(ICT) In Education In Developing Countries

The Role of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) In Education In Developing Countries

Siavash Omidinia Centre for Advanced Software Engineering Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) International Campus Jalan Semarak,54100 Kuala Lumpur ,MALAYSIA [email protected]

Maslin Masrom

Harihoddin Selamat

College of Science and Technology Universiti Teknologi Malaysia International Campus, Jalan Semarak, 54100 Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA [email protected]

Faculty of Computer Science and Information System, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) 81310, Skudai, Johor, MALAYSIA [email protected]

ABSTRACT Information and communications technology (ICT) is changing the developed nations’ approaches to education. ICT provides learning opportunities to millions of people of all ages and ethnic groups whether they are on campus or remote, attending vocational institutions or receiving technical education at a distance; whether they live in dense urban or remote and rural communities. In terms of access ICT promises the ultimate democratization of education and education justice. The paper highlights pertinent aspects in the concept of ICT education that need to be reexamined and revamped, namely matters pertaining to teacher training, IT infrastructure, and curriculum design, so as to ensure that the innovation can successfully breed or nurture a workforce prepared to meet the challenges of the ICT era or knowledge society. The results of this work has motivated us more to applying ICT for education in developing smart schools in developing countries in next stages of our research. KEYWORDS Education justice, ICT, Distance Education(DE), E-learning

1. INTRODUCTION Information and communications technology (ICT) is rapidly transforming Secondary and post-secondary education in developed nations. High-schools, colleges, vocational schools, universities and advanced research institutions are being affected at all levels. In particular, ICT has affected distance learning (or distance education (DE)) – allowing School calendars to be designed to accommodate the needs of individual students on one hand and faculty on the other, thus moving many elements of the educational justice process into the virtual world. This hugely increases the “market” of potential learners. Such Technology-mediated instruction can be accessed almost any location, opening opportunities for working students, parents of young children, and those with disabilities to reach their educational goals. Further, it is able to do this in a cost-effective, sustainable way. Generally speaking, the more learners are participating in a technology-mediated program, the lower the per student cost. Historically, there has been an inverse relationship between technological Capability and cost. It is clear that ICT is critical to the continued success of the School. It is important to almost every member of the collegiate School. Members rely heavily on the PCs on their desks, the laptops connected to the network, email and web services, the software that drives the appliances which are used and the back-up; they must all work and do so consistently and effectively. Reliable and efficient ICT systems are also crucial to the operation of the collegiate School itself. Given the frequency with which students, academics and administrators exchange information between colleges, departments and the central School, ICT systems that can ‘talk to’ each other are needed and to which individuals can gain access, whether they are working in a college, a department or Faculty, or working outside of the School. Further, in an environment where there is more and more interdisciplinary work being carried out, ICT systems are needed that facilitate the sharing and exchange of ideas, information and knowledge?

