REPORT ON ICT USE IN GAMBIA COLLEGE

Prepared by
Mr. Abdou Karim Jallow
Computer Specialist/Head, Computer Department
Gambia College, Brikama Campus
 

INTRODUCTION: - The Gambia College, one of the tertiary Institutions in the Gambia was established by an act of parliament. It is mandated to provide professional training for the middle level manpower by training Agricultural Extension Workers, teachers for the Primary and Secondary Schools, Nurses and Midwives and Environmental Health Officers. Four Schools have been setup to take charge of the responsibility of training students in these specific areas. The Schools are:

• School of Education
• School of Agriculture
• School of Nursing and Midwifery
• School of Public Health

The College is administered by the Principal and he is assisted by the Vice principal, Registrar, Deputy Registrar and Computer Specialist. Each school is administered by a Head, who is directly responsible for the professional well being of the school. There are staffs who lecture the courses of each school and they comprise the academic staff of the College.

The administrative staff of the College supervises the entire activity of the College across the four schools. It directs the implementation process of the policies from Government i.e. Department of State for Education. Under the administrative staff is a Support Staff whose role is to assist the administration in the process of supervising and implementing government policies.

It is very important to know that the College is an autonomous body whose general activities are governed by an executive body known as “The Gambia College Council, which is headed by a Chairman.

Though autonomous, it is a subvented by Government through the Department of State for Education. There are also other development partners who assist the College in funding some of its activities. Some of these partners are:

• World Bank
• African Development Bank
• UNESCO
• other International Donor Agencies.

The College is a Public Institution and therefore all the students are on government Scholarship except in the case of Non-Gambian students.


“ICT’ IN GAMBIA COLLEGE

Introduction
The emergence and convergence of information and communication technologies (ICT) remain at the centre of global social and economic transformations. The ICT sector is a gamut of industries and services activities – Internet service provision, telecommunications equipment and services, information technology (IT) equipment and services, media and broadcasting, libraries and documentation centres, commercial information providers, network-based information services and other related information and communication activities. These technological components, which used to be accounted as separate activities have converged to characterise all aspects of ICTs. The emergence of the Information Society has brought about a new dimension to the subject in which information itself is the strategic resource, a commodity and the foundation of every human activity.

"Information and communication technologies can no longer be seen as a luxury for the elite but as an absolute necessity for the masses. The global movement to an information age and the worldwide technological innovations of recent years, along with other structural and economic developments, has led to rapidly falling costs for information and communication technologies.

Information Communication Technology is one of the fastest tools of development, which can be used in almost every aspect of human civilization and is one of the facilities inevitable in as much as Education is concerned. It can very efficiently facilitate the teaching and learning process.

ICT, which comprises of Internal Computer Networks (Intranet), International Networks (Internet) Computers for word processing can undoubtedly contribute to the development of any organization/institution by providing a bridge to the global Village for the easy access of Information. It is already understood and agreed upon that a vast lot of educational resources could be found within computer networks and can only be accessed through the establishment of ICT systems thus bringing about the “Information Society”. In this present technological digital advanced world, there is the belief that there should exist an ICT facility in every institution of higher learning. In the Gambia College this belief is yet to become a reality.
Technological Resources (Infrastructure)
Effective information and communication systems require reliable, low-cost and widespread technological resources such as computers, software and all the components of the telecommunications infrastructure for processing data and information. ICT has not been fully developed in the Gambia College per say, however computers still continue to be used in other areas of their application. Staff and students are at the moment using 15 computers installed in the computer lab of the Brikama Campus for the purpose of word processing. It is important to know that all these are stand alone machines, as they are not on a Local Area Network and of course not connected to the Internet. 10 more are yet to be installed, as there is lack of space until such a time that the new computer laboratory under construction is completed. The World Bank funded the procurement of these computers and the construction of the new computer lab under the third education sector project. The ADB purchased 12 computers for the School of Nursing and Midwifery located in our Banjul Campus. However it may be interesting to note that a network doesn’t exist at that campus either thus resulting in the lack of access to valuable educational information through intranet or the Internet. The School of Public Health, of recent, benefited from a donation of 6 computers, an eight-point hub and RJ45 cables from the WiderNet project in the University of Iowa. This makes a total of 8 computers already established on a small Local Area Network (LAN), which provides an intranet facility with unlimited access to information on the server of about 60GBs of hard disk space.

