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Information and Computer Technology
It is one of the many anomalies of Uganda and other developing countries that although the majority of the population lacks safe water and access to electricity or anything beyond the most basic healthcare facilities, computers and information technology are playing a rapidly increasing role in life.
Internet cafes are commonplace in every town and mobile phone coverage is quite possibly far better than many parts of the UK! It’s much cheaper to put up a mast than lay thousands of miles of cable, so land lines are few and certainly not available outside the largest towns. It never fails to amaze to be in a village, surrounded by bush and miles from the nearest town, yet able to access GPRS internet via a mobile phone!
However, the learning about all this technology has not kept pace with the rate at which it develops and people with anything beyond rudimentary computer knowledge are few and far between. Many people - including teachers and students - have never seen a computer, or know only how to send and receive a brief email.
Koch Goma Secondary School has been selected as a school in which IT facilities should be developed. They received 20 computers from Uganda Telecom in 2007, but are only now being able to set these up to use they had no electricity! These computers are low-spec but just about powerful enough to learn basic Office programs on.
There is currently no internet access at the school - but we are working on it! As well as providing students and teachers with access to a greater range of learning resources, this will also give the potential to run a small internet cafe outside school hours - and help to cover the running costs as the budget won’t stretch that far otherwise!
The move back to the village site will provide further challenges for the development of the IT facilities as there is no mains electricity available there and other options will have to be explored.
We are currently assisting with setting up the existing computers and providing basic training for teachers, but will extend this support once a plan for ICT development has been put together.
ONE OF THE COMPUTERS DONATED IN 2007 BY UGANDA TELECOM