In 2003, free primary education was introduced in Kenya and since then, there has been a rapid rise in the number of students attending primary school. The government has implemented several measures to accommodate this rise: it has introduced an increase in the educational resources, especially text books available to students at school, but still has not managed to meet the demand. Recently, free secondary education was introduced; however students must meet a certain academic requirement in order to be able to attend. Lack of academic prowess from primary school students in rural areas restricts their enrolment into secondary school. One in five children in grade 4 has difficulty in reading a paragraph in English, a task normally achievable by a student in class 2 . Consequently, majority of students drop out and the country’s development is inhibited.
Although primary school is available at no cost, some expenses like text books must be paid for by parents. According to surveys done in Busia and Teso (small towns in western Kenya), teachers usually have textbooks to use, while there are too few available for children. The survey revealed that 80% of classrooms had only one textbook available for every 20 students. In addition, overall student performance in the KCSE (Kenyan Certificate of Secondary Education) has been subpar. In 2009, only 25% of students scored a C (a passing grade) or higher, with boys more likely to achieve these grades. This performance was most common in government-funded schools while students in private funded schools performed better. The difference in performance partially reflects differences in facilities, teachers and other resources, while also showing the different levels of academic preparation in different schools. DC. Rotich suggested in his report for the Nordic Journal of African Studies that there is a widespread belief that the provision of textbooks can substantially improve educational outcomes in developing countries.
Our solution is to provide affordable access to educational resources using a mobile computer tablet. This tablet will contain a web-based application which will include study material such as textbooks while also giving the students a medium through which they can set up a forum with their fellow peers and teachers. The teachers will be able to post their own notes and other material on the application, thus hoping to break the existing communication barriers Kenyan students and teachers face today.
Our project is undertaking an ambitious task. For rural communities in Kenya, technology such as tablets is beyond their financial means. Our goal is to make the technology as affordable as possible for the people. We investigate this by theoretically designing a tablet device. In order to do this, the tablet would conform to performance and affordability specifications based on conclusions drawn from our research and findings. In addition, we feel that it is necessary to contact book publishers and mobile network operators to collectively create a service that minimises the cost to the user.
Our tablet software will be based on the Android kernel. This avoids the need for having to build the operating system from and also provides the ability to customize.
Figure 3 shows the basic system of how tablets within schools will connect via the mobile-network towers to access data on the server. In order for our system to work, it will be installed with a database package with a suitable protocol, a mobile network communications package, an access control module and an authentication module for security. The repeater and router shown in Figure 1 can be present in schools where access to the mobile internet network is limited.
The tablet will utilise the mobile networks to access the server which holds a database of textbooks. One can download copies of these textbooks on to the tablet and thus this one-time download will minimise mobile network charges for the user. In addition to optimise the access time for the students, the tablet will only periodically check for updates during weekends. Each user will require a user account and will have information about their activity stored in the database as well. The activity refers to the forums and question/answer interfaces that students can use.
The tablet will primarily perform 4 groups of functions which will be selectable from the home screen of the application; viewing a textbook, viewing the collection, asking a question and providing a question to the forum. Some of these functions will integrate additional functions depending on the user. For example, a teacher can purchase textbook whereas a student cannot. Figure 2 highlights the hierarchical object/data flow of the functions.
The tablet is explained in detail in the EduTab Page.
From our research it is evident that it is possible to develop a robust, effective and affordable tablet computer which is viable for the implementation of our project. While preserving the interactivity of the tablet design, we have also kept its cost to a bare minimum. The hardware has been chosen appropriately to deal with issues such as power consumption, network speeds and overall performance. Overall, we are extremely satisfied with our theoretical design and we believe that it can go forward and become a powerful tool in assisting students with their present education needs, especially in rural Kenya.
The importance of education in the upbringing of an adolescent youth simply cannot be expressed. A good education gives them the perfect platform to pursue their career aspirations. This cannot be achieved if we are lacking in basic resources such as textbooks. Our aim was never to revolutionise and overhaul the entire education system in Kenya, but just to provide the students with a simple tool to assist them in their academic endeavours. We are not only reaching out to students, but also to teachers, providing them with an alternative and broader platform to interact with each other. At the end of the day, the future progress of a country is directly correlated with the upbringing of its youth. Although what we are doing is relatively small, if implemented, the impact of our project can be extremely beneficial to Kenya in the long run.
More Information
More Detailed Information can be found in the report. An animation of the the tablet, named EduTab can be accessed from here.