2. BACKGROUND A new Information Communication Technology (ICT) strategy document entitled toward e-development in developed countries: a strategic approach for information and communication technology. This paper emphasizes the importance of information technology as a means to stimulate and foster development in Asia. On the one hand the study aims: • A strategic approach for information and communication technology recognizes the need for improvement of the international transfer of education, knowledge, skills and training to more than a billion of 5 to 24th years’ young people. It requires the adoption of new learning technologies that are already are being used in developed countries. • Without improved efficiencies in their present education delivery systems, it seems that developing nations will not be able to provide the necessary increase in human force required to achieve highly competitive global economy which is increasingly based on the electronic transfer and manipulation of information. With little access to efficient learning and information systems, the knowledge will not grow fast enough to remove the obsolescence and to absorb knowledge. • Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) applied to education offer a huge potential to realize the human capital inherent in mass of young people. Undertaking significant investments in education to enhance career opportunities and to improve a nation’s competitiveness require a lot of determination on the part of its leaders. • Many reasons are cited for the slow diffusion of ICT into school, including inadequate government funding, affordability, lack of current infrastructure, scarce qualified human resources and training, and domestic issues. Improving access, quality and delivery of education is not seen as critical in many countries where political instability, racial and religious tension, corruption, poverty, mismanagement, and other visible problems demand quick short term solutions. • A significant proportion of the difficulties encountered in acceptance of ICT in education in developing countries are attitudinal in nature involving teachers, administrators, officials and politicians alike. They think that if they were able to do without computers in schools, multimedia materials, or management information systems in their schooldays, so can the current students. An important step towards the successful integration of information and communication technology (ICT) in schools is to facilitate their capacity to develop a school-based ICT policy in an ICT plan. Such a plan can be defined as a school document containing strategic and operational elements concerning the integration of ICT in education. To write such a plan in an efficient way is challenging for schools [1]. 3. RESEARCH METHOD This paper has been prepared through literature review phase of main stream of PhD research. Many activities are carried out such as review on ICT use in education, e-learning, smart schools. By the end of this phase, we have produced enough information on ICT use in education for development of smart schools in developing countries. Besides that, we analyzed current ICT environment in education in developing counties in order to find the issues and problems that we face in education discipline in developing world to plan for future. Moreover, we have reviewed some concepts of e-learning and also some practices of using ICT in education in the world. The results have motivated us to increase ICT in operation for education in smart schools. 4. ASPECTS OF ICT USE IN EDUCATION The purpose is to show educators, and how to make ICT work for them and their clients. ICT applications in education and training in developed countries can be explained based on following topics. 4.1 TEACHER AND STUDENT ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR

• Teachers: Relatively little is known about what motivates a teacher to adopt ICT in a classroom context. Indeed, for some, the prospect of changing from the role of lecturer to that of combined mentor, guide, motivator (even entertainer!) can be daunting, implying a diminution of authority or a slight fading of their perceived image of infallibility. None the less, throughout the developed world over the past twenty years the great majority of teachers appear eager to adopt ICT, when appropriate opportunities arise. The follow-up study indicated that teachers’ previous computer experience had a very positive influence upon their expectations of the course. Teachers reported that having a home computer, a supportive and effective professor/instructor, and an appropriate level of ICT in the schools at which they work also influenced their attitudes towards, and use of, computers

• Students: Although the term ICT implies far more than simply access to personal computers, Students generally perceive using computers as having a positive effect on their earning. Online students are “generally older, have completed more college credit hours and more degree programs, and have a higher all-college GPA than their traditional counterparts” (Diaz, 2002, pp. 1-2) xi. Today’s college and university students are unlike past generations. 4.2

LEARNING MATERIALS

Traditionally, students have learned about the world from teachers in classrooms and labs, through books. Now technology allows them to learn in-depth information of subjects and cultures electronically. Many applications have been prepared to train students through easily accessible, understandable, often fascinating, reference materials that are browsed and absorbed eagerly. For many students, acquiring knowledge in this manner feels more like fun than study. 4.3 EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

Increasingly, a single faculty member is no longer responsible for all technological and pedagogical functions relating to a course. Many of dynamic and forward-looking institutions in the developed world are actively recruiting successful executives as faculty. The role of educators in distance education however, requires specialized skills and strategies[2]. DE teachers must plan ahead, be well-organized, and able to communicate with learners in innovative ways. The successful application of educational technology depends on many factors; two of the most important are a) having a sufficient number of learners participating (a “critical mass”) so as to make the application economically sustainable and b) employing technology of a type and level appropriate to the particular educational objectives sought by both teachers and students. 4.4 EDUCATION MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS (EMIS)

One of the important issues of DE is to administrate all resources invested in education through development of education management information systems. In most developed countries, ministry of education or an agency under the ministry’s authority is responsible for the development of national education management information systems covering all education sectors including schools, colleges, universities, technical and vocational training, adult education and training [3]. 4.5 OTHER ISSUES IN LIFELONG TRAINING

