Gender, Education and ICT

CASE STUDIES: Radio for Basic and Literacy Education

1. Radio Education for Afghan Children (REACH)

REACH uses radio to broadcast educational programs to children who have few opportunities to attend school. A major challenge was to develop educational programming that would stand alone with no teaching, tutoring, or print support. Although not a substitute for formal education, REACH broadcasts informative, interesting, and thought-provoking programs to children and adults on basic subjects such as science, social studies, arithmetic and mathematics, and grammar and spelling. Programs for adults concentrate on life skills, such as dangers of landmines, adjustment after civil war, and the role of women in Afghan society.

REACH was never conceived as a substitute for school, but as a dynamic tool designed to respond to children's wider educational needs. Programs are developed based on participatory rural assessment with focus groups made up of men, women, girls, and boys. Program ideas from these meetings are further developed with experts in the topics covered, and sent to the focus groups for feedback.

The role of women and programs focusing on women's concerns are a major part of REACH programming, including sessions on family and children's health, home economics, and women's rights in the family and society (Siddiqi, 2002).

2. Non-Formal Literacy Education Through Radio

The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) implemented programs that used radio-based learning, which reinforces and is reinforced by print media and face-to-face training and discussion sessions.

Initiatives aimed at women included a project in Ghana that used radio to develop functional literacy and provide information in local languages on a wide range of topics, including AIDS, teenage pregnancy, nutrition, community empowerment, income-generating activities, food preservation, animal husbandry, child labor, and saving energy. Radio was also used to support literacy teaching by offering detailed information that could not be provided in the classroom.

Although there were some difficulties, such as poor radio infrastructure and inadequate air time to offer literacy in 15 languages, COL found that use of radio strengthened the coverage of the functional and development themes of the literacy program, it changed people's attitudes toward issues such as family planning, and it contributed to the establishment of income-generating ventures.


CASE STUDIES: Access by Girls to Computers in Schools

1. SchoolNet Africa

In the experience of SchoolNet Africa, gender integration has been extremely limited in programs that introduce computers in schools. Where girls have access to and use ICTs effectively, it is largely by chance rather than through programs that make technology attractive to girls and women. Examples where girls and women were targeted include Schoolnet Uganda, which worked with girls-only schools; SchoolNet Africa, which set up an Educators・ Network targeting women who now make up 51 percent of the network; and SchoolNet Mozambique, which along with SchoolNet Uganda set up collaborative learning projects on issues affecting girls and women (Isaacs, 2002b).

A recent study by World Links on computers in schools in four countries of Africa (Ghana, Mauritania, Senegal, and Uganda) found that a high student-to-computer ratios and first-come-first-serve computer policies put girls at a disadvantage. In Uganda, where computers were set up in a separate laboratory, girls used computers less than boys because it was considered unsuitable for them to run in school. The boys arrived first and were unwilling to limit their time at the computers to allow the girls to use them. Other socio-cultural factors that affected girls' access included their domestic chores, early curfews at boarding schools, and a lack of confidence in using computers.

The study also found that when girls had access to computers, they would use them more often for academic research and communication with friends and family, increasing their reasoning and communication skills. They also used Internet access to obtain information on issues such as reproduction and sexuality, information not available from their families or communities. Boys tended to use the computers for sports and music and received little academic benefit. When girls did have equal access to computers, their self-confidence improved. One participant in Senegal said, "we are no longer dependent on boys. We feel capable of solving our problems with great autonomy"(Gadio 200).

SchoolNet Uganda also implemented a program to increase the number of women teachers in the project, based on the rationale that the gender divide among teachers is often transmitted to the students. The World Links - SchoolNet Uganda program offered a five-day technical training program for twenty women teachers involved in the e-learning course. The objective was to increase the confidence and competence of women teachers with computers, so that they could act as role models for girls in schools. The participants took apart and reassembled computers to understand how they worked, and also learned how to use them to support their teaching.

2. Sarvodaya Ashram Resource Center, India

The Sarvodaya Ashram Resource Center (SARC) information technology initiative is located at a residential school for girls called Udaan (meaning "flight") in Hardoi, India. It is an example of how the integration of computer technology with girlsï½·education can improve student learning, teacher training, and pedagogy skills, and strengthen institutional capacities. The project is established in a remote rural setting where villagers have had little exposure to technology.

One hundred girls were trained to use computers and experiment with basic computer programming. Teachers at the school also received computer training and were involved in the development of one of the software programs. Classroom instruction was designed to integrate self-instruction and group-learning activities. Although most of the girls were initially intimidated by the computers, the learning process enabled them to overcome their fears.