Consultation are however so deep with the authorities concerned at the Department of state for Education, World Bank, ADB and the Gambia College to look into the possibility of the establishment of an ICT system for Gambia College.
Human Resources
Whereas technological infrastructure has traditionally been regarded as the most critical component of ICT, leaders and experts worldwide increasingly recognise human resource capacity development as potentially the most crucial constraint in the effective deployment of ICT to build sustainable information societies. Hence, preparing Gambia College for the information age primarily necessitates appropriate investment in its human resources. Training, education and promotion will be the cornerstones of the rejuvenation of the Gambia College’s new era society (ICT).
Development of human resources also requires having a new profile of management/labour forces; the ability to adapt, adopt and exploit new technologies and to manage the change where skills and knowledge learned can be applied. Capacity building programs should be developed tailored to the need of ICT needs of Gambia College staff and students. The training of IT Specialists and decision makers, students and staff are good areas of concentration so as to enable realisation of the benefit from the Information Society.

THE NEED FOR ICT IN GAMBIA COLLEGE
The need for the establishment of a Computer Network in the Gambia College cannot not be over emphasized as this would provide for the “ICT” needs to both Staff and Students involved in the teaching and learning process.

Students from the four schools would find it useful and interesting to use ICT in Education. In this way they can be able to undertake research through the Internet on all their areas of specialization, get connected to other higher learning Educational Institution all over the world in exchange of information relating to their individual field of study. There are a lot of modern Health related issues which could be used by Students and Staff of the Schools of Nursing and Midwifery and Public Health, Modern Agricultural techniques for use by the school of Agriculture and Modern trends in Educational pedagogy for Students of the School of Education.

The Distance Learning, a programme of the School of Education, which is meant to give student teachers more practical experience and at the same time meet the demand of teachers in schools can also benefit immensely from the use of ICT. In fact the success of this programme could only be achieved if an efficient and viable ICT System is put in place at the Gambia College. Learners can communicate directly or with minimal delays with their instructors. This will help them to obtain assistance from lecturers online at college, download information and assignment packages from the college and subsequently submit them online. ICT will prove to be more efficient and reliable in the success of the Distance Education Programme. Gambia College should be ready for well-defined endeavors in distance learning using electronic networking and computer technology.

The following table shows some of the key areas of application of ICT which students can use and subsequently as civil servants in their various areas of specialization, which can be utilized in the national development plans.
Sector Possible area of application
Agriculture Improving food security through access to timely information for determining optimal harvesting times, locating sources of surplus, distribution channels and storage facilities;
Provision of equitable access to new techniques for improving agricultural production;
Improving communication and information flow for better research and extension service linkages;
Increased co-ordination of donors and information flow among donors working in the food sector.
Education Providing equitable remote access to resources in support of both distance education and the strengthening of local educational capacity;
Connecting schools, universities and research centres to national and international distance education facilities, national and international databases, libraries, research laboratories and computing facilities;
Reducing communications and administrative costs by building communications networks linking all educational establishments;
Promoting and supporting collaboration among teachers and researchers;
Extending the reach of educational facilities in informal learning. Especially to community level
Environment Monitoring areas threatened by environmental degradation and natural disasters using ICT tools and Geo information systems;
Developing databases to improve knowledge on the availability of natural resources;
Improving the management and monitoring of the implementation of environment-related projects;
Using low-cost terrestrial and satellite communication systems in emergency situations where there is not access to adequate telecommunications.

