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Kaleb Templeton Malcolm Campbell ENG-1103 November 11, 2012 Teaching Africans to Use Nutcrackers: the Challenges of Online Education in Africa When I signed up for my drivers ed. class, I had the most interesting teacher I could think of: one who took a heavy interest in ethics. At the end of each class, he would pull out a small book of various ethical situations, read one to the class, and open debate on the subject. During one class, he read to a situation in which there was a small village in Africa that was undergoing a severely low crop yield. As a result of that, the village was bordering on extinction due to starvation. Throughout the village, however, edible nuts formed a thick layer on the floor, and the villagers would sometimes gather them and throw the nuts into piles to avoid stepping on them. In the story, the villagers didnt know that the nuts were edible, and were letting them rot away, but at the same time were starving for want of food. The African village dilemma is completely fictitious, but despite that, it aptly illustrates how vital having education is in a rapidly evolving world. Given that education is so important, making sure that it is provided can have a huge impact on someones life. I was just staying at home with nothing to do and I lost hope in everything(Siegfried). These are the words of refugee Sanky Kabey, a man who fled from the Republic of Congo to a refugee camp in central Malawi. Kristy Siegfried of the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) notes the change in his reaction later in the article Education: Online Learning Inspires Refugees, when she writes that ...Kabeyas feelings about the future have changed dramatically(Siegfried). What caused this change? What

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suddenly bolstered his view of the world and made him think more positively? According to Mrs. Siegfried, the causality was that he was only one year away from completing a three-year International Online Distance Higher Education (IODHE) course (Siegfried). I had my attention captivated when I heard Kabeys story --told alongside three others-mentioned in the article. I became interested not only in his personal success, but also for the concept he represented. From this, I decided to investigate IODHE programs in Africa, and find out what currently conditions and future challenges were for these types of programs. This goal naturally led me to start coming up with questions that I would like to have answered. What kind of effects are similar online education programs having across Africa? Did all of the students meet with the same success that Kabey did, or is he an exception to the rule? What kinds of organization did these kinds of programs have? How accessible are these programs to the averagejoe in Africa? These are the questions that I looked to answer as I began typing various search terms into Google and a variety of academic libraries. The first question that I looked to have answered consisted of What kinds of people are getting the most out of these courses?. For the answer to that question, I looked to the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Education a specialized academic journal focusing on many topics related to online education. Through this search engine, I found an article written by Iain Macdonald et al. of the University of British Columbia and the British Columbia Institute of Technology that investigated pedagogical techniques such as asynchronous discussions, open-ended task-based activities, and assignments incorporating authentic, real-world examples, for educating workers in the African furniture manufacturing sector (Macdonald). The end of the article stated that ... learning activities designed according to the constructivist philosophy are appropriate for online training of adult learners in the South

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African wood products (furniture) industry, (Macdonald). Based wholly upon the conclusion reached by that article, I entertained the notion that the setup that IODHE programs had currently worked very well, since most of the educational programs I looked up used the constructivist philosophy1 as a standard in the curricula . However, upon further research, I found another article that presented a negative opinion of the same kinds of teaching methods for a survey done in Ghana, Africa. In this article, Stephen Asunka of Columbia University is quoted as saying: The study found that the students did not respond favorably to online constructivist teaching approaches such as asynchronous discussions and ill-structured project-based learning activities, and perceived collaborative online learning within their context as a complex, more demanding and time-consuming experience. (Asunka) The two articles said completely different things about the same topic. What then, I asked, caused this discrepancy in bias? What factors contributed to the different results? Was it location, mentality, or some other cause altogether? After examining both articles closely, a point arose that seemed to pertain to an explanation for the differing results among the population. At one point, Asunka stated that, according to a UNESCO survey conducted, that only one out of every two-hundred fifty people may have access to the internet in sub-Saharan Africa (Asunka). On the other hand, in the article by Macdonald et al., a World Bank study was found to suggest that ...Internet infrastructure [in South Africa] although poor compared to western industrialized nations is well-established in African terms. Given these two studies and their different conclusions, I then looked at the location vs. the internet infrastructure to see if that was the causality for the difference in opinion. Sure enough, according to Internetstatistics.com, the number of internet users in South
1 The constructivist philosophy is a methodology in which students are exposed to situations requiring them to exercise their knowledge and practice new skills.

