| Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Survey Sites | Part 3: Statistics | Part 4: Recommendations |
The following are some statistics about computers in the Gambia.
Computer Equipment
In all, we located 278 computers in the 18 senior secondary schools, 5 regional education offices, and 5 divisional health team offices.
On average, 63% of the computers found in SSSs, DHTs, and REOs work. A comparison of sectors shows that DHTs (81%) and REOs (90%) have better maintained computers than SSSs (61%).
Of the 253 computers found in senior secondary schools, only 154 are reported to work. A typical school has 13 working computers and 5 non-working computers. The ratio of working to non-working computers is 1.3:1 for regional SSSs and 1.6:1 for Kombo SSSs.
69% of computers in SSSs are found in rooms intended for students.
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Most of the computers in the country are 286 and 386 computers, but both old and new computers can be found in offices and schools. |
| 18% of computers in SSSs are functional but not set up. |
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Operating Systems
66% of computers in senior secondary schools use DOS or Windows 3.1 because they are too old to support Windows 95. In contrast, only 4% of computers in health and education offices are too old to support Windows 95.
Figure 2: RSSS - regional senior scondary schools; KSSS - Kombo senior secondary schools; RDHT - regional divisional health teams; KDHT - Kombo divisional health teams; RREO - regional education offices; KREO - Kombo education offices.
People
Of the people whom interviewees listed as qualified computer users, 40% were female and 60% were male.
According to interviews, computers are used in senior secondary schools, divisional health teams, and regional education offices throughout the country by about 100 people. This group of 96 "qualified" computer users includes Peace Corps volunteers assigned to these sites, and underscores the current dependency on PCVs and the need for more IT training of host-country nationals.
Electricity
85% of SSSs, DHTs, and REOs have access to city power. However, reliable, scheduled city power was available in only 38% of these places. Most DHTs have a generator but most REOs lack a generator. 28% of SSSs have solar power. 11% of SSSs rely exclusively on solar power. All schools that rely on a generator also have solar power.
Access to the Internet
17% of SSSs have Internet access in a room designated for students. 61% of SSSs lack Internet access and have no immediate plans to get online. Two schools (11%) plan to have Internet access by the publication date of this report and two schools have recently lost Internet access due to financial constraints.
Facilities
Two thirds of SSSs have a permanent computer facility. 11% have no facility. 22% have a temporary facility.
39% of SSSs have no method of cooling computers. 33% use electric fans. 28% have air conditioning.
83% of DHTs and 40% of REOs have working air conditioners.
22% of SSS labs had leaks in the roof.
Access
CUBE Computers donated a new Pentium Celeron computer to each of five senior secondary schools in May of 2000. During the survey three months later, we could only locate three out of five computers. One was in a student computer lab and two were in the principal’s office. The other two were not found at the schools to which they were given.
Maintenance
28% of SSSs have no concrete plan for repairing or maintaining computers. 61% rely on outside help. 11% repair and maintain computers themselves. DHTs and REOs rely on the Department of State to handle problems.
| Part 1: Introduction | Part 2: Survey Sites | Part 3: Statistics | Part 4: Recommendations |