| Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Survey Sites | Part 3: Statistics | Part 4: Recommendations |
In August of 2000 several Peace Corps volunteers conducted a survey of senior secondary schools (SSSs), divisional health team offices (DHTs), regional education offices (REOs), and other locations of interest to gauge the extent of computer use in The Gambia. We interviewed someone in each location who was familiar with the computer situation, assessed the equipment physically present, and took pictures to depict the variation in computer facilities. From this information, we hope to present a comprehensive picture of what impact computers have had on developing nations to date, offering The Gambia as a typical developing nation struggling to enter the Information Age.
The impact of computers is difficult to quantify. Instead, we gathered information about the people using computers, the type of facilities in which these computers are found, and of course, the number and type of computers present. The Gambia is similar to many West African countries in that one region has progressed ahead of the rest of the country. Thus in The Gambia results for Kombo, the small developed region near the capital, may not be representative of the rest of the country, which remains largely rural and undeveloped. Rural areas may face unique logicistical, infrastructural, and environmental challenges which warrant different solutions from those needed by urban computer programs.
One challenge to introducing computers to The Gambia is the harsh environment and the lack of money to build adequate facilities to protect them. Intense heat (Bansang hovers around 125°F every April), seasonal torrential rains, and desert-like dustiness shorten the life of computers. Efforts to combat the elements have fallen short. Seventy-five percent of rural SSSs have no cooling method in their computer labs, while fans (no air conditioners) are found in the remaining twenty- five. While fifty percent of Kombo SSSs have AC and forty percent more at least have fans, no school is truly climate controlled. No school in The Gambia has continuous electrical power, and so fans and AC are only as reliable as the electrical current that powers them.
Misuse of resources is another obstacle. Although every computer lab at a SSS is secure, a noticeable portion of computer donations find themselves in the homes of school administrators, or in an office for which the computer was not intended.1 Income generating computer labs offer an additional allure to the fiscally irresponsible. And many generators are remarkably mobile devices.
While information technology is the final goal of any computer development, IT is far from a reality in Gambian senior secondary schools. Only 17% of SSSs can currently access the Internet, and in most schools financing Internet use remains an unresolved problem. Much has been already written on the daunting problems in technological development work2; instead, we want to showcase the progress that has been made in terms of increasing access, literacy, and communication with computers. Statistics concerning the growth of computer labs and the inclusion of women computer users are encouraging. And it is safe to say that five years ago this survey would not have been feasible in rural Gambia, because computers were so rare that finding representative people to interview would have been very difficult.
| Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Survey Sites | Part 3: Statistics | Part 4: Recommendations |
- Cases in point: The surveyors found a new school computer in the assistant principal’s house at Armitage. They found a new computer in the PEO’s home at the Mansakonko REO. They were told by the principal that two more school computers were at the mission house at Nusrat, rather than at the school. Follow-up phone interviews revealed a computer recently donated to Nusrat for student training is currently in the Principal’s house ( according to Seedy Jammeh, his live-in nephew). In some cases the computers were relocated for legitimate reasons, others may not have been.
- Check out http://www.cityu.edu.hk/is/itdc/itdc.htm for a wide range of pages on IT in developing nations.