According to USAID, “Zambia has made significant gains in increasing access to education, but the education system continues to be plagued by inadequate resources, poor education quality and low progression rates.“[1]
The following article is based on the author’s conference paper which was published in eLearning Africa’s (held in Benin that year) post-conference Book of Abstracts in 2012. It was based on a pilot eLearning project that author co-developed and implemented at a secondary school, with a team of fellow students as part of academic work then whilst studying for his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. Even though it was published in 2012, some of the challenges in the Zambian education system that existed then exist still, today, 10 years on. It was published under the theme, Digital Teaching Units.
Introduction
The importance of education cannot be overemphasized. It has been appropriately said “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance“. Education, and the relevant kind at that, must necessarily have a bearing on development in a nation. It would be argued that an important index of prospects of development for a nation is how educated its citizenry is. A well-educated population in both the private sector (to stimulate economic growth) and the public sector (to provide effective services) is essential to reduce poverty and eliminate the need for donor assistance[2]. In Zambia, education is an expensive venture. Zambia ranks among the countries with highest levels of poverty and inequality globally. More than 58% (2015) of Zambia’s 16.6 million people earn less than the international poverty line of $1.90 per day (compared to 41% across Sub-Saharan Africa) and three quarters of the poor live in rural areas.[3] Yet if the country is to rise out its dark, albeit star-lit (at least, star-lit because every year there are people that graduate in different fields of study), midnight of under-development and live to see the bright daylight of development and the subsequent promises of civilization, it must educate its citizenry in order to have the much needed skill and expertise which will be an enabler to development. Educated citizens will be better equipped to drive private sector innovation and economic growth as well having competent human resource to drive service delivery in the public sector.
But with the current shortage of teachers at all levels of education in Zambia, this ideal seems to be just a pipe dream. Yet development cannot be delayed any further than it already has been.
“Zambia has made significant gains in increasing access to education, but the education system continues to be plagued by inadequate resources, poor education quality and low progression rates.“1 (https://www.usaid.gov/zambia/education, accessed 16th March, 2022)
Is there a way around the dearth of manpower insofar as teachers and educators are concerned? Can we still impart useful, relevant, and timely education in the face of the scarcity of teachers? Or in the face of government’s incapacity to employ all trained teachers in order to close the gap? Can learning materials be made available cheaper or even free, and current, and easily updatable, as opposed to being restricted to the domain of scarce books which are sometimes outdated? Can we boost students’ exam scores in the schools by using improved teaching materials? Can we improve the ‘look and feel’ of existing classroom materials? Can we increase the knowledge and skills of the schools taking part in the pilot project so that they can continue producing new materials with ICT How can we develop a sustained interest in the young people from their ‘cradle,’ that is, at an early stage in life, in Science and Technology, which is supposed to be a driver for subsequent sustainable development because, as a matter of fact, the young today are the future tomorrow?
E-Learning promises to answer these questions around education in the affirmative. It proposes that, in fact, students can have access, at their own time and in their own place, quality learning material. With the proliferation of the Internet especially in Zambia over the past few years, it is possible to have learners access high quality learning material and allow them to learn just as they would in a normal classroom.
Foot Notes
- https://www.usaid.gov/zambia/education; USAID, accessed 16th March, 2022
- https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/zambia/overview#:~:text=Zambia%20ranks%20among%20the%20countries,poor%20live%20in%20rural%20areas; World Bank, accessed 16th March, 2022.
- Ibid