Uganda's roll-out of ICT teaching into all secondary schools has been stymied by the lack of qualified teachers and computers, with almost half of secondary schools not yet teaching ICT and a quarter still without computers, a survey has said.
The survey by the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) confirmed that despite successes in technology, the adoption of ICT for learning in the country's secondary schools remained low, with most schools using computers for administrative work rather than for learning.
The survey, carried out in February and March this year, revealed that less than 24% of teachers in the country are computer literate.
Moreover, of the 664 schools surveyed, 448 had computers, leaving 180 schools without.
Even for students being taught computer studies, the survey found there was only one computer for every 15 students.
But at least 307 schools had no teachers teaching computer studies, while 357 had between 1 and 3 teachers teaching the subject.
This hold-up reflects the lack of current capacity in ICT teaching. Only 5,288 of the 18,693 teachers surveyed were computer literate. Overall, the survey found just 544 teachers giving computer studies as a subject, to 111,834 students - out of the 447,740 students covered by the survey.
In a bid to build the capacity of teachers, the UCC and Uganda's Ministry of Education and Sports has begun training teachers of computer studies on the use of the ICT syllabus.
The low number of teachers teaching computer studies in comparison to students is, however, worrying university lecturers and other key stakeholders.
“Strange but true, I have interfaced with students who enrol for IT courses at the university but have never even touched the mouse,” said Dr Agnes Rwashana Semwanga, a computer science lecturer with Makerere’s College of Computing and Information Sciences, in an article published by The Observer.
“And interestingly some of these students come from schools that already have computers,” he added.
Share