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Search by Keywords: Advanced Search Download this Report Click here to download this report. Education at the Development Gateway AiDA - Projects dgMarket - Tenders dgCommunities – E-Learning Open Educational Resources About this Report 'Online Education: What Can It Deliver?' is a Special Report that convenes diverse perspectives on the outlook of online education and e-learning for development. Participating in this Special Report are our online communities focused on: Aid Effectiveness Capacity Development for MDGs Culture & Development Gender and Development Indigenous Issues Youth for Development Environment and Development Urban Development  Food Security HIV/AIDS Population and Reproductive Health Microfinance HIV/AIDS ICT for Development Indigenous Issues Iraq Knowledge Economy  Microfinance  Poverty E-Government Open Educational Resources Afghanistan Reconstruction   "Urban Environment: Sustainability and Security", a Special Report coming in June 2006 that addresses how the urban landscape in developing countries is becoming environmentally less secure. Become a Development Gateway member, and you will be notified of our upcoming reports. Sign-up! See previous Special Reports here. Special Report The requested resource (/editor/default/) is not available FROM OUR MEMBERS How widely used is online education in your country? Using the Internet to broaden educational horizons in the developing world has been one of the most promising applications of ICT as a development tool. Yet realizing the promise has been slow to come. The Development Gateway went directly to its members in a survey to ask people on the ground about the status of e-learning in their countries. Here are their answers. Michael Anyalenkaya- Nigeria Many people in Nigeria don’t have personal access to the Internet. The most widely used access is provided by private Internet cafes, which limit one's ability to work when comfortable. Secondly, many people here are skeptical about any certificate that may not appeal to prospective employers. There is a general belief here that certificates obtained outside the physical four walls of a university are substandard. This belief is heightened by the high level of unemployment in Nigeria. Omolola Faleye – Nigeria I have used online education for professional training. The biggest obstacles in using online education are the cost of the Internet and untrained teachers conducting online courses. Niyati Joshi - India People are not motivated to use online education due to lack of face-to-face interaction. Along with high quality teaching, teachers need to regularly respond in time to students. It helps to adjust according to our other requirements , I mean, gives flexibility, can be discussed online, search engine is also available, but the Tutors MUST respond the student’s query in time otherwise they may lose interest. Devendra Dhapola India India is a large country. Things are now like they were before. People need change, but they all cannot participate in classroom teaching. Online education can update them. Ekanath Khatiwada – Nepal Due to costly and inaccessible Internet facilities, people in rural communities of developing countries are not benefiting from IT. If the Internet were easily accessible and affordable, we could access all kinds of information and rural communities would benefit. Rural telecenters can be established in every corner of developing countries. Pavel Permyakov - Russia There are two main reasons why online education is not promoted in Russia: 1) a lot of professors and teachers are very old and they haven't enough skills to use the Internet. The younger generation doesn't want to teach because they choose to work in lucrative business professions. 2) Only in two large cities—Moscow and St. Petersburg—are there relatively large groups of people who use the Internet. Most of our students do not use computers at all. Anke Weishei - Uganda Ugandans are more used to face-to-face learning, as using the internet is quite recent for many people and is still not accessible. The formal training on Internet use is not exhaustive as access to computer spaces for students is limited (high computer student ratio). Ben Udy - Honduras If real cooperation with the national telephone monopoly would make the Internet widely available at a reasonable cost, then online education could have a real positive effect for Honduras's development. For online education to be really effective in Honduras, a program for basic computer training in local communities would be a good start. A well thought out and structured online education program combined with real cooperation from the government and the telecommunications monopoly could facilitate more real development in Honduras than all the current programs combined. Rehmat Ebrahim - Pakistan People still don’t understand the value of the computer as a learning tool. Traditional and conventional teaching and learning are too firmly ingrained. Students are not self-motivated, nor do they have the skills needed for independent learning. Students also lack the integrity and consistency needed to stay on task. A