4.

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Access Issues

3. Benefits?

4. Issues

5. Discussion & Conclusion

6. References

Education

The Internet 'application area' that is of most interest to development agencies is education (Wild & Sibthorpe 1999, section 4), where the single biggest problem is enrolment at the primary level. It has been said that a child, whose mother has received 5 years of primary education is twice as likely to survive to age five than a child, whose mother who has not been to school. Watkins (2000) states that

In the midst of the information revolution, nearly a billion adults, one-sixth of humanity, are unable to read or write, and the numbers are growing...In sub-Saharan Africa, where more than half of adults are illiterate, countries with some of the world's lowest primary enrolment rates spend more on subsidising loss-making state-enterprises and higher education for the rich than on primary schools for the poor. (p. 23)

The World Bank (1998) also reports that "240 million Africans live on less than $1 a day, have no access to safe water, and do not know how to read or write."

With this scenario, how can the Internet benefit education in Africa? Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Computers, said, "I've come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What's wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology" (). However, many organisations have already developed numerous projects using ICT to support education in Africa, mostly in post-primary education. Examples include the 'World Links for Development' project, which aims to link 1500 schools around the world electronically; the 'African Virtual University,' a $1,2 million World Bank project; and partnerships between several African universities and Western universities. The cost and benefits of such projects is questioned by an Ethiopian academic, who argues that many African professors at their salary of US$4,000 per year could have been employed for the amount such projects are costing (). He adds, "in the end it is only Africans who can solve African problems" (ibid.).

Lund (1998), who investigated Internet access within universities in the developing countries of the Commonwealth, argues that

...these technologies could present a considerable threat to developing country HEIs [Higher Education Institutions]. If they are not able swiftly to gain access to these communications, teaching and research tools, there is the danger that the North-South gulf between HE systems will grow even wider. (p. 1)

Lund found that Internet access within universities did not always constitute the kind of access now expected at universities in the West. Her research revealed, for example, that access at several institutions was "limited to the library and the Vice Chancellor's office" and that "29 of the 72 institutions with Internet access were using analogue telephone lines which severely limited their speed of access to data and the communications potential" (ibid., preface). At a university in Nigeria, Lund reports that "members of the university community are expected to type their message on diskette and give them to the system operator who then sends the messages. Incoming mails are also copied on diskette and printed. The mails are then sent to the recipients" (p. 34). Few academics in the West would consider this an acceptable form of communication for a number of reasons, including privacy and confidentiality concerns and the protection of intellectual property rights.

While the benefits of Internet use in education in Africa is limited to the few, there are examples of wider benefits, for example the possibility of reducing the dependence on imported training materials that do not meet local needs (); providing distance education (ibid.); informing Africans about research findings in Africa ("Education in crisis," 2000); and allowing access to information and teaching resources otherwise not available. It has also been suggested that "the Internet has the potential to stem Africa's 'brain drain' by providing people with professional and educational opportunities at home" (Burnheim, 1999, section 2.2.2).

Literacy

Benefit to be derived from the Internet would seem to be dependent on ones ability to read and write. As mentioned above, Africa is the area of the world with the greatest number of people who cannot read and write sufficiently to be functionally literate. While the WWW increasingly includes images, the Web's ability to tell a story depends on the bandwidth available to the user. Bandwidth is a big problem in Third World countries, none more so than Africa. If access to receiving WWW content by satellite becomes widely available, it may make image-rich WWW content more generally accessible.

Email, which is the most readily accessible Internet function, is entirely text based and therefore of little benefit to those who are not literate. It is, however, the least expensive and most immediate means of communication for those who can read and write.

Censorship

The Internet has been hailed for its potential for democratic empowerment and the unobstructed flow of ideas and information. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights) states that everyone should have the right to freedom of expression and access to information (Burnheim, 1999). The right to free speech is considered fundamental to democracy, but some political structures still see knowledge as a threat. In Africa, some countries have attempted to introduce restrictions on the use of the Internet. Most recently, the government of Zimbabwe introduced a new bill, the 'Postal and Telecommunications Bill', which gives the government wide-ranging powers to regulate what information is available via the Internet. The bill enables the government to issue licences, which require information on WWW sites to be submitted to the government for monitoring in the interest of 'national security' and 'law and order'. Under this legislation, ISPs can be fined up to NZ$9,000 or two years in jail. ("Mugabe," 2000, p. 19). It should be remembered that governments in the West also have attempted to control the Internet, something which is fiercely resisted by the Internet community.

Other Issues
Surprisingly, the literature makes almost no reference to the need for a reliable power supply for computers to run. Nor does the effect of heat, dust and humidity on computer hardware get any mention. In addition, where computers are operated in very hot (as well as in very cold) conditions, this is usually in an air-conditioned environment. These practical factors present a substantial barrier to Internet access in Third World countries, which are for the large part situated in the tropical and subtropical areas of the world.