E-learning in Zimbabwe
Recent technological advances have laid the foundation for
a learning revolution that will clearly take place in the
years ahead. E learning will play a vitally important role
in equipping Zimbabweans with the skills they need to succeed
in the 21st-century digital economy.
E learning can be defined as instructional content or
learning experiences delivered or enabled by electronic technology.
Technology-enabled learning is designed to increase people's
knowledge and skills so they can be more productive, find
and keep high-quality jobs, advance in their careers, and
have a positive impact on the success of their lives and their
communities.
E-learning has the potential to revolutionize the basic tenets
of learning by making it individual - rather than institution-based,
eliminating clock-hour measures in favor of performance and
outcome measures, and emphasizing customized learning solutions
over generic, one-size-fits-all instruction. It is this transformational
potential of e-learning that Zimbabwe must recognize and embrace
it with hands wide open.
The economic case for building a successful e-learning future
hinges, in part, on the efficiency of e-learning and its role
in shortening the amount of time it takes to get the public
to speed on new processes. Improvements in the quality of
education and training are an equally important economic benefit
of e learning, which offers potentially universal access to
best-in-class learning content, as well as a wide variety
of content available anywhere in the world. E learning also
holds enormous potential as a tool for reducing the costs
of education and training.
Economic reasons, however, are not the only justification
for aggressively supporting e-learning. At a time when many
Zimbabweans raise concern over economic hardships, e-learning
holds the potential to broaden access to high-quality education
and training opportunities and, in turn, boost income growth
at all levels.
With the telecomm industry in Africa experiencing robust
growth, this is an opportunity for all the stakeholders in
the education system to adopt this cost effective learning,
and keep pace with the speed of change in business and society.
With e-learning, the learner has convenient, just-in-time
access to needed knowledge and information, with small content
objects assembled and delivered according to the learner's
specific needs.
Achieving the E-Learning concept in Zimbabwe will require
concerted action by both the public, and private sectors.
We have seen great anxiety in areas such as distance learning
and technology-enabled assessment, what is needed is for both
sectors to develop strategies for building the infrastructure,
and making it available to everyone with the desire to experience
it.
As government and business leaders set out to undertake these
activities, they can rest assured that the potential return
on investment for both the public and private sectors is enormous.
The challenge for businesses is to realize the full potential
of e learning as a driver of productivity and performance
gains by making it an integral part of organizational strategy
and operations. For government, the challenge is to create
a nurturing policy environment for e-learning - first, by
removing barriers that restrict access to e-learning's benefits
and, second, by promoting industry self-regulation while balancing
citizens' interests and needs.
As such, it can help us more effectively develop the "knowledge
workers" required to sustain the growth of the new economy—workers,
after all, who must possess a fluent understanding of both
the ideas and communications systems of the modern workplace.
Moreover, because of the mobility that is characteristic of
e-learning, it can become embedded in many daily activities,
and this has the potential to reshape our understanding of
the time and place for learning in our lives.
Realizing the promise of e- learning will require forging
new kinds of public and private partnerships. In recent years,
educators and business leaders have worked more closely together
than ever before, and much work remains to be done that will
have to be accomplished in partnership. Education businesses
such as bigchalk.com have quickly established points of contact
with thousands of schools, resulting in a new kind of infrastructure
for the development of education communities. Leading companies
such as Sylvan Learning Systems have established strong bonds
with consumers and schools around a host of tutorial and remedial
services. Many other companies are, likewise, helping administrators
and educators successfully explore the full potential for
online learning on a daily basis.
By promoting these kinds of partnerships, we can harness
the power of e-learning to transform schooling in many beneficial
ways. For students and teachers, e-learning offers access
to a broad array of content and commentary, interactive self-paced
learning tools, a vast community of learners, and distance-learning
opportunities—very nearly a "classroom without walls."
For parents, e-learning provides new ways of staying involved
in their children's education. For education businesses, e-learning
is a venue for creating value— economic value and human
potential. Done well, the net effect of e-learning programs
should be genuine transformations in the way children learn.
It would, of course, be a mistake to regard online learning
as an educational panacea. By itself, e-learning will not
drive up student test scores, nor will it ensure educational
equity for all learners. But e-learning businesses and their
institutional partners are demonstrating the rich potential
of Web-based education. The significance and impact of these
jointly developed programs is evident in the wide-ranging
support they have received from parents, schools, entrepreneurs,
investors, and policy leaders.
Because e-learning represents a powerful convergence of technological
opportunity and economic necessity, its emergence presents
a unique occasion to undertake a considered re-evaluation
of the role and function of education over the course of a
lifetime. Working together, administrators, teachers, students,
parents, education entrepreneurs, and policy leaders can realize
the potential for e-learning to substantially improve and
expand the learning opportunities for children in our K-12
schools. The work accomplished so far suggests that e-learning
can play a substantive role in developing a new breed of literate
citizens for the global economy of the 21st century.
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