Education is often seen as the cornerstone for development. In general, improving education is a structural way to improve the country as a whole. Providing better access to education in developing countries and improving the quality of the education currently on offer is therefore imperative. ICT can help in two ways: by helping teachers and pupils tap into the wealth of information resources available through the Internet and by providing teachers with basic IT training to ensure that they have the appropriate skills to access, use and create new educational resources that they can then use in the classroom.

The IICD projects in the Education sector contribute to the realisation of Millennium Development Goal 2 as well as the United Nations’ ‘Education For All’ objectives, all of which focus on universal access and the quality of education. In IICD’s projects, ICT is used to:

• Improve access to educational materials for students as well as in-service and pre-service teachers.
• Improve the quality of teaching and learning by training teachers to develop and use localised digital support materials. Depending on the needs of the participating schools, materials are developed for languages, mathematics, sciences and local culture. ICTs are used mostly to develop stand-alone basic PowerPoint presentations, multimedia CDs or interactive educational games. The materials may be used in the classroom (using projectors) or students may interact directly with the materials in computer laboratories.
• Promote networking among teachers (in places where Internet access is available and affordable) to enable the exchange of experiences and content using online platforms such as Dgroups.
• Support intercultural learning among students from around the world. One special case is the Global Teenager Project, which links students in schools across 32 countries. In this case, students participate in virtual ‘learning circles’ that aim to promote intercultural understanding. This project supports e-mail communication and web-based exchange platforms.
• Improve the efficiency of education by introducing ICT into the planning and administrative tasks of headmasters and teachers.
• Support the Ministry of Education in the countries in terms of developing sector-related ICT policies and strategies.

Results for 2007

In 2007, IICD supported 31 projects within the Education sector. The projects concentrated on integrating ICT in both primary and secondary schools as well as teacher-training and vocational-training colleges. Public schools made up the majority of the partners, although in some cases private schools participated too, as they are well positioned to assist other schools in the introduction of ICT. The projects reached a total of around 150 schools, impacting a total of 350,000 teachers and students, parents and support staff.

An evaluation of 18 of the 31 projects in Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Jamaica, Mali, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia over the last five years^[1] has provided us with a series of valuable ‘lessons learned’ about the use of ICT in Education:

• In line with the interests of IICD and its partners, the projects broadened the participation of teachers and students from rural schools from 24% in 2006 to 29% in 2007. While still below expectations, this is a significant improvement which will be continued over the coming years.
• Satisfaction levels in terms of ICT facilities and services have remained high over the years. However, there are increasing complaints and concerns about the current Internet-access providers and their sustainability. As in other sectors, connectivity continues to form an obstacle to the successful integration of ICT in Education.
• IICD noticed a significant increase in the awareness and empowerment of teachers and students in 2007. Over 70% of the respondents indicated that they had gained awareness and empowerment through their participation in ICT projects. While this gain can be partly attributed to the fine-tuning of questions in the survey, these indicators nevertheless still show a positive trend. Although the strengthening of livelihoods of both teachers and students is not a prime objective of the projects, a positive economic impact was also measured,^[2] indicating improved labour-market conditions for the participants. In these cases, the economic-impact indicators were higher in Burkina Faso and Bolivia, compared to those received from Tanzania and Zambia.
• The impact on the quality of learning and on the teaching process showed a slight decrease in 2007, dropping to 59% of the participating teachers and students, with the students recognising a greater impact on the sector than the teachers. This is an important indicator, as it is difficult to achieve a strong impact on the quality of both learning and teaching in the short term. Projects with a longer life span generally have a higher impact. This can partially be explained by the fact that in the first phase, teachers are handling basic ICT skills that will not directly support their teaching process. It is only in the second phase that teachers achieve sufficient skills to actually develop and implement teaching materials in the class room. Attention to this objective should clearly be the primary focus of future support by IICD and its partner organisations.
• For the first time, evaluations in 2007 included a new indicator regarding the possible negative impacts of ICT, including such issues as ‘increasing the digital divide’ and ‘exposure to unwanted external information’ (e.g. porn). Interestingly, and contrary to what had been expected, very few (3%) of the participants experienced any negative aspects as a result of the integration of ICT in Education.
• The participation of women remained stable, at 41%, in 2007. This area still needs to be prioritised to ensure equal access to ICT. It should be noted that women perceived a slightly higher impact than the men; while female teachers experienced less impact, their female students tended to experience a greater impact than their male counterparts. As no clear explanation has yet been established, a more in-depth understanding of the causes needs to be attained.