Today, a significant amount of audio-visual product has been provided to be excellent instructional material in a medium well-suited to ICT and DE. Many advanced universities in the developed countries are extending their global training through strategic relationships with other top-line institutions in the developed world by opening e-learning campus. They bring various expertise, course content, monitoring and evaluation systems, and technology to their teaching-learning system[4]. The market seems to be one of the reasons for many education providers to prepare online services. The second one is to include all of the money spent by corporations and others on training. Global telecommunications and Internet technology companies, education and training publishers and providers are investing in this new industry. 4.6 LEARNING ARCHITECTURE STANDARD

The Learning Systems Technology Architecture (LTSA) is an architecture that is developed by LSTC committee of IEEE in 2003. “This standard specifies a high-level architecture for information technologysupported learning, education, and training systems that describes the high-level system design and the components of these systems.” [5]. Figure 1 has illustrated this standard. In general, the purpose of developing education architectures is to create high-level frameworks for understanding their components, subsystems, and their interactions with related systems. In fact, LTSA architecture is a framework for designing education systems over time for analysis effectiveness and comparison of their components.

Figure 1.The IEEE Standard - Learning Systems Technology Architecture (LTSA)

5.

ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN USING ICT AND E-LEARNING It is believed that E-learning will satisfy increasing demand for education while facing shortage of teachers in developing countries. E-learning as a tool can also expand student society through higher education access, especially in rural areas [6]. IT primarily automates information delivery in classrooms. Using IT will impact educational environment and processes in performance and success [7]. In spite of advantages and goals, challenges of e-learning are plentiful; for instance there is a lack of elearning requirements such as computers and skills in many developing countries. Therefore all challenges of implementing e-learning in these countries should be understand [8]. Some of these problems are that many teachers access poor resources or second hand books and high costs of producing teaching resources [9]. Sometimes, the technologies that are deployed in developed countries have a number of limitations due to their modern design. Moreover, shortage of ICT specialist in education and also lack of IT-skilled teachers bothers many of developing countries [10]. IT often reflects the nature of the country that developed or manufactured it. Implementation of a new technology does not end with installation and explanation of how to use it. Therfore, it should be accompanied by transfers in education, organization, administration, employment strategy, and research. The new technology must be accepted by the receiving society. Social practices and cultural values in developing countries differ markedly from developed practices. Also, information is seen as a source of powe. Managerial and organizational issues of the receiving technology are also important. The current constraints and issues on the use of ICT in education in some developing countries are as follows: • Little emphasis on ICT skill development in educational • Lack of national standard for e-learning • Lack of copyright law knowledge for e-learning • Lack of evaluation system for e-learning activities • Using ICT in teaching with traditional infrastructure • Lack of a national e-learning strategy • Unsatisfied telecommunication infrastructure for connecting schools to the national intranet • Lack of experienced trainers in ICT • Insufficient Internet connectivity in Schools • Lack of integrated strong management for ICT development in the country. • Lack of IT infrastructure in primary and secondary schools

6. DISTANCE EDUCATION It is estimated that one-third of all colleges and universities would be closing within ten years. Also it is recently predicted that higher education institutions will be relics in a matter of a few short years. The message was to change or die. The source of the change is digital technology and distance education. One of the first innovations in education was distance education. Indeed, the concept and practice of distance education is far from new. More and more learners are requiring flexibility in program structure to accommodate other responsibilities, such as jobs and families[11]. Learners literally shop around for courses that best accommodate their schedules and learning styles, and then have the option of transferring their credits to a university where they can complete their degrees as time and finances permit.

