IICD supported project: Production of ICT-Based Educational Content (PIBEC)

Countries: Uganda [UG]
Sectors: education

Summary

This project, which is run by Kyambogo University (KYU), is using ICTs to develop urgently needed educational materials for secondary schools and National Teachers’ Colleges (NTCs) throughout Uganda. Its main focus is on developing educational content. For example, it aims to create over 20 modules for all O-level subjects and place them on CD-ROMs so that they can be used by other NTCs and secondary schools. To make the project sustainable, large numbers of Kyambogo university staff as well as staff from the NTCs are being trained to produce their own ICT-based content for these educational materials. The goal is to make abridged versions of the finished products available as printed pamphlets, via a website, on CD-ROMs, and through intranet web servers.

Update

Updated: 2006-01-19

As a result of a series of financial and organisational problems the project ground to a halt in 2004. However, in June 2005 it was restarted and steady progress has been made since then. Lecturers from two National Teachers’ Colleges (the National Teachers’ College in Mubende and the National Teachers’ College in Nagongera) received basic training in ICTs in August 2005 and attended a course entitled ‘How to use ICTs in Education in September. In addition to this, two training modules have also been produced since June 2005 (the overall target is 21 modules). </br></br> The project is currently focussing on three main areas:</br>
<ul><li class=LI_IICD>Rolling out the ICT Basic Training (IBAT) training project – the second IICD-supported project implemented by Kyambogo University - to two National Teachers’ Colleges in Mubende and Nagongera. (This was accomplished in July 2005)</li>
<li class=LI_IICD>Enhancing the quality of the content of the educational products developed under the project and setting up an effective dissemination strategy.</li>
<li class=LI_IICD>Providing reliable internet connectivity with good bandwidth to a central point at Kyambogo University campus from which various Faculties and Departments will be connected. This will also help to consolidate ICT activities at KYU. </li></ul>

Introduction

The government of Uganda places a high premium on education. The extent of this commitment is reflected in its ambitious Universal Primary Education (UPE) policy launched in 1996. This policy aims to provide every child in Uganda with at least seven years of education by having the government shoulder the cost of sending up to four children per family to school. As a result, primary school enrolments have doubled in the last decade and secondary schools are now having to accommodate the dramatic increase in student numbers. New and innovative ways to improve the quality of both the teaching staff and educational materials will therefore have to be found, fast. The ICT-based Education Content project can certainly help in this area by using ICTs to: enhance teacher-training programmes; give teachers new teaching skills to liven up classroom teaching; and produce low-cost, up-to-date educational materials that can be easily duplicated, updated and revised.

Objectives

The short-term objectives of the project are as follows:

• Develop and digitise more than 20 courses for Kyambogo University.
• Develop high quality teaching modules to be used at NTCs and secondary schools throughout Uganda.
• Provide quality control checks on the educational content developed.
• Devise a good dissemination system for the digital content developed.

Planned outputs

The planned outputs of the project are as follows:

• ICT computer labs will be set up on Kyambogo University campus and at the NTCs;
• A policy and programme for courseware development at the faculty level will be drawn up;
• Selected staff from Kyambogo University and the NTCs will be trained to research, prepare and produce ICT-based content;· Courseware materials, an online archiving system, and an index of links to related websites will be developed and maintained;
• Existing educational materials will be converted to digital format;
• ICT-based course material will be developed for Kyambogo University students;
• Full courses will be placed on CD-ROM (abridged versions will be placed on the web-server);
• A ‘Lecturers Guide’ for course material will be developed in printed form and online (or diskette).

Development Impacts

This project has great potential, especially in view of the Ministry of Education and Sports’ enthusiasm for ICTs: the Ministry sent out a circular to all secondary schools insisting that they should set aside part of their 2005 budget to provide their teachers with basic ICT training. The project is using ICTs to raise teaching standards and to produce and disseminate affordable, innovative educational materials with content that has local relevance. It is expected that in the long term over 7 million students and teachers will benefit from this project as indicated in the list of main target groups below:

• Kyambogo University: 8,000 students (primary target group), 2,000 distance learning students, and 500 staff members;
• NTCs: 13,000 staff members and students;
• Primary schools: 5,000,000 students and 108,844 teachers.

Market and finance

Kyambogo University will sell the CD ROMs and hardcopy course units to private schools and will also distribute them through private sector retail outlets. The Ugandan government is likely to reimburse Kyambogo University for the repro and transport costs of the production runs destined for public education institutions. The project will generate income in two ways: budget reallocation within Kyambogo University and selling copyrighted materials which will amount to 5% of the project’s recurrent costs.

Lessons learned

The project’s first objective was to produce computer-based educational materials for selected courses at the original project owner - the Institute for Teacher Education, Kyambogo (ITEK) - over a 12-month period (in 2002, ITEK merged with Kyambogo University which subsequently took over as the new project owner). This initial period was also used to evaluate the project and apply lessons learned to the rest of the project. Four courses were used, one from each faculty. The main target group for this project consisted of students from ITEK, the National Teachers Colleges, and secondary schools. However, in order to reach the students it was necessary to target lecturers and tutors at ITEK and secondary school teachers first. The project now runs in tandem with another IICD-supported project based at Kyambogo University: the ICT Basic Training (IBAT) project.

Project Owner : Kyambogo University

Project Partners : IICD, Ministry of Education and Sports

Project Contact : IICD