outlying areas that have no telecom facilities at all will need to start operating as ‘telecentres’. That means that the local residents will be able to go there after school hours and for a small fee make phone calls or use e-mail.”

Telecentres fit into the strategy of the government to connect even the most out of the way with the outside world. Telecentres housed in schools is an obvious solution, according to Kakinda. “The infrastructure is already in place; protection, which is an absolute necessity, is laid on, and every school has an ICT coordinator.” The government has subsidies available for the telecentres in areas that have no telecom connections. Whether the school will be eligible for this or whether a manager will need to be involved is as yet unclear.

Twenty-five teachers are doing battle with a complicated Excel file in the airless temporary computer room at Kyambogo University on an equal number of computers. They present the advance guard of many thousands of teachers from the university, the ten Ugandan teacher training courses and the secondary schools, who, in the coming years, will be undertaking the demanding three-week ICT basic training course. The room is a temporary one because on the other side of the campus a new computer lab is being built, which will have room for a hundred computers.

Course material

ICT Basic Training is one of the two projects that IICD has set up together with the university. The other involves making available as much digital course material as possible. George Kinyera-Apuke, head of the Geography Faculty, has converted a large number of his lectures into HTML files. Theory from books has been tailored to fit the situation in Uganda and supplemented with detailed local maps. “This material will be made available via the intranet at the university and via the internet for other courses. Schools without access to the internet will receive the material on CD-ROMS. Schools without any computer facilities can be provided with print-outs. By now already 60 per cent of our course material has been digitalised.”

IICD plays an advisory role in both projects and has put in 100,000 US dollars. The British Department for International Development (DFID) is investing 300,000 US dollars.

The ICT training and the production of the course material will also ultimately need to be self-supporting. Part of the costs can be recovered through the schools who buy the CD-ROMS. Even the university is starting to show some entrepreneurial spirit, according to Kinyera-Apuke. “We intend to start offering courses to the general public and to operate the computer lab as an internet cafe.”

Dutch journalist Peter Lievense visited these projects earlier in 2002. A Dutch version of this story was also publiches under the title: Oegandese scholen moeten aan de slag als ICT-bedrijven.