6.1 DISTANCE LEARNING SITUATION

Organizations at every level of education are adapting to accommodate the growth in the demand for distance learning [12]. These two factors, technological capability and ICT literacy, form a positive feedback loop in developing countries: as technology spreads, technological literacy will rise and vice versa [6]. This interdependence and the need for a balance between the two must be recognized. As more and more knowledge becomes available online, a great deal of printed material becomes obsolescent, if not obsolete. This is especially necessary for post secondary institutions in developing countries, which are attempting to ensure their students achieve their outcomes and able to compete with graduates in the developed world, for instance in rapidly evolving disciplines such as pharmacy, medicine, library sciences, engineering, agriculture, computer technology, etc. There were no plans to modernize the material since teachers were comfortable with it, and there were few if any opportunities for them to update their own knowledge[4]. 6.2

ASSESSMENT AND MONITORING

Several indicators of student achievement are the keys to evaluating technology-based learning. There has been rapid development and integration of ICT into daily life. Parents, teachers and the business sector have increased their expectations on ensuring students are 'ICT literate’. ICT has the potential to improve the education system by[13]: • assisting students' ICT skill development; • increasing students' interest, knowledge, motivation and learning skills; • supplementing teachers' instructional practices in the classroom; • extending the learning environment beyond classroom walls; and • Providing efficient administration and cost savings. These principles might be used for assessment of the integration of ICT into the education system to know how it is consistent with basic values of public education[14]: • student needs and learning should be the focus of ICT • ICT should be integrated to ensure student participation, accommodate different learning styles, and support both individual and group learning processes; • the application of technology must be supported by new teaching practices; • general issues must be considered as part of ICT integration (gender, cultural, geographic); 6.3 TUTORS AND SUPPORT

The technology tutor includes any person undertaking a role to support and enable students to learn effectively when using technology as a tool for learning. A few case studies describe synchronous working using videoconferencing and collaborative working through shared applications and workspaces, e.g. whiteboards. A minority of case studies reported a move towards separating the provision of content from the learning support[15]. Following table (Table 1) shows the factors that should be considered by tutors and also in designing support activities in e-learning: Features of Online learning environment Tutor skills (Student perspective)

Tutor skills (Support perspective)

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Table 1.Factors should be considered by tutors and support activities The absence of cultural markers (physical appearance, speech and voice, race) The different nature of interaction between student and tutor The use of different kind of text: online communication, image based, and spoken The need to encourage reflection and deep learning Facilitate learning community. Facilitate communication. Monitor attendance and contributions. Guide students through their curriculum. Motivate. Help learners to achieve their objectives. Demonstrate adequate knowledge of the course, Provide a guiding presence in the conferences, Answer direct requests for information, Follow the discussions, Provide summaries and feedback on the activities, Monitor the participation of all students in their allocated group.

7. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION This paper has been prepared through literature review phase of main stream of PhD research. Many activities are carried out such as review on ICT use in education, e-learning, smart schools. By the end of this phase, we have produced enough information on ICT use in education for development of smart schools in developing countries. Besides that, we analyzed current ICT environment in education in developing counties in order to find the issues and problems that we face in education discipline in developing world to plan for future. It is believed that E-learning will satisfy increasing demand for education while facing shortage of teachers in developing countries. E-learning as a tool can also expand student society through higher education access, especially in rural areas. IT primarily automates information delivery in classrooms. Using IT will impact educational environment and processes in performance and success. In spite of advantages and goals, challenges of e-learning are plentiful; for instance there is a lack of elearning requirements such as computers and skills in many developing countries. Therefore all challenges of implementing e-learning in these countries should be understand. Some of these problems are that many teachers access poor resources or second hand books and high costs of producing teaching resources. Sometimes, the technologies that are deployed in developed countries have a number of limitations due to their modern design. Moreover, shortage of ICT specialist in education and also lack of IT-skilled teachers bothers many of developing countries. Developed countries have evolved their own set of international standards for design, delivery and evaluation of ICT efforts. ICT applications have been used in hundreds of educational environments, at every level including primary, secondary schools and universities. Certainly there have been some partial successes and some failures. Main advantages of ICTs use in education over class-based education in both developed and developing countries are trained ICT-competent teachers and students, using efficient technologists for learning, ICT-base course contents, social and political awareness and acceptance of the value of ICTs, an adequate communications infrastructure for teaching and decline in education cost per student. 8. REFERENCES [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

[13] [14] [15]

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