Literacy/Education Development Interview - SEMAN- Ilha de Mozambique
The Schools Project
I had an opportunity to sit with Vasco, who has implemented and run all of Project SEMAN's projects here in Mozambique. SEMAN aims to enchance computer skills and computer literacy for teachers and the general population of the island, as well as running preschool programs for island natives and citizens. It was great to hear about the challenges of implementing a computer training and pre-school literacy program on the ground in rural Mozambique.
Could you give me a quick background of your organization. Its founding/conception, what need you are trying to fill, and why the need has gone unmet up until this point?
In 2008, SEMAN was started on the island by an Italian, where the organization has its roots. It was founded to support financially a local project that included preschool education and a womens project producing small enterprise skills to sell items in Europe. This project is still in its infancy and hasn't seen much success.
The goal of the SEMAN project now is to provide infomatics and internet courses for teachers and students on the island in the center's computer lab (about 20 machines with internet access)However, due to the ending of Italian funding due to the European economic crisis, the project funding is in serious doubt at this point.
SEMAN is aiming to train all the teachers of the island in informatics, which is basic computing. SEMAN also has one internet class for the people who have already completed the informatics classes. The internet class is teaching the basics as well. SEMAN contacts the schools to get the teachers enrolled-(there are currently 64 teachers enrolled; the classes are free for all to attend). The hope is that the teachers will be able to search online to research for their classes, and use the informatics classes to build upon computer literacy.
How can this project be implemented in other areas of Mozambique? What will it take for others to bring this concept to other, remote areas?
SEMAN is trying to get grants to bring the services to more people on the mainland, but are waiting on the funding. They are looking for more money to duplicate the projects elsewhere, preferably in the south of the country. The idea is to teach people from all provinces here on the island and for them to bring those skills back to their provinces after they have completed the courses, and to provide skills transfer in this way.
Teachers play an absolutely crucial role in this area. How are teachers retained, paid, trained, and motivated to progress in their work? What are the incentives for doing a good job in the classroom?
In the schools, it is very tough to implement oversight with in terms of the teachers using what they have gained in SEMAN's projects. This has proved impossible. At this point, SEMAN needs to focus on providing the resource for the teachers, but it cannot control what happens at the school level.
Where do you see your programs in 5 years? 10 Years?
The future is very uncertain at this point; if there is no more financing given from donors, especially from SEMAN Italy, which is running low on funds due to the crisis, the future is unknown. The space is leased for 3 years at this point; the computers have all come from Italy as well, but the budget is very small. SEMAN is also selling internet access in-house through their wireless systems to raise funds on the island and to help make the project more sustainable.
What resources are currently most needed by both your organization and by the schools system in Mozambique overall?
Financial resources are most needed!
What role could technology play, ideally, in the classrooms of the island? Would this be feasible in Ilhe and in Mozambique in general, in your view?
In the last month, I had a firsthand experience with the reality on the island. Students coming in from the secondary school not being able to read or to write, and are now being put in front of the computer; the problem is coming from the school level. Here, most of the people are simply not concerned with using technology in their lives, realisitically. They are fisherman, craftsmen, who have no interest. If the project can begin at the preschool level, with training at that age, then you get results; otherwise, this is very hard, as the school system is simply failing most of the students. The official language here is Portuguese, but the local kids do not speak Portuguese with their families; then they go to the classroom with 40-50 kids, and there is a teacher speaking a language they don't know. It is very common that you meet kids with 6-7 years of school who do not know how to read or speak in Portuguese. If the youngest kids can be exposed to a quality education and are given a strong base, using technology and computing would be feasible. However, we are wondering whether it is realistic to have these informativcs courses, as they kids do not have the basics to support them. Additionally, it seems like the teachers don't have resources or interest to translate these computer skills to their students. They are interested in learning about things such as Powerpoint, but they know that they will never have a projector to use these tools in the classroom.
It will take a long time and be a long process. The majority of teachers have one year of teacher training at the most. They are just not well informed about proper teaching and implementation of technology and proper literacy approaches in the classroom. Some of the teachers do not even know how to read and write in Portuguese! This is the biggest systemic challenge facing the schools, the lack of teacher training and the perpetuation of poor teachers and students as a result.
What other exposure have you had to the school systems and teachers on the island?
We have also tried with the primary schools on the island to create a project of reading for the youngest children in Portuguese, to give them exposure to good children's books from Portugal and to develop cognitive skills such as anticipation, predictions, etc. SEMAN proposed a program for the schools with 300 kids, one hour per week, but out of the three schools they partnered with, one school never showed up, and the two others came one time and never came back. Ultimately, the program did not work. They wanted to have the program here at the office and not at the school, but the kids and the teachers had to come to the space, which turned out to be too hard.
