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Dual-use telecentre: A sustainable model? Strong project leadership with strategic vision
BACKGROUND
Inhambane Province is situated in the south of Mozambique, 68,615 km2, bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east and home to a population of around 1.2 million. Despite having the resources of tourism, fishing, fossil fuels, agriculture and a wild life reserve within its borders, it has been identified as the second poorest province nationwide[1]. Here, as in the rest of Mozambique, poverty is widespread (Mozambique ranks #157 on the HDI[2], the sixth poorest in the world) so Information and Communications Technologies are hardly a priority for the Government or the individual. The provincial capital, Inhambane City, is on a peninsula 500 km to the north of Maputo and has a population of 52,284. Emília Daússe Secondary School (home to EPCI) is located in Inhambane City and though enrols around 2,500 students each year has only 80 teachers.
In 1998 the school decided to create a Projects Committee, as part of its Strategic Plan until the year 2000. This committee is responsible for identifying and resolving some of the most chronic needs within the school. Thus the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) Project, EPCI, was drawn up at the end of 1998.
EPCI’s principal aim was to provide students, teachers and the local community with access to ICTs, old and new. Within the school ICTs would contribute to improving the quality of teaching and learning, the administrative, financial and pedagogical procedures, and help in the fight against corruption. In parallel the project would provide public access to: Internet and email; training in ICT use; graphics, fax and photocopying services; scanning, CD writing, digital photography and data projection facilities at a Research and Information Technology Centre. However, as a way of promoting ICTs as tools for providing good governance, and encouraging accountability, transparency and anti-corruption measures within the State, EPCI developed partnerships with: the Provincial Government offices; the Government’s District Administration offices in Massinga and Jangamo (in the centre and south of the province respectively); and the Provincial Education Department. Through their involvement EPCI hopes to set an example that shows that ICTs can have a positive impact on efficiency, organization, communications and information sharing.
Funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC, a Canadian research organization) and as part of their Acacia Project, EPCI opened the doors to its public at the Research and Information Technology Centre, and began its work as an ICT propaganda agent, in May 2000.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
To implement this project it was imperative that the school made accommodation available. These rooms needed to both permit and invite public access, as post refurbishing they were to be home to the Research and Information Technology Centre and to the EPCIs offices. Over the last ten months, the Centre has been equipped with eight computers for the public and courses (four of which were a contribution from the school); three for administration and research work (two of which we were able to buy with profits from the Centre); and two for student Micro Projects and technical work, all with Internet access and linked through an internal network. A photocopier, scanner, CD writer, data projector, digital camera and other office equipment were also acquired to allow the Centre to offer these services and to ensure that the project has access to the equipment it wishes to promote.
Our partners already had computers, but they were underused and did not have Internet access or email installed. EPCI has provided them with modems and an ISP account to facilitate their use of these. Since then they have participated in training workshops at the Centre, and have shared their new skills and enthusiasm with their colleagues upon their return. We visit and discuss ways to solve their ICT problems, resolve their technical problems and provide encouragement. The impact seems to be positive and we have their support for our activities.
So over the last year EPCI has administered various phases and subprojects: from overseeing the refurbishment of its installations, purchasing furniture and equipment, contracting personnel and working out ways for the Centre to become sustainable, to procuring additional funding and participating in national and international ICT seminars. Our philosophy has always been to encourage students and teachers to use the Centre’s facilities as much as possible, so we have subsidised their access and hope to not only maximise the Centre’s use, but to disseminate, through them, the benefits these technologies can bring. However, by charging the public for their access to our services, we are covering our utility and maintenance costs, such that the Centre becomes sustainable.
One of the Centre’s main roles is to provide training. We designed two basic courses, one in MS Office (Word, Excel and PowerPoint over 40 hours) and the other in Internet and Email use (over 10 hours), which we offer at a nominal cost to students, teachers and the public. Unless we have a training workshop running for our partners, there are three training classes a day, but there is still ample time for the public to access our services, as we are open from 8 am to 8 pm during the week and from 9 am to 1 pm at weekends. Each course trains between 25 and 30 participants: public sector employees, local businesses people or their staff, students with an eye to either going to university or finding work, those trying to increase their chances in the employment market and people wanting to improve their skills. We have also hosted seminars for local Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Government departments and other institutions.
Inhambane as a tourist destination draws many visitors, some of whom frequent the Centre bringing a welcome contribution to its revenue, and thus its sustainability. Prior to the Centre’s opening the nearest public Internet access was 400 kms to the south!
MICRO PROJECTS
To increase teacher and student interest in ICTs and to provide a framework for their learning to apply ICTs to real situations, we designed a series of Micro Projects. Each group of ten students has a teacher to orientate its activities and a partner institution to work with. We have tried to ensure that the themes are relevant and interesting to those involved in these extra curricula projects. They are as follows:
Environment (Partner: MICOA (the Provincial Government Department for Coordinating Environmental Action))The students are following an environmental research and awareness programme, both collecting information via the Internet and producing their own awareness information, in line with the priorities identified by the Government policy. This work will make a substantial contribution to the creation of a public information centre about the environment, to be housed next to MICOAs offices. The ICT skills these students learn are: how to use the Internet as a research tool and how to create, process and organize their own information so that it impacts upon the public.
