When primary pupils at Whitefriars First and Middle School in Harrow were given the chance to show off their skills in computer animation, they did a global citizenship project, highlighting children’s rights. Their work was achieved with the help of young friends in a school in Uganda - a school that has no computers, no electricity and an inventory that extends to little more than a pair of scissors and some razor blades.
“You have the right to collect information from all around the world,” wrote one Whitefriars student in an animated slogan that fills the screen. For pupils at Isagara Primary in Uganda’s Masindi district, information gathering does not yet extend to the web. The situation is the same for most of Uganda’s children. Estimates suggest that less than 3 per cent of schools have any ICT equipment.
Until recently the cost of phone calls was prohibitive, and the lack of electricity is a major problem, particularly in rural areas like Masindi. But advances in technology could soon begin to make an impact. And when they do, schools like Isagara and Whitefriars can build on the collaboration they have already established through Link Community Development, a charity that has helped teachers in this country forge links with 78 schools in the Masindi area.
Developing learning
Whitefriars and Isagara have been working together since 2003, when Whitefriars’ Head, Lynne Pritchard, spent the summer at Isagara as part of Link Community Development’s Global Teachers Programme. Her brief was to help with the school’s improvement plan and with the development of teaching and learning. She was taken aback by how few resources she found: “They had almost no books and little paper. Children had a pencil they sharpened with the class razor blade, and there was one pair of scissors in the whole school. I assumed I would be able to make resources to use in class. But it was difficult even to find cardboard, because no-one threw anything away. Eventually I obtained a couple of boxes I could cut up - and I was careful to save even the tiniest scraps for future use.”
She has since made two further visits, as well as running literacy and numeracy sessions for the district’s teachers. Determined that pupils back in Harrow could share in her “truly amazing” experiences, she has built the theme of citizenship into Whitefriars’ curriculum. “Rather than holding one-off cultural events, I wanted to promote a deeper understanding of global issues such as interdependence, global citizenship and rights and responsibilities,” explains Lynne.
Pupils in Years 4-7 have been creating animations to highlight the issues, picking up on what they have learned from exchanging letters with Isagara pupils and from talking to Isagara’s deputy head, Carolyn Kusemererwa, who visited Whitefriars this year. “They asked Carolyn so many questions, and were surprised by her answers,” Lynne says. “She told them that children clean their own school and that she has 104 pupils in her Year 1 class, which is not large by Ugandan standards.”
Isagara pupils saw print-outs of the work this summer, and one plan is to help them record voice-overs for the animations.
Bridging the technology divide
Tia Hind of Link Community Development, says: “None of our Ugandan schools has email access. Between visits, schools exchange letters - twice a term we deliver a bulk consignment by courier. But usually one teacher in Ugandan schools has a mobile phone, and teachers are now exchanging regular text messages to keep in touch.”
Daniel Stern, founder of the Uconnect project which has helped 160 Ugandan schools secure computers and internet access, says: “There are around 13,000 schools in the country, and at most I would say 350 have ICT. With the help of a Ministry of Education database we are currently texting schools to ask who has ICT and electricity.”
From its base in the Ministry of Education in Kampala, Uconnect offers equipment - including recycled computers donated by overseas companies - and runs training workshops. Daniel says computers are more likely to be found in Uganda’s few secondary schools, vastly outnumbered by primaries. “Primary education is free, secondary education is not. Only a few children go on to secondary, and often it is a matter of selling the family cow to pay the fees.” Part of his job has been convincing decision-makers that ICT has educational benefits, and is not just for government administration.
Power to the people
He says that mobile communications technologies hold great potential, and Uconnect is piloting schemes with telecoms providers, including one that offers schools a subsidised deal on unlimited internet access - “a really big breakthrough”. Power remains a difficult issue, even for schools with electricity. “Industry is booming, but the power sector has fallen behind, so we have load-shedding: my home in Kampala is without electricity every other evening, and upcountry schools can be cut off for a day at a time.
“In pilots we have explored things like solar power and deep cycle batteries, but alternative energy tends to be expensive and not replicable.” However, pilots can work wonders: Daniel tells how the creation of an internet centre in one remote town “put the place on the connectivity map”. The scheme convinced planners to bring in electricity and a mobile telecoms network years ahead of schedule. And it helped save lives, after local doctors went online and tracked down antibiotics to prevent patients dying of septicaemia.
Daniel says: “Put the in the communications infrastructure, and the electricity will come later. The right initiative by G8 or the UN could cause a real revolution. People are starving for information - literally dying for want of information.”
Contacts
- l The Whitefriars animations were created with the help of educational software provider 2Simple, which piloted its 2Animate software at the school. Some work was entered in the TES 2Animate Competition run earlier this year on the web.
2Simple
Tel: 020 8203 1781
www.2simple.com
- Link Community Development
The Global Teachers Programme is a professional development programme for UK teachers that includes a five-week placement on a school improvement project in Uganda or South Africa. The Link Schools programme helps set up partnerships between schools in the UK, Ghana, Uganda and South Africa.
Link Community Development
Tel: 020 7691 1818
www.lcd.org.uk
- Uconnect
Uconnect UK
Tel: 020 7639 1519
www.uconnect.org
