Students’ learning curiosity fuelled up

Kokubanza Rumanywa, a form four student at Jangwani Secondary school has many hopes including doing well in her form four final examinations this year. And thereafter, getting an opportunity to join Advanced Secondary education.

However, the punitive reality public school students like Kokubanza face, has created an education gap amongst public and private school students. One of the core issues is not having access to enough learning materials such as text books.

But Kokubanza’s schoolmates, for over a year now, have been benefited by eSchools Project, a venture whereby 31 public secondary schools in Tanzania have been connected with internet.

“My abilities to use the computer has grown so much to the point that I and my friends have managed to create our own applications through online lessons. Even the way we learn has become so much easier because we can now surf online to get materials and not only that , we do also get a lot of opportunities to learn what others students across Africa and the rest of the world are doing,” she happily explains.

Fatna Hassan who is also a four form student at Jangwani shares similar excitement. She applauds the availabilityof internet access and believes that internet has increased participation of students in class.

“We can now follow and clearly understand what we are taught. Before it was difficult because we sometimes had to depend much on what a teacher will deliver in class and take notes but now we can go online to look for additional materials which makes it more easier for us to participate in the class. Also, the students of Jangwani seconday school save on the cost of going to the internet cafe ,” she quoted.

Students like Kokubanza and Fatna whom at first never thought that they had to opportunity to create their own application or even considering computer studies for their future career, will now be able to explore all that.

The Ministry of Works, Transport and Communications partnered with Tigo Tanzania last week to facilitate the roll-out of internet access points in the country’s secondary schools so as to complement the eSchools project for a period of 2 years.

As part of the agreement, the ministry will identify and provide a list of schools which don’t have a computer lab, to be connected and also guide the implementation of the project while Tigo will sponsor the infrastructural development in schools across the country that will include wiring classrooms and installation of wireless LAN with internet access points.

This comes at a time when government’s vision is to transform the country into a knowledge-based economy by the year 2025, ensuring that most of the secondary schools have access to the internet in Tanzania.

Findings have shown that Tanzania secondary schools are lagging behind at the level of application of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the teaching-learning process. The ICT facilities are lacking in schools as well as the capacity for using ICT by both teachers and students is also very low.

In order to fit into the new scientific order, the government have been taking measures to ensure that it works closely with other stakeholders to ensure that ICT knowledge in schools is well implemented

The Permanent Secretary for Ministry of Works, Transport and Communications, Prof. FaustineKamuzora said that it is through partnerships that they will be able to impart modern ICT skills and knowledge to the youth so as to enable them to face the challenges of the ever-changing information trends in the society and global economy.

Prof. Kamuzora applauded the eSchool project saying that it will enable the students, teachers of the benefited schools and the wider communities to tap into the global mainstream of information and knowledge, where they will learn, expand their creativity, collaborate with peers across the African continent and across the world

“This is a great milestone as far as the ICT sector in this country is concerned, particularly in delivering technology and innovation to the community,” he added.

One of the most critical issue which ICT, according to Professor Kamuzora, is its ability in creative economy. He says it is relatively easier to use the ICTs and create a lot of value to the economy .

“We have many examples whereby young people in the country and especially in the world who have used their hard work and creativity to come up with various solutions which have enriched our lives,” said Prof. Kamuzora.

“A number of companies have been incubated at Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) and a few have now matured and started to create value in the economy. We need to follow the example and learn the required skills especially computer programming so that we can participate fully in the creative economy,” he explained.

Prof. Kamuzora also said that we should use ICT to create jobs and finding solutions to various problem existing in our society.

“We should use ICT to learn new things everyday and I am glad that here in Jangwani, students including those with physical disability can also benefit from this project,” said Prof. Kamuzora.

These benefits are also recognised by John Bosco, who is an ICT teacher at Jangwani secondary school. He applauded the efforts which are taken to ensure that schools empowered with ICT learning facilities also helped a lot in teaching.

“I must admit that we have improved both in teaching and learning. Currently, 3000 students are benefiting with this project. We have shortage of books but using eSchool project in our school has helped to cover that gap. Access of learning and teaching materials for both teachers and students has become wide,” explains Mr Bosco.

He also adds that due to lack of books teaching was more of teacher centred but now things have changed as students have access to online materials. Therefore they can fully participate during class hours instead of depending everything on their teachers.

Despite the fact that there are few computers in the school, the passion within the students to learn more has not discontinued. “We have few facilities that is two computer labs with 51 computers, which is shared by 3000 students. However that hasn’t stopped our students from learning because they go in shifts,” explains Mr Bosco.

Mr Bosco also believes that having ICT in schools has opened new hopes for students but the challenge is lack of ICT teachers. “We are few and the one who we depend on is from the University, but it is unfortunate that even few of the teachers from the univestities do not want to come and teach because of low pay,’ he quotes.

He adds, “It’s time for government to take measures including training more ICT experts and also to ensure that the availably of reliable electricity particular in rural schools is available so as to give equal opportunity for others schools to learn ICT.”

Tigo Chief Commercial Officer, Shavkat Berdiev said, “We also recognise that it is not enough to provide the infrastructures but build the capacity of teachers without paying due attention to the availability of relevant digital content.

eSchools project is one of Tigo’s strategic social investment projects and to date it has been able to connect 31 public secondary schools with internet with an envisaged plan to connect 50 more this year. So far more than Sh500,000,000 million have been used to support the project for last two years in the 30 public schools.”

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