UDOM to come up with ICT solution for primary schools

Despite efforts by the government to enhance education by use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in primary schools, about 3,334 out of 16,343 numbers for both public and private registered schools have reliable access to the Information Technology in teaching. This account for only 20 percent of the total number of primary schools in the country which have managed to use ICTs in teaching curriculum since the programe of ICT in education was first introduced in the country in early 2000. Education experts said yesterday in Dar es Salaam that, with the statistics available, it shows that the use of ICTs to enhance education is still very low in the country mainly due to inadequate electricity supply coupled by poor skills mostly in rural areas a phenomenon that renders ICT application. Speaking at the just ended ICT exhibition, lecturers from the Education Unit of the University of Dodoma (UDOM) said in an exclusive interview at their show stand that, schools which have managed to conduct such programmes have been connected to the national grid or have installed renewable energy such as solar to drive ICT related tools in their schools. Earlier the three lecturers had written a paper titled, “Enhancing primary school teachers and students in engaging with e-content on Literacy and Numeracy” a joint work presented by Placidius Ndibalema, Ayoub Sanga and Fredrick Msangi. The three noted in their paper presentation that, UDOM has come up with a solution to help enhance education by use of ICT in primary schools in the country under the programe known as “Edmodo’. According to Ndibalema, this is a learning management system to be connected with teachers and training colleges in the country as part of online programme for primary school teachers’ professional development. He said UDOM as developers has produced e-contents for interaction to enable teachers and their students to access learning materials from the database to be created in online. The UDOM has come up with the establishment of the programme that is optimistic to be inspired by a number of increasing concerns among primary school teachers, bearing the fact that it has a great potential to lead ICT application in primary schools. “This is a project for primary schools in the country”, he said adding that for the start the university has started with 2000 primary schools as a pilot project following recommendations from research reports that the use of ICT among primary school teachers in Tanzania is in a critical dilemma. He noted that teachers and their students will be registered and given a password with which will enable them access information posted that will contain learning materials.