Two initiatives aim at integrating the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the educational system in Burkina, a country that figures at the bottom of the UNDP classification scale.
Global Teenager Project (GTP) is a programme set up in 1999 by the International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD). The project brings the new information and communication technologies to the high and middle schools. This initiative sets up networks between several high and middle schools (which are located in Switzerland, Benin, Holland, Senegal, Burkina, Madagascar, etc.). The pupils have the opportunity to join in online discussions (Learning Circles) on a wide range of subjects such as health environment, human rights, globalisation, AIDS, culture, racism or music.
Apart from this project, World Links, a World Bank programme, set up in Burkina in 1997, aims for better integration of the new ICTs in schools by means of projects bringing together technical supervisors and pupils. The World Links initiatives consist of allowing a group of pupils to search the net to find websites relating to the courses being given in class and which could help to understand the lessons.
As a result of these initiatives, more than a hundred pupils from a dozen Burkina schools meet up online in 2004 using email, chat, etc. Discovering the new ICTs, developing an intercultural understanding opens up new horizons for them.
However, computer equipment and the Internet are not available in nearly all the schools in Burkina. The situation is even more blatant in the schools in the provincial areas (There are around twenty or so high schools with equipment out of nearly 450 high and junior schools). The computer equipment all too often only consists of a computer and a printer that is only used when there is someone who is computer literate. Furthermore, the equipment is damaged by the heat and dust. In the case of certain schools, if there is a connection, more than one has been discouraged by its exorbitant costs (150,000 FCFA per month) or the very slow connection. The schools often have less than ten computers for over 80 pupils.
ICTs have to be integrated into the very heart of teaching. They cannot be seen as a new subject that is isolated from the others and considered to be something out of the ordinary that is for a very few pupils, but as a tool that is part of school life. ICTs can lead to a diversification of the information sources, practising languages using real communication situations, increasing the motivation of the pupils, teaching using maths, life and earth science software.
Creating contents using software such as Dreamweavers, PageMill, Photoshop, PowerPoint, etc. is not sufficient. In the same way that surfing online and exchanging messages without any educational purpose does not result in learning. The teacher has to include the activities using ICTs in projects with a plan, programme and encourage the pupils to question their knowledge. A research and synthesis approach has to be developed in the schools. The teacher cannot achieve this alone. The initiative therefore has to be a national one, in other words from the Education Ministry.
In order for the new ICTs to be used as a teaching aid in the Burkina educational establishments, the teachers and policy makers need to thoroughly study the pedagogical conditions to be set up.
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