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Workshop breakaway and report-back session:

Networking Schools

Report by Richard Lichtenauer

The group began by asking: What makes a project work well?

1. Context. Not one model necessarily suited all of our projects. Models could be applied but tweaking was needed.

2. Networking. Focus on training and capacity building. Cross-train people and empower those you work with.

3. Learn from other projects. What are the best practices?

4. Technology must be appropriate. Often we focus on technology instead of education. Make the content pertinent to the local community.

5. You should try to identify ICT champions as role models.

6. For sustainability, partnerships must be created with government and local NGOs. Inter governmental planning and integration is important too.

Example of a school networking project

During report-back question time, it was remarked that donor money has been drying up on some projects. Yet we hear that other projects have got some level of sustainability built into them. What implications does that have on policy and so on?

In response, an example was given of a project running successfully in Inhambane, Mozambique, where revenue streams have been identified to keep the project solvent. Speaking from the floor, Momed Cadir of EPCI Centre, described the approach. The idea in setting up this centre was to find a synthesis between pedagogical needs and viability. EPCI set up a centre which is located in a school but is also public, and the revenue from the public helps to subsidise the teaching. Three courses a day are run, with students paired off at computers. People pay for these courses. When courses are not running the computers are opened up for internet access like an Internet café and that money is used to pay staff. Those are key revenue streams.

He went on: We set up additional paying services like fax, secretarial services and so on, to bring in money. To ensure that students had free access this had to be done in an organized way and so we set up micro projects. The micro projects work like this: voluntary groups interested in particular subject-matter form study groups of 10—for example on mathematics or the environment—and each group is led by a teacher. There are eight of these groups. These students have free access to the centre for two hours a week on a timetable, and they can do their research on the Internet and then link up with other communities. The idea of these projects is to get the students interested in using ICTs and then identify those who are most interested and enthusiastic, and can go further. We want the micro projects to produce more results than comes out of just these groups, and we have seen students go on to firstline maintenance, out-paying jobs, websites and so on. Why do we stress public access? Because the public access finances the free access of the students and is a productive combination that works.

The centre in Inhambane does not work alone but has partners with the teacher training centre, district local governments and so on, and provides free training and technical assistance by these students from the micro projects.

Questions

Did the group discuss the role and empowerment of pupils? Discussion of multiple use of facilities is needed. Was this discussed? How about discussion of the role of schoolnets and interactions with the teacher unions?

Answer: The group did have discussion on the whole notion of sustainability. Some of the projects are flagship projects of the ministries of education. School networking should be part of a national education strategy for the improvement of education through ICTs. The question of sustainability is not about sustaining a schoolnet NGO but seeing it as sustaining national development of the education system. In Mozambique, there is a dedicated attempt to try and empower learners eg helping traumatized children who were child soldiers.

ICTs for Sustainable Development