ICT is not only new to African organizations, also for many development organizations this is a relatively new part within their working field. During implementation in Africa Viafrica faces many problems with ICT or ICT related projects of other companies. Many companies just 'do ICT' apart from other projects. Often they don't have any idea how to implement ICT within a project and are not capable of running this effectively and sustainable. Besides that, many development organizations and others focus on ICT in their education projects. Often this stops by just putting computers in a class room. Viafrica sees the results of this: schools fully equipped but with no clue how to run a computer room. Also we see a lot of bad quality where it comes to hardware. People sometimes just dump their old equipment.

 

In July 2006 Viafrica Tanzania organized a training for computer teachers of the CLASSworks schools. During one week, we trained 13 teachers of 7 project schools. Teacher training is a central point when it comes to effectiveness of our project. Viafrica therefore provides rather extensive training. The training took about one week. One of our project schools, Hedaru secondary, invited us.

 

All teachers stayed nearby in a hotel. The intake forms provided insight in the knowledge level of the teachers and Viafrica tried to adjust the training to the right level. Not only was this week useful because of knowledge transfer, but also because we were able to build a network with and among the teachers.

 

Viafrica has spent time on making an arrangement to streamline our servicing to schools. Viafrica used to provide computer services to schools, but on an ad hoc basis. However, with the growing number of schools the maintenance of all these different locations became more and more complicated. Due to this growth, also the costs for servicing and teacher training grew extensively. A solution had to be found and Viafrica took up the challenge.

 

Thanks to mediation of Software Pool, a Dutch ICT company, we got in touch with Rolf Smit. This consultant from the Netherlands, volunteered. Rolf has his own company: Rolf SMIT (Service Management and Information Technology) and has therefore a lot of experience in Service Management.

 

 

We believe that sustainability of CLASSworks can be guaranteed. What do you need to run an ICT-class? First and foremost it is knowledge and for knowledge one needs: money. We have in the past misjudged the situation at schools, or, were touched by a headmaster or his enthusiasm which convinced us to work with a poorer school as well. Time has told us that in the sense of sustainability this was not a success at all.