A Chalk Free Class

Mrs. Kandigoma Jean has been teaching Mathematics to for over 25 years. I knew her when I was but a child. She has taught, consulted, coached, examined and is at a point where the Math is where she lives and abides.

Recently I walked over to see Auntie Jean’s son; an age old friend, when I found her relaxing I asked him, a recent graduate what he was up to and he replied quite simply.

“She wants me to type all her work into the laptop”

What? I asked, being curiously tickled.

Then he gave me her card. On it was written:

Jean Kandigoma

School Content Specialist

E-Learnig Software Development

In the years that had passed since I had seen her she had transformed from being a major league examiner and math teacher extraordinaire to a content specialist? I mean what do those people do even do?

And so I asked her.

Her answer blew me away.

She works with the Cyber School Technology Solutions Project which has currently enrolled 100 schools and is planning to recruit another 200 this year into a program that allows access to digitized curriculum content. They have her write out the syllabus and then digitize the whole thing. Then it is voiced for effect and instructions.

And so in a look of amazement I asked her what the future of the classroom would look like and she said from when the next term begun she would just walk into class with a projector and her laptop and start teaching. She teaches across the O’ Level section.

And so where is the project going with its plans to recruit another 200 schools?

Well the plan is to hopefully partner with enough schools to increase the learning capacity for science and demonstrative subjects, and since notes don’t all have to be written in chalk, the course coverage is faster allowing for more teacher-student time and not to mention the aesthetic value it all brings to a chalk-dust-free class.

So now I ask, as the world moves towards faster and better modernization of sectors, technology and information transfer,

Are we on the cusp of another age of technology leapfrog?

For those who find it strange, I have been fondling his theory and I have heard it expressed out loud but mostly expressed in the future Africa will leapfrog and into the next technology era. My theory is that Uganda is one of those strange countries and is a classic microcosm of Africa’s strides in technology adaptation. We jumped literally from the mailbox to the cell phone. As the rest of the world endured the mailbox and what it stood for, and then moved from there to the landline home phone. In Uganda the number of landlines is probably one tenth of the cell phones.

Tottering at an astounding 9 million subscribers today, Uganda finds itself at a time where its 75% population that is under 30 needs constantly to be talking and because of the new age of information where there is just too much information make heads or tails of, there point is to just keep talking. These young people need communication solutions that answer that question everyday.

Only about 15 % of the total population currently resides in urban areas. The rest live in rural areas, where chances of access to electricity, power are very low. Today Telecom companies in Uganda seem to be heading in the right direction: Uganda Telecom’s free face book platform; MTN’s partnership with the Grameen Foundation to produce a farmers’ trade tool that is SMS enabled; Warid Telecom’s “Pakalast” tariff profile which has literally reorganized the Telcom landscape, Orange Telecom which has capitalized on providing fast, unlimited internet access on its dongo; an unrivaled facility by any in the country.

All these innovations by the industry to grab more market share continue to drive prices down in a very price-sensitive market but still do nothing to make innovations in the education sector, or health or housing or food sector substantially relevant to Ugandans. Parliament is in talks to establish a National IT Authority; an industry regulator because clearly the Uganda Communications Commission which is funded by a 1% remission by the Telcos is, and has been bullied by industry leaders into some really un-nationalist positions and decisions.

Yet the star still glimmers in this twilight zone. Maybe we’ll skip the cell phone phase and just move to the i-phone phase? 

Most likely not, but whichever way things go, they can only go up.