CNN-Whether it’s learning how to read and write or setting up your own farm, a Zambian computer tablet — known as the ZEduPad — is trying to open up the country’s information highway.
The brain child of British tech entrepreneur Mark Bennett, the ZEduPad principally teaches users basic numeracy and literacy skills, aimed at primary school children.
“It became clear that there was a huge need for this kind of technology,” Bennett said, “particularly tablet technology, which has come a long way in Africa in recent years.”
After arriving in Zambia 30 years ago under the British Aid Program, Bennett worked in the computer department at the country’s national university for over a decade before deciding to go it alone.
“We can really do something very major for the first time,” he said. “We’ve invested about $5 million to date… It’s totally all-encompassing and quite prescriptive so we are aiming at being able to get to an untrained teacher in a deep rural area in the African bush.”
Interactive learning
The ZEduPad is programmed in eight different languages native to Zambia with over 12,000 preloaded classes and lesson plans for untrained teachers in rural areas, according to Bennett.
Approved by the Zambian Ministry of Education, the educational tablet allows children to create a personal profile on its seven-inch screen to keep track of their progress as well as exposing them to e-mail and Wikipedia.
Bennett said the ZEduPad is set up to teach grades one to seven through interactive learning in every subject from math to PE, art and music.
The technology comes at a time when Zambia’s educational system is undergoing sweeping changes. Since 2001, the government has increased primary school enrollment rates by 90%.
As a result, the World Bank has identified the Southern African nation as having one of the most improved primary school education systems in the developing world.
Bennett added: “For years there was a problem with funding, education was not keeping up with population growth. Young people coming out of school and not being well suited or prepared to enter the job market…. We’re trying to change that.”
The ZEduPad gives children a grasp of vital technology skills in a landlocked country where broadband is scarce and only 18% of the nation’s 14 million people have access to electricity, according to the World Bank.
In addition to following the national curriculum, the tablet also contains farming and health information designed for adults to help prevent the spread of killer diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria.
Outsourcing to China
The ZEduPad is currently manufactured, assembled and branded in China. The devices are then loaded onto a plane and transported to Zambia, where Bennett and his team install the software onto each tablet.
“It costs roughly $100 to have them made and landed here in this country,” Bennett said. “We sell them to teachers and schools for $200 at the moment. We hope to bring that price down. One of the other things we’re trying to do is provide significant tech support.”
After teachers purchase the ZEduPad, Bennett said his team of experts go into schools and provide tutorials for staff so that they can maximize the tablets’ functions while learning how to deliver lessons to pupils.
Bennett said the tablet has, at one time or another, helped employ over 250 staff working in the development and distribution of the software from the company’s base in the Zambian capital, Lusaka. He says he has approached the government over hiring assembly workers in Zambia but to no avail.
He said that at a time when few companies are manufacturing technology outside of the Far East, production in China is “the cheapest and most cost-effective thing to do.”
‘Huge change’
Looking ahead, Bennett doesn’t want to stop at Zambia but hopes to roll the educational tablet out to a raft of other nations on the continent.
He believes that as countries in the developed world continue to transition from desktop computers to smart devices, Africa has a real chance to leapfrog ahead.
“I think the next big challenge is going to come from a lot of people who have got very cheap mobile phones. We’ll gradually see Android smartphones coming out for $70 or so… Huge change is happening at the moment,” Bennett said.
source: CNN -Marketplace Africa
Good development. Hope it will be readily available and not turned into an added accessory for the ‘haves’ and a luxury for the ‘have not’.
LT an average african man can not afford a REAL ipad
My Ipad air is not something I would expect to be used in school
This is nonsense, I will not comment on this article at all
Thanks
Yaba, I almost jumped with joy thinking Zambians have come of age in electronics and computer engineering. Alas its a fonkong product.
Any way its a step forward. So we need to teach children the python code of programming.
@Wanzelu,
That Fonkkong product might produce some Zambian Mark Bennert, Mark Zuckerberg, Evan Williams just to mention a few. Am guessing they are one of the luckiest generation of a positive technological ideal world.
