LearnLink - Digital Tools for Development

ED's Net (Educational Development and Support Network) web site is a site for facilitating communication, research, and training and creating a virtual community of teachers, principals, advisory teachers, inspectors, and education researchers to share educational wisdom and experience. Other web site features include materials on HIV/AIDS as well as dynamic teaching philosophies, approaches, and pedagogies.

Together with the CATT (computer assisted teacher traiing) project, which has been completed already in 2002, the idea obviously was to create an Internet based resource that teachers as well as learners could utilise.

While that effort itself is obviously commendable, it does however ignore the fact that basically only 30% of all teachers in Namibia only have the opportunity to access the Internet from within their schools - and unfortunately that can also be witnessed on the ED's Net site itself: the event calendar has aparently been abandoned already in 2005, the "discussion boards" in the "Communication" section have so far not materialised, and judging from the "frequently asked questions" there either seems to be nobody asking any, or the entire project looks a bit shelved at the moment.

While the project brief outlines the good intentions:

"Desired Outcomes: Improvements are expected in teacher professional development, education management, and, ultimately, educational quality. A final outcome is a group of IT-sophisticated technology champions with the knowledge and ability to demonstrate a discovery- and project-based learning model for integrating IT throughout Ministry activities.

Unique Applications: The inclusion of HIV/AIDS resource materials fulfills an urgent need. Also, an
emphasis on selecting women as trainers and computer center employees advances opportunities for greater
gender equity in the IT field. Furthermore, hiring formerly out-of-work youth to fill entry level center management positions provides a model that encourages projects and the Ministry to consider this group as a potential source of otherwise scarce technically competent personnel. Finally, by integrating IT networks and web and face-to-face training, this project offers a Ministry-supported educational reform model for upgrading the basic education system nationwide."

the current reality seems to be that the initial move alone did not provide sufficient "energy" to let this idea propagate itself beyond the USAID funded project timeframe. Is that because of a general lack of funds, not enough participants on the teachers side or because someone grossly overestimated what impact such a program could possibly have in a country where 70% of all teachers and learners do not have any access to the Internet?

In any case, it's a very weird feeling to see how an ambitious project fizzles out shortly after the initial funding runs out - abandoned resources like these sound like a colossal waste of time and effort, but what could be done to create a more self-sustaining project that would latch on to what has been created here already?