EDUCATION seems to have been disproportionately affected by the Covid-19 pandemic because, in as much as schooling is expected to go on at home, parents at work are expected to supervise the learning process at home.
Many a time, real opportunities to make impactful
changes in society manifest in unfortunate situations. For instance,
this seems true of the internet. Arpanet, the precursor to the internet,
was massively boosted by the cold war of yesteryear.
The
international agenda on education is set in the sustainable development
goal 4 (SDG 4) as “…ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and
promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”
In his state
of the nation address (Sona) 2019, president Hage Geingob said the
following on education: “…expanding access to an inclusive and
integrated education system from pre-primary to tertiary, provides an
individual the opportunity to advance and develop the requisite skills
to compete in the 21st century”.
Many education technologists
agree that information technology (IT) is an enabler and a
transformation agent of education. However, the digital divide may
retard the transformation process if not properly envisioned. The term
digital divide in this context refers to the difference between people
who have easy access to the internet and those who do not.
My definition includes access to affordable data bundles as well as broadband services.
The
Covid-19 pandemic has exposed our deficiencies in IT infrastructure as a
country. Although voice coverage seems sufficient, the same cannot be
said of access to data, more so in the semi-urban and rural areas.
Without getting into the murky waters of telecommunication regulations
in Namibia, the government through Cran (the regulator) can do more to
improve access to data services.
Lifting the veil on IT in
education calls for looking beyond connectivity and internet access.
Further, IT as a transformation agent must permeate the entire education
system including education delivery, school administration, performance
management, teacher support, curriculum development, etc.
Calmness
and composure at this time of the Covid-19 pandemic are required as we
contemplate interventions that are in tandem with the desired long-term
developmental outcomes. While swiftness and urgency is the expected
reaction, there is considerable risk of increasing the digital divide.
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought us back to the drawing board to define the problem of education delivery in Namibia.
Well-defined
problems lead to breakthrough solutions, according to Dwayne Spradlin,
the president and CEO of InnoCentive, the pioneer in open innovation and
crowdsourcing.
Albert Einstein once said: “If I were given one
hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem
and one minute resolving it”. Michael Cooper, the founder of Innovators +
Influencers believes that defining problems is the most important
business skill one is never taught.
The common denominator among these great minds is, a solution is easy and obvious if the problem is well articulated.
Therefore,
the reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic challenge is rigour in defining
the problem of delivering equitable, inclusive, and accessible education
in Namibia. Without rigour, opportunities will be missed, resources
wasted, and end up pursuing innovative initiatives that aren’t aligned
with strategic goals.
Once we start reconceptualising our
education system as a collection of ubiquitous learning processes, it
becomes dauntingly clear that those processes extend beyond the portals
of any one building, the boundaries of any one school, and the borders
of any one region in Namibia. For instance, e-learning should be a
demonstrable option of an equitable, inclusive, and accessible delivery
mechanism of learning to the majority of pupils in Namibia.
Suffice
to say, cognitive biases (errors in judgement) are a real threat to a
strategic solution to the problem of education delivery if hurriedly
concocted.
Abraham Maslow said in 1966: “I suppose it is
tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as
if it were a nail”. In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, e-learning
seems to be only one option for education delivery, therefore we need to
find and use more options. If and when the Covid-19 pandemic is behind
us, we still need to solve the education delivery problem.
I want
to conclude on a positive note by saying that the Covid-19 pandemic
should leave us in a better place in terms of defining the problem of
education delivery. If we truly believe that education is an equaliser
and has the potential to alleviate poverty, then we ought to go back to
the drawing board and rigourously define the problem of education
delivery in Namibia.
• Robert Gatonye is a former lecturer at
Nust (IT department), an ICT consultant, a certified information systems
auditor (CISA), and a certified public accountant.