@Wanzelu. change your name to somethin like waignorance…
Good to hear about the interactive learning methods. There is still need for improvement in our schools but at least we’re moving in the right direction. Knowledge is the basis of development.
For more updates on how iSchool is helping our kids to become lifelong learners, simply like their facebook page iSchool.zm and follow them on Twitter iSchool.zm.
How come Scotland didn’t give something better than that jerk at cabinet office
why rely on others, produce your own.
Zambians shock me by the way they treat white people, like they were small gods. musicians and even chaps like mwine mushi in their adverts believe anything, i mean everything that a white person says.
umusungu nalanda…… so f00lish… so what if it comes from a white person?
when will you emancipate yourselves from this mental slavery?
Interesting development & long overdue! I would urge the supplier to bring the price down considering the primary clientele they are targeting being pupils/students. The supplier can lobby govt for tax rebates/subsidies.
Also broaden your market & not just selling your products to schools. Many parents would want to access those gadgets to teach/aid kids.
Hi, iSchool is not only targeting primary schools but also parents. The ZEduPad tablet comes in three versions, school, teacher and home. The home version can be bought from the iSchool retail shop at Manda Hill near Game stores just next to the FNB ATM machine for K1,200. For more updates and questions about iSchool please like their facebook page iSchool.zm and follow them on Twitter.
THESE ARE THE THINGS WE NEED TO INVEST INTO – SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY.
BUT AFRICAN GOVT IN GENERAL DO NOT…. MAY IT IS BECAUSE OF LEADERS
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND? READ THIER CVS TO FIND OUT
@Mushota why are you always on the this Zambian blogging platform instead of yaku Mangalande? This shows how you miss Zambia Ka? do not be enslaved just come back home.
Excellent project keep it up
I would like to encourage me and the other wealthy Zambians to at least buy 50 of these gadgets and distribute to rural schools especially the impoverised community schools. Imagine what impact it would have if say 10 000 people bought 50 ZEduPad tablets and distributed the half a million ZEduPad tablets to learners. If we do not have time to distribute we can give to the educationist churches like UCZ, SDA and Catholic.
For once, we have a nice initiative to blog on.
Another encouraging story so far! I only hope we wont have an influx of conterfeit in the next six months because a China man is a bonafide cloning master!
These funky gadgets will never replace good old fashioned textbooks.
Much better than forcing kids to learn ancient languages! Technology is the way. Learning a language should be optional.
Brother I am wondering if this tech for our children is also in local languages since the PF are forcing teachers to teach in local languages? What a shame to this PF guys. In my time local languages was just a subject.
Seems LT does not know what an iPad is! What that boy is carrying is certainly not an iPad. Do your research before alarming the world with your ignorance!
@RudeMonk, I think the person who needs to be educated on this is you. They called it “Zambian Ipad” in parenthesis to emphasize that it is not the actual Apple Ipad but a tablet that can perform similar functions to a degree.
Beyond impressive indeed. In this digital age, one can only applaud such efforts. Definitely something that the Government and International Development Agencies whould be supporting fully.
A very good tool. My daughter got one. I encourage all who can afford to go that way.
I reserve comment until have tried one. It sounds like an exaggeration to simply provide the entire national curriculum in 8 languages like a Chinese takeaway in a paper carton.
Aside from the hype, what’s the proposed learning blend? Who did the quality assurance? How will the end results of using the device be objectively monitored and evaluated? So many questions without any answers yet
Sounds great.
@ its difkoti. Pertinent questions you got there!
Bravo MB. Bravo education!
Me like
It had to take a WHITE man to do this when there are so called Zambian computer specialists wasting their time at ZCTA working for Intelligence against their own people. What a country? I said it before that I would renounce Zambian citizenship if Sata becomes President and I have done now. Sata must go. He has failed. Look at the Kwacha, he was the same man complaining that it is the weakest currency in Southern Africa, Now what?