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Africa is nearly triple the number of users in Ghana, and while internet penetration is only 8.4% of Ghana, its nearly 14% in South Africa (Internet Statistics). These statistics point to a polarization of opinion versus familiarity with the technology being used. While that may not be the only deciding factor in the differences of opinion expressed, it certainly plays a large part in the final decision made. Coming to this realization, it is within reason to conclude that the more developed the infrastructure, and the more popular the use of the internet, the more helpful the courses will be to the people, because they are more able to take advantage of the technology. This follows logic, as the more familiar a system, the easier it is to take advantage of that system. It was becoming obvious to me that thus far that the questions at hand didnt have one simple answer. Following that rhetoric, I decided to dig for obstructions inhibiting the progress of online education in Africa... instead of asking whether or not online programs worked, I began to inquire as to what kinds of things were prevented online programs from working successfully. Off the bat, I didnt have any provable theories, but certain postulations were continually turning in my mind. Did the fact that internet access varied across Africa generate problems with accessing IODHE programs? Did IODHE programs translate well into Africa? If not, then why? What kinds of teachers do Africans have access to? What kinds of things can be done to improve these areas, and what does the future look like for IODHE programs in Africa? With these new questionS in mind, I once again decided to sift through the databases for answers. In keeping with what was becoming my standard in research, a few narrowed searches gave me an article that I considered to be very authoritative in the area of analyzing IODHE programs. This article was written by Sadykova Gulnara of Albany University and Jennie Dautermann of the Center for Professional Development in Syracuse, and seemed by far the most prevalent of the articles I was looking at. Not once, not twice, but three separate times I

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found this source as the very first paper to match up with my search terms. The article itself, Crossing Cultures And Borders In International Online Distance Higher Education, seeks to set forth a groundworks for establishing effective IODHE programs. The article takes an analytical approach, addressing current problems in four areas: host institution, technology, learning models of students, and the teaching models of faculty. I found these areas favorable for what I was looking for to elucidate some of the problems of Africas IODHE programs. Starting off, the main problem encountered with regards to institutions is the practice of setting online programs up so as to create unnecessary difficulty for the student in Africa. According to Sadykova and Dautermann: adaptation of the actual classroom practices to the international online students needs may be moved into other institutional offices where policies have not previously accounted for international students. Some institutional policies, for instance, assume that rolled students can visit campus offices to pay their bills, sign forms, be advised, sit pictures, and more. (Sadykova) With these policies in place, I came to the rather obvious conclusion that students in Africa could run into difficulties if asked to present their student ID or show up physically. Fixing these issues, however, appears a fairly simple affair. According to the reading done for this topic, the general solution to the problem seemS to rely mostly on the re-designing of the policies and delivery methods of the programs themselves so that students no longer must present their student ID or be physically present to register for classes (Sadykova). all enfor ID

