The Internet in Schools and Colleges in Sierra Leone

In 2002, schools and colleges in the country will for the first time have free access to the Internet to download educational materials relevant to their academic courses on CDs. At the same time this new access will allow students to gain hands-on-experience on the Internet. The programme, known as Knowledge Aid Sierra Leone, is the initiative of a group of Oxford graduates, who are alumni of the Christi Corpus College from 1950-1953. This Group will be working in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth, Education and Sports to ensure that teachers and students gain valuable experience in using the Internet. The first beneficiaries will include Fourah Bay College, Milton Margai College of Education and Technology, Prince of Wales and St. Helena Secondary schools. The idea is to boost the education system with the same communication tools that are being used by government, the military and some special libraries such as the Bank of Sierra Leone and the British Council. With the introduction of the Internet in educational institutions it is anticipated that teachers will share teaching methods and ideas; students would do cooperative projects; and, everyone would get a taste of what is happening in the computing world.

The development of education in general and the introduction of the Internet in a war-torn country like Sierra Leone will not be an easy task. During the civil war, educational institutions were targets of destruction. If peace continues in the country, what prospects do educational institutions stand to derive from this electronic network? In recent years there have been changes in the educational system with emphasis on the need for more individual work by students. Resource-based learning has placed greater importance on learning by handling information. It is therefore speculated that introducing the Internet in educational institutions will bring about fundamental changes and developments. It will help students' capacity for independent learning and information retrieval and will increase their exposure to new technologies, irrespective of their specific courses. Indeed with the introduction of the Internet the role of the library in these institutions will change. It will become a focal point of the educational community as a resource for information, knowledge, and experience. Rather than becoming a static enterprise, the library's work will become much more informative and viable as it will be dealing with digital-based information rather than paper. The work of librarians will also change from being mere keepers of the book to guides through a universe of knowledge. They will no longer be vulnerable to the vicissitudes of technological change but will play a vital role in harnessing and shaping current and future information technologies.

The Internet in the country's educational institutions will lead to a society which is better educated, more literate and conscious of the potentials of computers. Writers, educators and publishers will continue to produce books and journals but the pattern of use and production of these materials will shift in the favour of electronic means. Scholars and researchers will use this medium to transform ways in retrieving and using information in conducting their researches. In the same vein teachers and students will augment the classroom and textbook with interactive digital materials. Increasingly, they will use library services without having to go to the library

Sierra Leone, like other developing nations, needs information as a vital ingredient for nation building. And the Internet in the educational sector will help the process of nation building by providing access to formally published Scientific and Technical Information (STI). It will help to make human communication possible. School and college authorities will be able to downsize their administrative systems to a computer-based network. A computer-wide fibre network could be installed to distribute administrative tasks to schools and colleges. It will also provide access to members of staff through departmental networks.

The introduction of the Internet will be vital for the future careers of students. Upon graduation they will become adult consumers, employees, benefit claimants and members of different groups in society to name but a few. In these aspects, information through the Internet will be an everyday part of their lives, and it is important that its subsequent application in educational institutions is seen in the light of students' ability to use the new technology to find and use information directly related to their immediate purposes

In the course of this programme, there will be moments of success as well as instances of frustrations and setbacks. Currently concerns over content dominate the application of the Internet in schools and colleges. But success in a rapidly changing technological environment requires determination, dedication, flexibility, agility and adequate funding to meet the pending challenges. There should be on-the-ground commitment on the part of the implementors, as well as school and college authorities and Senior Education officials in order to achieve sustainability. Only through their active participation will the Internet transform the classroom, alter the nature of learning and change information seeking, organising and using behaviours. Auszug aus einem Artikel der First Monday, volume 7, number 3. Der vollständige Artikel ist im Internet veröffentlicht

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