CIO East Africa - Business Technology Leadership

Microsoft’s Innovative Education Forum (IEF) has so far achieved the  inclusion of learners with disabilities and younger kids in the project. This is according to  Ntutule Tshenye, Microsoft's Academic and Citizenship manager for Africa and Indian Ocean islands. Ntutule spoke to CIO East Africa on the sidelines of the recently concluded Microsoft Pan African Innovative Education forum held in Mombasa, Kenya from 24th to 26th of August.

Ntutule explained that the Pan-African Innovative Education Forum (IEF) was a multi-day event which brought together teachers from across Africa to compare notes on innovative teaching and learning strategies with education experts from the worlds of business and science. IEF so far had brought together 54 teachers from 16 countries in the Africa region.

However, challenges still abound. Ntutule noted that there still was a lot left to achieve in the use of Microsoft tools in teaching those with disabilities such as the use of voice recognition and braille keyboards for the blind.

Other challenges that Ntutule notes include the fact that most of Microsoft Software comes in the English language, which in most of the countries in the region is either a second or other language. To tackle this, he says that the Microsoft team has embarked on localization of these software especially Microsoft Office in local languages including Kiswahili in East Africa, Hausa in Nigeria and local languages in Senegal.

Overall, the Microsoft citizenship manager feels that the progress made in the use of ICT in learning is quite satisfactory and that the project is well on schedule. Africa is a key participant in the program which Microsoft carries worldwide and has not been left behind as would be normally expected. The project is in its 7th year in Africa, having commenced in 2003 and has reached 10 million teachers and learners on the continent. This includes 18  fully participating countries where the Governments are fully involved as main stakeholders.

Ntutule says that there has been a broader reach via a broader African peer networkconsisting of Microsoft Mentor and Pathfinder schools. Microsoft Mentor schools are lead pathfinder schools  who have achieved a level of change within their education systems and are viewed as leaders in their countries or regions. They provide models which other schools can follow and are responsible for mentoring 5 pathfinder schools. Mentor schools also receive technology expertise, development tools , education models and online & in-person training from Microsoft.One such school is the Aga Khan Academy in Mombasa. Pathfinder schools consist of selected schools with a potential to create scalable and replicable educational transformation that can influence schools within their own community or country.

"African will position itself very well by coming up with solutions on real African problems," comments Ntutule. Being a South African, Ntutule is quite excited about his country hosting the Worldwide Education Forum in October in Cape Town.

Microsoft's Africa Academic Program manager, Mark Matunga, also gave a detailed view of the program in Africa and Microsoft's interest in it. Locally, Matunga says that  7 projects from Kenya went through to the Pan African Forum. Matunga says that from the Pan-African Forum, 12 winners will represent Africa at the World finals. Teachers develop curriculum solutions using ICT and the most innovative project is then chosen.

Microsoft aims to increase the demand and use of technology in the future and does so by involving itself in the education sector. Matunga says that the promotion of technology across global schools is one of the most effective ways to do this as there is " a need to sell to an educated market". Microsoft is working closely with  governments, schools, teachers and students in this, and the net effect will be an educated market.

According to Matunga , Microsoft made a commitment over 10 years ago to promote the education sector with key beneficiaries being Africam countries. Microsoft has been executing the ICT in education program as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility. Through this, it aims at bettering the company's image and a long term Return of its Investment when the educated users began using technology once through with school.

In Kenya, Matunga says that 20,000 teachers are participating in the project. ICT has been integrated in the curriculum and we now have a digital curriculum from the Kenya Institute of Education, the first of its kind in Africa.  Microsoft is also partnering with the Kenya Literature Bureau to develop ebooks from the local curriculum  and has also been involved in the development of the Kenya national ICT strategy in education in training. Matunga says another of Microsoft's milestone is the recently launched "Mwalimu dot com" laptop solution.

The above progress has not been achieved without any challenges. Matunga says that some of the challenges met include the lack of resources. Despite the presence of a number of donors at the moment, more donors are still needed. Some of the target schools also have other problems hindering the deployment of ICT in their system. These range from the lack of electricity to more severe problems like shortage of infrastructure. "In a school where students are learning under a tree, will the priority be use of computers or building new classrooms?" Matunga poses.

The integration of ICT in some schools has also been faced with its own challenges. Matunga says that  teachers in some schools, especially rural ones have been opposed to the introduction of technology in the schools. In some schools, there was a fear that students would either spoil the computers or they would be stolen resulting in new computer labs been always covered and under lock and key. In some situations, labs have remained unused for months. He further says that the situation is similar in other African countries.

However, Matunga says that Kenya remains ahead of most African countries in the project though Rwanda is making faster progress than Kenya. He attributes Rwanda's success to the country developing educational centres of excellence and the Rwandan president being personally behind the project.

In the implementation of the project, schools in rural areas have been brought to the same level as those in urban areas and there has been a deliberate effort for inclusion of impaired students especially those in Kenya's Thika and Kibos schools for the blind. Matunga says that this has been through the inclusion of peripheral devices for the blind and speech-to-text software.

Other efforts put in place by Microsoft towards the success of the project has been the availing of Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows at a subsidised cost to Ministries of Education of the participating countries.  Some critics have voiced their concerns that Microsoft would be tying down the program to Microsoft products. In response, Matunga assures them that everything can be accessed on all platforms including Open Source ones, though he hopes that people will use Microsoft products to access them.

Each lab is constructed by the partners at the cost of US $ 50,000 and so far the partners have spent over 400 million Kenya Shillings (US $ 5 million) in the project in Kenya. Microsoft has developed a 'live@edu' domain for use by all Kenyan teachers to be used in communication including that with their employer,the Teachers Service Commission. So far, 40000 teachers have activated their accounts since the launch of the domain 3 months ago.

Matunga hopes that the Kenyan government will put a firm policy in place, which amongst other things should aim at ensuring all funds are used. " Direct effort in terms of investment last year was returned to the treasury. Deliberate effort has to be made to ensure all funds allocated are used, " says Matunga.

On software affordability, Matunga says the current prices are affordable, adding that "cheap shouldn't compromise quality." He mentions that a significant breakthrough would be realized in the next 2 -3 years if mobile devices were used.  He says that 20 million people can access the platforms through these devices.

In conclusion, Matunga lists some of the benefits realised by teachers through use of ICT as including ease of curriculum delivery, elimination of the need to carry bulky books and ease of planning lessons.  Teachers attain professional development at a personal level through research and distant learning. "It brings teachers to the 21st century”, he concludes.