Cooperation on education & ICT is a step in the right direction

2011 continues to be an action packed year on the news scene with events fighting for attention each day. Before the storm could settle on Rupert Murdoch’s troubles over the phone hacking scandal, a lone gunman went on a shooting spree in Norway just after bombing government offices. Norway and UK are quite a distance from here but we cannot say the same about Somalia and Northern Kenya, where drought is condemning thousands of people to some of the worst conditions on earth. Thousands of starving Somalis keep trekking in search of food with many ending up at the Dadaab refugee camp. Stories of mothers having to make the tough decision of whom to let die among their children are abound. As usual talk is of how the world let this happen despite having heard the warnings on the famine months before. The only silver lining on the drought story is the way in which Kenyans have managed to raise money to save fellow citizens faced with hunger using platforms like Safaricom’s Mpesa, as well as other mobile money transfer platforms. The success of the Kenyans for Kenya can also be attributed to the publicity accorded to it through social media platforms like Twitter where ‘tweets’ have used the hash tag #Kenyans4Kenya. This brings me to the gist of my story on ICT and education. On Friday, Ugandan leader Yoweri Kaguta Museveni arrived in Kigali for a four day state visit. The two Presidents are expected to discuss among others, issues on trade and ICT. To say that the visit is timely would be an understatement. And I am not talking about the ongoing trade exhibition at the Gikondo Expo Grounds. Before the two leaders could sit for serious talks, their ministers were already holding crucial talks on how to engender cooperation between the two countries in areas of agriculture, trade, education and ICT. The two nations arrived at this decision during the 9th Joint Permanent Commission (JPC) meeting in Kigali. I will focus on ICT and education because many times these two are not contextualised when addressed in the media. We have all heard about the huge strides taken by the government of Rwanda on the ICT front and the changes in the education sector also seem self explanatory. As far as the ICT sector is concerned, the two countries are secondary users of the undersea fibre optic cables that landed at Mombasa and Dar es Salaam ports. These cables were said to be game changers as far as internet usage is concerned. We were told of how internet speeds were going to increase while the cost of internet was going to be cut by about 70 per cent. However, this has not really happened for a number of reasons. Service providers have continued to charge high fees while at the same time the magic speeds seem not to have trickled down to the average internet user. As we wait for these issues to be sorted out, we need to remember a few things. Internet usage or ICT in general is no longer a luxury for those working in government offices or multinational companies. It is needed to service development across the board. Many graduates from the school system lack jobs yet the market for outsourcing business processes (BPO) is so huge. India’s economy has grown tenfold because of this one simple innovation that has seen companies in US and Europe outsourcing their customer care services to Indian firms. We too can do the same thanks to the thousands of graduates our universities are producing out each year. For this to happen, we need to work and cooperate on education and ICT. Exchange of ideas and technical people can go a long way in achieving this ambition. I hope the efforts of the JPC will go beyond the dotted lines that bear the signatures of our ministers. ssenyonga@gmail.com