Traditional Practices (Partner: ) The students are conducting research into traditional practices in the communities from which they originate (as one of the only secondary and pre-university level schools in the province, a lot of the students are from areas quite different to Inhambane City and its surrounds). They are researching and recording the traditions and knowledge from several levels of society, which have been passed down through the generations and are gradually disappearing as culture changes. Their work will be published on a web site (to be managed and created by EPCI some time this year) through documentation and story telling at the school and local cultural centre. The ICT skills these students have the opportunity to learn are: processing and archiving information and how it can be posted on a web site as their project progresses.
Accounting Management (Partners: the bilateral organization GTZ-REDE, the municipality of Maxixe and the local Industrial and Commercial School) The students in this group come from the Accounting course at the local Industrial and Commercial School, as does the teacher who is their leader. Maxixe is the largest city in the province (60 kms from Inhambane City by road, though only 7 kms across the bay) and has several markets, which the municipality wishes to better control the accounts of. At present the billing system is manual and open to abuse, so, with the financial help and experience of GTZ-REDE and the help of the students, they will implement a computerised billing system, which they could also use for other businesses later. The ICT skills these students learn are: data inputting and control, application of accounting software and the practices involved in billing and accounts management.
Translation (Portuguese / English) (Partner: a professional translator) These students will learn and practice the skills of translating documents. As Mozambique is the only country in the region where Portuguese is spoken as an official language, being surrounded by English-speaking countries, this service is fundamental. The Centre and project staff often need to call upon these services themselves (this story was originally written in Portuguese) and so, with practice, they may acquire an important skill career wise. As tourism and investment opportunities grow, the need to overcome communication and transaction difficulties, write official documents in both languages, etc., grows with it. The ICT skills these students learn are: to use translation software and evaluate its merits, to use email and the Internet (some of our translation work arrives this way) and to word process and produce high quality documents.
Training and skill duplication (Partners: Primary Teacher Training Centre, Homoíne; Primary Teacher Training Centre, Chicuque; Health Worker Training Centre, Chicuque) Chicuque is a small town on the outskirts of Maxixe and home to two vocational training centres whilst Homoíne is 40 kms inland from Maxixe. Each centre has nominated three candidates to receive training in ICT skills who then pass theses abilities on to their colleagues. They are trained both at the Centre and at their Training Centres as EPCI has installed one computer and an ISP connection for each of them. The aim of our partnership with these Training Centres is to give them greater access to information (they have few learning resources) through both the Internet and contact with others via Email and to use the other applications for administrative, pedagogical and course work. As the number of ICT literate members of each centre increases, they will begin to disseminate information about ICTs to their peers and other members of their communities. The pupils at the centres will also disseminate their knowledge and enthusiasm to their future colleagues and to those they eventually teach / treat, as they are generally posted to rural areas (which have yet to be reached by ICTs) and so will play an important role in raising awareness about the possibilities ICTs offer for the future.
Media (Partner: Radio Mozambique) These students are producing a monthly newssheet, which publishes news about EPCI’s activities, ICTs and the challenges facing the youth of today (with a regular focus on the issues surrounding the HIV / AIDS epidemic). In conjunction with the local radio station they are also putting on air a half-hour, monthly, radio programme using the same material and also discussing the possibilities and uses of ICTs in the local community. In exchange, the Research and Information Technology Centre gives journalists and producers from Radio Mozambique (Inhambane) some free Internet access. This material produced by this Micro Project will also be posted on the web site. The ICT skills these students learn are: word processing, laying out a newssheet, information preparation for radio, and how to post information on a web site.
Veterinary Data Management (Partner: Vetaid) The NGO Vetaid is collecting data on animal problems and treatment via its extension work province wide. The students in this group are helping them by inputting this data and drawing information from it, which can then be analysed in conjunction with Vetaid staff. Thus the ICT skills these students learn are: data processing, management, analysis and the publishing of their findings.
TECHNICAL SERVICESEPCI admitted ICT technicians to its staff in December. They not only help the Micro Projects, Centre, EPCI management team and Partners resolve their problems and maintain their equipment, but offer their services to other institutions and the public. To improve the chances of success for this, we received a volunteer through the organization VSO, who will train his Mozambican counterpart over his two-year stay.
OTHER ACTIVITIESEPCI has also undertaken a marketing and advertising campaign recently, which is helping to spread knowledge about the Centre’s services and activities and thus win new clients. We also keep our current client base well informed about developments at the Centre and in the ICT world, and offer this information to the local State departments, school, students, businesses and general public. We are also conducting research into the impact, needs and problems created by ICTs in the local community, which will help us better define our plans for the future and evaluate our progress against our principal objective of promoting ICTs for the benefit of local development.