The specific objectives of the SARC project are to:

• Use computer technology as a medium to deliver to rural children (primarily girls) innovative and complementary education that integrates self-instruction with more traditional group-learning methods
• Improve CARE India's ability to identify, create, manage, and share development knowledge effectively among various projects and sectors (including health, agriculture, and emergency relief)
• Document the lessons learned to contribute to the body of knowledge on computer-assisted education and to ensure the project can be replicated in other areas.

Future plans include developing additional software programs for use in the classroom, and adapting existing technological resources to improve community programs in agriculture, health, and microenterprise. In addition, the interactive CDs that are developed will be shared with other schools in the region that lack high-quality learning materials in Hindi (CARE India, 2001).

CASE STUDIES: Technical Training

1. India Technician Education Project

The India Technician Education project assists industrially and economically underdeveloped and geographically remote regions in India to improve the quality and efficiency of technical education to meet local needs. The project aims to increase access to technical education and training for some disadvantaged sections of society, including women, scheduled tribes, and rural youth. The 18 project polytechnics developed close links with local communities to train rural artisans, the educated unemployed, and school dropouts, and help transfer appropriate technologies to villages.

The project covered a total of twelve existing and six new polytechnics in the eight project states, and had the following components: developing and expanding capacity to provide greater access to technical education; improving the quality of education to produce better trained technicians; increasing efficiency through better planning, administration, and use of the system; and making education more responsive to emerging labor-market needs.

Key policy and institutional reforms supported by the project include:

• Creating opportunities for technical training of women and tribal communities to increase their earning capacity
• Introducing structural and academic flexibility in all programs offered by the polytechnics to make them responsive to market demands
• Promoting self-employment by developing entrepreneurial and communication skills in students through curricular interventions
• Developing human resources capacity for key areas of economic growth including ICTs (World Bank, 2000).

2. Cisco Systems Networking Academies

The Cisco Systems Networking Academy is an example of an ICT training program that has the potential to reach large numbers of women in developing countries. It consists of a training curriculum that teaches students to design, build, and maintain computer networks, and prepares them for industry-standard certification as networking professionals. To increase female enrolment it uses female role models in advertisements and promotional materials; the curriculum also includes a training module on gender equality. Cisco has formed partnerships with international organizations and NGOs to address the gender gap, and has recently completed a project with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). The project is one of several in Africa and Asia that focus on women. The UNECA project awarded full scholarships to young women who traveled to Addis Ababa for training in Internet networking technology. The women also received training in management, entrepreneurship, and gender issues.

The knowledge of the trainees increased as a result of the course, as did their self-confidence and self-esteem. Of the 27 women interviewed from the first graduating class, 71 percent said they intended to encourage other women to enter the IT field and to promote women in ICTs; 41 percent said that they intended to become ICT entrepreneurs themselves; and 82 percent said they intended to work in the ICT field.

Cisco has found that women often make it to the top percentages of graduating classes, regardless of their previous training or education level. In one recent examination, seventeen of twenty-seven women scored 90 percent or above. In the Philippines, Cisco collaborated with a women's NGO to provide network training to women making less than $600 a year. The students graduated with grades that were as good as in any other academy in the network (Walsh, 2001; Hafkin, 2002).

CASE Study: E-Learning

1. Open University, United Kingdom

The experience of the Open University in the United Kingdom in attracting women into its computer program is a useful illustration of a bridging and conversion program. It instituted an open access policy to its technology courses in the 1980s to attract women into nontraditional subject areas. However this practice was insufficient in itself to attract more women students, who also experienced barriers of cost, confidence in their ability to "handle" the technology courses, and the burden of family commitments.

To rectify this, the Open University initiated a variety of actions that encouraged increased enrolment of women students:

• Offering an updating course to help women engineers re-enter the workforce
• Offering courses for computer "beginners" who were not confident in their computer knowledge
• Offering courses that placed technology in a larger context of "real-world uses and impact," which proved to be more appealing to women
• Instituting pedagogical approaches that stressed skills development, reflective practice, and the teaching of technology ideas and concepts
• Providing of bursaries
• Developing publicity that appealed directly to women
• Encouraging building of confidence and group identity through small groups led by women who had completed the course successfully
• Encouraging peer-support networks
• Offering first-year courses that provided "catch-up" instruction and holistic views of technology in social and historical contexts
• Providing of computer-aided learning packages and "key skills" component for certain courses; and,
• Using computer conferencing, the Internet, and television in course instruction.

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