case in point here in Pakistan is the fact that we have a document entitled National Curriculum Policy. According to this document, the major aim of education in Pakistan is to educate people to be better Muslims and better Pakistanis. To ensure this, the Ministry of Education demands that students from the school level be taught Islamiyat (Islam as a religion) and the Life of the Prophet. They must also study Urdu, which is the national language and Pakistani Studies which deal with the history and geography of the country. Only foreign nationals or Pakistanis with foreign passports are exempt from this condition. Maureen Dosoudil – South Africa The cost of online education is a real obstacle. Students have to pay upfront for the training. But if they attend a tertiary institution, they do not have to pay upfront.The requested resource (/editor/default/) is not available Potharaju Vara Joseph Ravindra Kumar - India There are plenty of institutions from the developed world offering online education, but it’s too expensive and limited scholarships are available. I've been trying to do OE for three years but have not been able to due to cost. A common myth among us is that online education never gives us opportunities for employment; it’s only an additional qualification. Gashaw Kebede - Ethiopia The major reasons, other than the ones already ticked above, include absence of content/courses for online education, low level of computer and Internet/network penetration in the country, lack of IT/information skills on the part of the potential students to engage in online education, low level of awareness of the validity/awards/degrees obtained through online education, the high cost of enrolling in online education, and probably more preference to earn degrees from the the known and accredited universities of the country. Shalini Kumar - India The greatest difficulty in online teaching is distraction. One does not remain focused due to the plethora of information available. There are many barriers and physical problems, especially in developing nations which is beyond the imagination of developed nations. Local language and subject relevance with local surroundings is very important. Physical contact and personal touch by teachers can never be achieved in online education. The lower the literacy level, the greater the demand for teachers in person. Tom Nevin – South Africa Lack of electricity in many areas, lack of qualified installation, lack of tutoring of locals to use the equipment, lack of ongoing maintenance and repair. Too often IT equipment that is too sophisticated is delivered by well-meaning sources. More often than not it gathers dust in storerooms because no-one knows what to do with it. Simpler, more user-friendly equipment must be developed for IT start-up areas. Hardy, easy-to-use systems are vital in these regions. If local language options could be made available, all the better. The system should also be available to farmers, traders and administrators in the area both to uplift the community's overall access to information and communication, and to prepare schoolchildren in IT. Dedicated alternative power sources, such as solar, are needed to drive the equipment in non-electrified regions, in addition to other means (radio, perhaps) of connecting to the Internet in places where telephony has not yet reached. The requested resource (/editor/default/) is not available Email this page Sign-up Support Our Work From Our Members Almost 300 people answered the Development Gateway member survey about uses of online education as a development tool. Read their responses. What would increase the credibility of online education in your country? What would make online education more popular?   Multilateral Learning Online: Can It Solve the Education Crisis in Developing Countries? Bob Moon, Open University and Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) Susan D'Antoni, Virtual Institute of the Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) Stewart Marshall, Distance Education Centre at the University of the West Indies, Barbados Read Wired Schools: Is High Internet Cost the Only Obstacle? C. Enrique Peláez Jarrín, Ecuadorian Consortium for Advanced Internet Development Sandra Aluoch, African Virtual University Read Private Sector: Funding ICT Innovations for Higher Education Roundtable from 2006 International Investment Forum for Private Higher Education Read Partners Global Events March 27-31: Innovating e-Learning 2006: Transforming Learning Experiences March 27-29 2006 International Conference on Distance Education, Oman April 24-30: Global Campaign for Education Global Action Week April 24-30: Education International GWA April 25-28: Digital Learning Asia 2006, Bangkok, Thailand May 24-26 1st International Conference on ICT for Development, Education & Training, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia June 14-17: European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) Conference, Vienna, Austria ICEL 2006: The International Conference on e-Learning, Montreal, Quebec July 3-7: iEARN World Conference and Youth Summit, Netherlands

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