Week 7 - Africa's Elearning

Education in a Health Disaster – Is eLearning a Solution?
http://www.elearning-africa.com/newsportal/english/news164.php

this article is about the closure of schools in Zambia and how the situation is effecting education. the article intorduces the idea of Elearning and how this is helping the school pupils.

the first part of this afticle is just introducing the current situation to its readers/viewers. 'the Ministry of Education that all schools in the cholera-affected areas, scheduled to re-open on January 12th, should not open until the Cholera outbreak that had affected Southern Zambia was fully under control'. these few lines alone reveal to the audeince alot of information. Location (Southern Zambia), Situation (cholera outbreak effecting education and schools), Who (Ministry of education, Zambian Government, School children).

the paragraph goes on to speak of the negative effects of the schools closure. 'pupils argued that they were all going to write the same exam at the end of the year and that it was not fair for them to stay home while friends in areas unaffected by cholera continued going to school' This comment made me think is there a possibility or are the government making a big enough effort to maybe re-route some students into the other schools to get the full hands-on education which they are missing out on? i can understand that some schools are going to be at a fair distance but supplying public transport to the closer schools could have been an option.

'It is in this vein that the government should develop preparedness for times of health disasters by providing alternative eLearning lessons to children attending school' why hadnt this been thought of before? preparing the community for an enviroment change such as Elearning is going to be a big deal and natural disasters have been taking place for years so i wonder why the idea and concept of Elearning has not been apparent before. further on through this report Professor Sinkala states 'technology-enhanced learning would come in handy. "Pupils would not have to miss their lessons as they would access their teachers’ lessons through either an Internet cafe or from home or any convenient place arranged for that matter,"' The issues i personally have with this statement are if theres a cholera outbreak within the schools and local area that the children live in should going to an internet cafe be a safe options. The cholera virus is going to be in more places than just the schools and the other issue is the professor is assuming everyone will have contact with the internet, which in such countries is unreasonable. my reaction is backed up by the Professor himself as he states 'he did not think that there was an ICT tool that was available to all Zambian students that could effectively be used by students during health disasters such as a cholera outbreak'

As long as the students can get to the internet in a safe enviroment and all being well, an online Elearning process would make sence if nothing else can be done. it also states 'eLearning would also help to boost awareness of cholera' which will be an advantage to the community. Other advantages of Elearning would be - access to tutors as well as pupils and interaction, subjects such as english, science, history and geography can all be uploaded online as a lecture/lesson.

Radio is the Zambians number 1 ICT tool so are the government doing enough to advance this and make it avalible. on the other hand though it is good to know some people are making an effert to make a difference ... 'On the affordability of gadgets, John observed that the prices were now coming down and that parents should be able to afford them for their children. However, he suggested that it would be easier for all students to access these eLearning programmes on the radio, which was an ICT product that was found in almost every home, including rural households'