What is the Internet? That is the “Question”
On 17th August 2021, I went to a café in Soroti to make photocopies of some documents. While at the copier, I noticed a diverse group of women and men, young and old, all waiting to be served at the cafe. “We are waiting for assistance with completing our declaration forms,” said Rose, a primary school teacher from one of the government schools in Kamuda. Why can’t you load the form on your mobile and start completing it using your phone?, I asked. Rose then explained that she needed assistance because she doesn’t know how to complete the form and that she can’t add attachments. With a lot of experience in ICT skills, it is often very easy to assume that everyone else around you has the same skills and experience. Being an ICT expert, I thought it was obvious that anyone could complete the form after all it just required clicking the link and answering questions on the Inspectorate of Government ( IGG)’s declaration form. Easy huh!
In May this year, the government of Uganda, through the office of the Inspectorate of Government, launched the declaration of Income, Assets and Liabilities by public officers using an online system.
My little engagement with Rose aroused my curiosity to engage other people who were in the café only to realize there were nurses, security officers, extension workers and many other teachers.
This got me thinking, how can a government agency make such a big policy commitment that affects millions of low cadre public workers who have limited, if any, access and knowledge to use computing devices, the online declaration forms and the Internet without prior assessment of the capacity of their target audience?
Like Rose, most of these lower cadre officers had to walk, ride bicycles or motorcycles from tens of kilometres up to Soroti city to access internet and computers including getting assistance from the internet Café attendants to help them to complete their declaration forms. The café had just about four computers that had to serve hundreds of teachers and other government workers on a daily basis to help them meet government deadlines and save their jobs.
During the recent scoping visit by Accessplus and Tango for the project on implementation of a community network for the women and youth in Katine, as part of the team, we took a keen interest to engage with the head teachers of the local primary and secondary schools in Katine and Oimai on their experiences on access and use of computing devices and the Internet including their experience with the IGG declaration form. It was unsurprising that the first question asked by the head teacher of one of the primary schools was “What is the Internet?” Ms. Florence Amenyo, the headteacher of Katine Tiriri primary school was very interested in having an in-depth understanding of the Internet, and ICT in general. However, due to the limited time, we could not exhaust her quest to understand some basics about ICT. With the other head teachers present, they requested that at least a computer be provided to each of their schools so that when they teach pupils about the computer they have at least one to show and use as a demonstration.
The teachers however made an appeal to the AccessPlus and Tango Consult team to provide basic ICT training skills for both mobile and desktop computing devices and in addition help the local community follow up on poor network connectivity issues.
“We registered poor performance for our students during the national examination and this is mostly because we do not have access to the internet and computers in this part of the country. Students in Kampala performed much better because they could access notes and revise past papers from the internet while in our case the schools were completely closed. Printing notes and past papers was also not possible as it is very expensive for most of our parents who are mostly peasants and fishmongers. The printers are not even there, we have to go to Soroti town most times or use a typewriter then photocopy from Soroti” explained one of the school heads.
The head teachers and sub county local council leaders we met were generally excited about the project being implemented by Accesspluss and Tango. Their hope is that we follow through with a training program specific for the primary school teachers and nurses on the use of ICTs, an activity that Accessplus plans to undertake soon.
Funded by Association for Progressive Communications (APC), the project presents a major milestone towards extension of ICT to the unconnected communities and contributing to closing of the current digital divide. The Accessplus/Tango team was also very happy to note that during the scoping visit and meeting with the Soroti district leadership, after about 10 years, an ICT support staff had been recruited to support the district local councillors/government following a recommendation by AccessPlus/ and Tango during a workshop in Jinja with the District councillors and local government leaders in March 2021.
Written by Esther Patricia Akello (AccessPlus), Reviewed by Lillian Achom (AccessPlus) and Peter Edopu (Tango Consult)
