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Jan 15, 2001
International Perspectives (cont'd)
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Africa: Three International Schools
by Mary Anne Mather
As a guest consultant at the African International Schools Association Conferences in Botswana and Senegal, Mary Anne Mather had the opportunity to ask three administrators at International Schools about how they use technology. Here are some excerpts from their conversation.
The cool springtime of Botswana's southern African bush contrasts sharply with the steamy subtropical desert of Senegal-indeed, thousands of miles and a 13-hour plane ride separate them. Yet there is a noticeable similarity about the determination of the educators in schools-from Johannesburg in South Africa to Lagos in Nigeria to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia-to bring world-class excellence to the education delivered at their sites, and technology is at the top of the list.
Judging by the two conference venues where I presented, the International School of Dakar and Westwood International School in Gaborone, Africa's International schools are very focused on technology. Like many schools in the United States, they are still struggling to get all the resources in place. But the labs I saw are nicely equipped with new iMacs on a local area network. One workstation in each lab has a dial-up connection to the Internet, and there is at least one additional Internet dial-up connection in each school.
This condition seemed generally consistent, with a few schools having faster, more ubiquitous Internet access and one or two preparing to get connected within the next several months. Regardless of the number of computers connected to the Internet, the fact remains that because of infrastructure issues on the continent, lines can slow to a crawl or be completely unavailable at times. Even electricity can be unreliable. For this reason, many schools have their own generators.
Although Africa seemed worlds away from home to me, when it came to technology in schools, there were some very familiar issues, struggles, and dreams. So I invited faculty members from three of the schools represented in my institutes to answer questions about their local technology resources and share their opinions about the importance of technology in Africa and in general.
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