PRINCIPAL CONSTRAINTS
As an ICT project there has been some difficulty in acquiring the equipment we need, as we are a long way from the capital, Maputo, and so transport and guaranteeing supply can be a problem. Recently a supplier has opened a branch in Inhambane City, which is helping, though without competition, their service is not all it could be. We also had problems in finding staff with a reasonable level of ICT skills, so we have sent them on intensive training courses and now have a well-qualified team.
Though the poor electricity supply has been another stumbling block to our smooth running, Inhambane City having recently joined the national grid has overcome this problem.
The community and our clients took quite a while to see the advantages offered by the Internet, distance education, etc. To start with they saw the computer as a word processor, a nice way to reproduce imagery or as an accounting tool. Students who take our Internet course are shown how to search for information that could be of interest / relevant to them such that they see its practical side. Our prices were a little beyond most people’s buying power when we opened, but we have since had a big price review and now offer all our services at 15% above their cost. As access has become cheaper, we have seen our clients increase. We will shortly install a dedicated line to our ISP and hope to lower our Internet access price further still, thus further increase our client numbers and promote Internet use to a wider audience.
PROJECT RESULTS
The Research and Information Technology Centre is now a reference point in Inhambane City. It trains the future workforce and those aspiring to go on to higher education. It promotes the use of ICTs within the State, through local NGOs and the community. As the implementation of ICTs is a government priority many of the local civil servants are taking courses at the Centre to gain the skills now demanded of them.
Through the Micro Projects the teachers and students are gaining a new interest in the Internet and Information Technologies and all they have to offer. They have been happily surprised to discover that they now have the facilities to find, send, receive and organize information about anything under the sun.
We have seen a gradual change for the better in the quality of teaching material used and created; tests are now word-processed; pedagogical and administrative information computerised. The school, students, staff and local community have opened and are comfortable using email accounts, which makes a real difference even on a local scale, as the Post Office can take two weeks to deliver a letter to the capital just 500 kms away, and up to six for international mail.
The public is happy investigating and using our services: we have demand for all we offer, from using the Internet and checking email to recording CDs and taking digital photographs. They come from all walks of life: students, tourists, local businesses, community groups, NGOs and voluntary organizations, writers and children.
LESSONS LEARNED
A strong dissemination programme should accompany the introduction of ICTs in developing countries so that their value is appreciated and expounding their potential uses. For most of the population, these technologies are not a priority.
For education the increase in the use of the Internet should be accompanied by research to help identify the sites most relevant to the courses being taught within the area. Teachers and students alike should be helped with their investigations.
Training courses should offer examples of ways to solve real problems and not only how to use the software packages. Specific training workshops should be designed to cater to the interests and needs of the participants.
For the sustainability of the project, all costs should be covered by the clients, though there will be some exceptions for promotion and dissemination purposes (for example teacher and student training, open days, partner workshops). The deficit from these activities should be covered by profits created through supplying services such as technical support, graphics services, photocopying, CD writing and equipment rental.
DEVELOPMENT ASPECTS
The introduction of new technologies in one of the poorest provinces of Mozambique has, in the short term, brought changes in the way people look at them. Given that our Centre is a provider and promoter of training in ICT use, the basic conditions for transforming the administrative and information management systems within local businesses and government departments have been created. There is a guaranteed training for their human resources.
Students leaving pre-university school feel more confident when competing for places at higher educational establishments or applying for jobs with some ICT experience under their belts. The experience they gain during the Micro Projects may give them the confidence they need to start their own micro business, to begin new employment, or to investigate material for courses.
Within the sphere of education a programme to replicate parts of this project within other schools could be applied, thus contributing to improvements in teaching and learning on a wider scale. By encouraging schools to share information (be it pedagogical, administrative or project work), they will become more able to satisfy the needs and demands of their students.
Well managed data about Inhambane could permit the creation of a diverse data bank for use by researchers or others interested in our local reality.
The experience of connecting two Government district offices will bring many useful lessons to help the spreading of ICTs throughout the rest of the province become more realistic.
Local businesses have already begun to use our services on a regular basis, many coming from the tourist area and using the Centre’s ICTs to communicate with their clients and partners in other parts of southern Africa and the world, to advertise and organise supplies. The fact that they have these services available now helps encourage investment, improves their marketing and the services they themselves offer. The web site we plan to create will also offer opportunities for local businesses to advertise and will promote the province and EPCI.
Both our local an occasional clients feel that Inhambane, through the access they now have to ICTs, is no longer isolated, as its backwater renown would have you believe.
PROJECT INFORMATION
Country of activity: Mozambique Project Budget: US$ Source of Funding: IDRC through Acacia Partners: Yes Partner roles: Dissemination of ICT use
CONTACTSAuthor: Momed Cadir Project Coordenator Organisation: EPCI Email: cpepci@teledata.mz Address: Escola Secundária Emília Daússe CP 84 Avenida Eduardo Mondlane City: Inhambane Country: Mozambique Tel & Fax: +258 23 21138 |
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