Health Enhancement of health administration and management through medical information systems;
Establishment of general information "health profiles"(i.e. for AIDS, for infectious diseases, etc. ), specific patient "Information profiles" and decision support systems on regional, national, provincial and district levels;
Linking health centres, delivery services and medical transport to enhance patient access to these facilities and provide more efficient services to the patient;
Improving access to skilled diagnosis through tele-medicine;

ICT AND ADMINISTRATION
The world over, administrations are in dire need to be strengthened. ICT can provide valuable support in this area. The administration of the College can also benefit immensely from the services ICTs provide. ICT can be applied in:
. Personnel/Human Resources Management
• Student administration
• Finances
• Assets and maintenance
• Communication (e.g.e-mail)
• Office automation
• Supporting management decisions (MIS)
For each of these it is important to assess their availability and the quality and extent of use by staff. The ICT infrastructure is the basis on which all other ICT applications run. As such it should receive the utmost attention.

Staff would find ICT to be more reliable, flexible fast and more accurate in terms of data/information storage, retrieval collection and dissemination. In so doing, less crisis would be involved.

The Inservice Training (INSET) Wing of the School of Education may take a better and more impressive shape in the fulfillment of its mandate in training teachers already within the system provided that a viable ICT system is put in place.


The Curriculum Research and Development Unit (CREDU) can also undoubtedly benefit a lot from the services of ICT in Gambia College in the process of research for curriculum instructional materials and development for the Gambia's education sector.

CONSTRAINTS OF ICT IN GAMBIA COLLEGE.

Realising the use of ICT and its need in the Gambia College, the following could briefly summarise the constraints:

• Lack of adequate awareness about ICT by the decision makers of the College.
• Lack of the basic equipment for the establishment of ICT i.e. Network equipment etc.
• No budget allocation for the Computer Department of the Gambia College for the procurement of some “ICT” tools.
• Lack of sufficient trained computer personnel to take care of the “ICT” problems and needs.


CONCLUSION
With cautious study of the above-mentioned areas of this report one may perhaps empathize that the need for the setting up of an excellent “ICT” System is inevitable. The challenge to Gambia College Council and Administration is the re-examination of the needs of the policies in the Information era, so that they could exploit to the fullest extent the benefits to be accrued from the convergence of information and communication technologies and the advent of Information Societies. This entails a challenge to exercise clear vision and leadership of how ICT could serve College interests, and to promote the necessary organisational change. Putting in place ICT plans and strategies, are a 'key building block' required to meet those challenges. The core aim of most of these ICT programmes is to create an enabling environment in which students and staff in educational set-ups in developing countries can effectively exploit knowledge for educational development.
However there are difficulties involved in the establishment of ICT System and the Gambia College administration, as a whole, is not in a position to provide ICT systems as no provision has been made in the College's budget by government. It is very interesting to know that both the Staff and Students are willing to make the best use of ICT in Education once it is put in place as the interest has been manifested during the students computer literacy programme.
ICT in general could go a long way in the success of any Educational Institution, the Gambia College not an exceptional.

RECOMMENDATION

• An ICT infrastructure be established such as Local Area Networks, Campus-wide backbone connecting LANs and Multi-campus backbone connecting LANs to cater for both Banjul and Brikama Campuses.
• Training be provided for the ICT specialists in the areas of modern technologies in computing (ICT) and decision makers in the area of the importance and benefits of ICT in Educational Institutions.
• Budget allocation be put in place for use in procurement of “IT” tools such as hardware and software acquisition and maintenance cost of ICT Systems.

• Awareness-raising: The undertaking of surveys and need analysis, the identification of priorities and opportunities for ICT in the Gambia College, and the assessment of current strategic information systems project in the College.
• Formulation of strategic goals and targets: (future plans) this includes defining strategic information systems to be developed, required policy and institutional reforms, and knowledge and skills required in the workforce to implement the ICT systems.