Balancingact News - Africa
ISSUE NO 75
By Kyle Johnston, Schoolnet Namibia

Using the internet to make a difference to education in Africa poses enormous challenges. There are high capital and continuous revenue costs as well as considerable technological challenges in wiring remote areas. This education special outlines two approaches. Kyle Johnston describes how Namibia plans to wire all its schools by 2005. He describes a patchwork of technical solutions reflecting different circumstances. Jason Monty from the UK’s DFID looks at how an initiative backed by the UK’s Prime Minister (Imfundo) seeks to enhance teacher training and improve education management information systems in sub-Saharan Africa. It aims to use opportunities from knowledge and resources online and targeted activities.

NAMIBIA - FINDING APPROPRIATE TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS TO CONNECT ALL SCHOOLS

Schoolnet Namibia aims to install internet enabled computers into all schools in Namibia by 2005. Presently, there are over 1,500 schools in the country, of which more then 900 are "off grid", or do not have access to electricity, phone lines, libraries nor, in many cases running water. Installing a wired infrastructure is currently too expensive, so research is underway on large-scale wireless solutions. One single communications solution will not work for all "off grid" schools for a variety of reasons including regulatory issues, partial access to utilities, terrain, location of the schools, and the distance between schools. Because of this, Schoolnet is exploring different solutions.

Namibia covers an area of 824,144 square kilometres. Within this huge area, there are only 33 towns and villages, of which only seven are major towns. These are the capital, Windhoek in the central region; Swakopmund and Walvis Bay on the Atlantic coast; Tsumeb, Ondangwa and Oshakati in the north and Keetmanshoop in the south.

Because of general aridity, population concentrations are spatially disconnected with the bulk of the Namibian population concentrated in the north along the border areas. This area has the highest population density in the country of 5.6 persons per square kilometre. Other concentrations are in the central region towns and in the two coastal towns. The rest of Namibia is characterised by population densities as low as 0.6 per square kilometre [or less in the southern regions] to zero in the fully desert parts.

Schools in densely populated areas are close enough together to use wireless Ethernet bridges with high gain antennas to link schools to a central wired node. Schoolnet is currently testing WiLan Hopper Plus bridges, and has been told that with the proper antennas, ranges of up to 60 km are possible. WiLan bridges operate in either the 2.4 gHz or 5.8 gHz unlicensed frequency bands, which help avoid some regulatory issues. The testing bridges have a data transfer rate of 4.5 mpbs, and 12 mbps bridges are available. While the initial capital outlay for these bridges is high, there is no monthly operating cost and minimal maintenance requirements.

In the central and southern regions ethernet bridges are not a feasible solution because the schools tend to be too far apart and the terrain is sometimes prohibitive. Satellite connections on their own are not a valid option as the available systems only provide a receiving feed. Currently, Schoolnet is looking at using either mobile phones or Ultraphones (archaic Siemans made radio telephone) as a sending feed. Both of these sending solutions have a low speed connection. Since most of the traffic will be from the receiving feed, the difference to the end users will be almost transparent. While this setup will have a lower initial cost then the wireless bridges, there are ongoing fees to be paid to both the satellite provider and Telecom Namibia for their services. In some of the more dense areas, a cell-node setup will be used, where a central school has a satellite feed and wireless bridges link other near by schools. This will allow multiple schools to share the expense of the ongoing fees from the satellite provider and the Telecom Namibia phone bill.

The first complete Schoolnet "off grid" model system will be on display at the Spring Energy Fair, which runs from September 6 to 9 in Windhoek. The demonstration will use a modified shipping container to house a computer lab consisting of one server and five workstations. Solar panels will be mounted on the roof and sides of the container to supply the electricity. Both a satellite feed and a wireless bridge will be running to provide Internet connectivity. This will be the first public testing of our wireless models.

Imfundo - Using online resources to improve teacher training

By Jason Monty,  Imfundo, DFID