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Another possible issue that relates to the teaching models is the qualification of the teachers participating in the IODHE programs. Seeking information, I stumbled upon an article done by a group of fifteen faculty of the Bindura University of Science Education (BUSE) that explored some of the issues found during the monitoring of IODHE classes in a university setting. In this article it was revealed that, in online lectures, only 0.05% of teachers lecturing had a Ph.D, while 67.95% had masters degrees. Another, more significant statistic given by the survey found that only 2.5% of faculty teaching had any experience in teaching IODHE courses (Mpofu et al.). These figures signify that there may be a lack of teachers that have experience in teaching online courses. This can be remedied with a program offered by Maryland Online that I found that, according to Mrs. Sandykova and Mrs. Dautermann offers highly regarded online training for new faculty (Sandykova). Besides making sure that African IODHE students have little trouble signing up for classes and that the busy work of receiving and education flows as smoothly as possible, I also wanted to focus more thoroughly on another issue: the obstructions that the Africans themselves faced. What kinds of physical limitations must be overcome by potential students of IODHE programs in Africa? [CUT] In the paper "Challenges of virtual and open distance science teacher education in Zimbabwe.", the faculty teachers used an online program called Virtual Open and Distance Learning (VODL) to gather their statistics (this is IODHE under a different name). To facilitate the availability of the online classes to the surrounding public, centers were established for the purpose of allowing students to access the internet to participate in classes. One of the tangible problems that occurs in the case of these centers, according to Mpofu et al., is that they have sporadic power supply. [P]ower was not always available 24 hours per day,

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due to power outages. The centers[sic] had electric generators but the centre budgets could not sustain the expensive diesel fuel to power the machines throughout the working day (Mpofu et al.). Looking at this problem, I saw that in the future, a good area of concentration for future improvements in the solidifying of the ability of African VODL students to access the internet through VODL centers without having to sit through power outages. Another problem mentioned is that in these online setups, due to spacial constraints, very little room is available for labs. In the BUSE online program, residential session centres currently lack enough laboratory space to cope with the demand of practical subject training. Only one centre (25 %) has physics, chemistry, computer science, and biology laboratories. These laboratories have a carrying capacity of 15 25 students per session. Though the buildings are in place, they lack equipment, apparatus, and consumables for practicals. (Mpofu et al.) Finding this statement saddened me. Sciences wax broad by nature and labs compose a vital part of that mix. Not being able to take a lab severely hinders the students ability to apply the things that he/she learns in a class, which in turn limits the effectiveness of the entire class. For the future, this would definitely propose a very valid concern to address as far as allocation of funds and future necessities. Having theSE questions answered regarding some of the physical hardships of IODHE in Africa, the small foray into the complex realm of African IODHE programs was brought to a conclusion. I sat back in my chair, cracked my tired fingers, and asked, whats next?

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Problems and hardships regarding online education in Africa consist of multiple facets and tiers, but the real dilemma overarching the entirety of the concerns is How are we going to respond to help them? I considered this question, and I believe that the answer lies simply in whatever you can in any capacity to aid those in Africa (or any third-world country) to achieve their goals. In the struggle to attain a well functioning IODHE system, perfection is probably a long time coming, but it only moves faster with every soul that contributes to the process. At the beginning of this paper, Sanky Kabey, who took it upon himself to receive and eduction from a refugee camp in Malawi, talked about how online education improved his life. Later, in that same article, he is also quoted as saying Im inspired, Ive obtained a lot. I want to make my future bright (Siegfried). Why dont we reach out from the wealthiest, most highly educated country in the world to give him a hand?

Works cited Asunka, Stephen. "Online Learning in Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa: Ghanaian University students' experiences and perceptions." The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9.3 (2008): Web. 12 Oct. 2012

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Internet World Statistics, Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2011. Web. 3 Sep. 2012 Macdonald, Iain, Mark Bullen, and Robert Kozak. "Identifying Effective Pedagogical Ap-

proaches for Online Workplace Training: A case study of the South African wood products manufacturing sector." The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8.3 (2007): Web. 12 Oct. 2012 Mpofu, et al. "Challenges of virtual and open distance science teacher education in Zimbabwe." The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 13.1 (2012): 207-219. Web. 12 Oct. 2012

Sadykova, Gulnara and Jennie Dautermann. Crossing Cultures and Borders in Online Distance Higher Education. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, v13 n2 p 89114 Aug 2009. 26 pp. Web. 14 Oct. 2012.

Siegfried, K.. Education: Online Learning Inspires Refugees. Integrated Regional Information Networks: Humanitarian News and Analysis, n.d, 10, 2012. Web. 12 Oct. 2012.

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