E-Learning in Africa Part 1
Authors:
Lex Lindeman – HRBoosters and Han van der Pool – TNT N.V.
A growing number of African Countries are now connected to high speed internet connections and by increasing competition in the `global economy' organizations are forced to look for more efficient and more effective manners to create, spread and to apply functional and managerial knowledge.
E-learning and knowledge management became key words in organizational learning processes in the Africa as well. Many organizations invest in managing the knowledge within the organization and e-learning, as a supporting tool, is used more and more.
Organizations start to realize the advantages of e-learning, but encounter certain problems at setting-up of proper electronic educational tools. With this Article we attempt to give an overview of what the most common hurdles are and we give some best practice in e-learning.
- E-learning hype?
In the African economy also knowledge has changed to a volatile commodity. In former days knowledge and skills acquired was valid sometimes lifelong, nowadays knowledge has a `lifecycle of roughly two to at the most five years.
It is now important to keep existing knowledge up to date and to gather, when necessary, new knowledge in a short as possible period of time.
For management development formal trainings plays a smaller role, due to costs and availability of time. Informal learning will take place more and more by innovations of collaborative learning, peer-to-peer coaching and the implementation of communities of practice. In these recent developments knowledge management and e-learning become a trend. But will e-learning and knowledge management also fade out like as each trend?
Experience in western economies and according to literature and several articles there is no indication.
In the west the ever increasing use of e-learning has been driven by the developments in the field of availability of good internet connections. Internet has specific advantages above other electronic mediums like courses on television and through cassette tapes, particularly related to communication and interactivity. By continuous technological investments it is now possible to have access in most African countries and on every moment to have access to online training, learning communities, knowledge forums and information. By the constant need for more knowledge and information e-learning certainly has a future in Africa. However, at the moment we not yet see that e-learning already ‘lives’ within organization either private or public in Africa. We will explain the reasons hereafter.
- Some hurdles
By rapidly changing technology it has become possible to acquire knowledge more cost effective and more efficient than before. However, in spite of all technological improvements and connection speed e-learning can be a source of irritation.
Sometimes applications do not work properly because of technical problems. This can be the consequence of a lack of communication with the IT-department, the too low band width or simply by too complicated programs (both technically and the ease of use (ergonomically). Generally hurdles can occur in the following areas:
Strategic, Technical and Cultural.
1. Technology
The first hurdle is technology. The integration of education systems in existing company systems causes often problems. This problem occurs mostly because IT-departments are not involved in the development of the business case from the start. Also there is still not really a standard in the field of e-learning. This hampers both the integration and the `compatibility' with other (learning) systems. Secondly the programs frequently are so sophisticated that they cannot function in older computer systems or internet connections with a restricted band width. This must be taken into account. in the development phase properly or when purchasing e-learning applications
2. Acceptance
The second hurdle are cultural problems who express themselves especially in acceptance; in this case we talk about e-learning through internet.
In an earlier article in this series we already mentioned that an `open learning culture’ is essential for a successful public or private company.
Acceptance problems have several possible causes.
The African manager of today has a nearly always overflowing agenda and possibly considers an online course as an inefficient time spending.
- Learning styles and experience
To make learning modules as efficient and effectively as possible, the modules must be developed attractively e.g. by adapting the program to the learning style of the employee.
Secondly, the applied program is not always pleasantly and easy to use. In principle e-learning should be suitable for everyone, but learning programs are sometimes not adapted to people who have little computer experience.
Employees with little computer experience would have to be trained in the use of computers firstly. We could wonder if the employees are prepared for that and if the learning ‘profit’ is worth the investments and efforts.
People must adapt also to complete other ways of working and learning. Also in Africa the responsibility for learning has been gradually moved from the organization to the employee him/her self. The American society for training and has development (ASTD) together with the Masie Center have research to the acceptance of e-learning. From that research appears that there are 3 critical success factors for the acceptance of e-learning.
- There must be a good internal marketing. Experience learns that employees support the idea of e-learning if it is well internally promoted in the organization and if they are well prepared to use e-learning.
- Adequate support plays an important factor for the acceptance of e-learning. Employees attach much value to good support in the field of the use of the technique and content. We also mean that support for e-learning must be promoted by senior management.
- Reward is a distinctive factor in the acceptance process of e-learning. Employees will accept e-learning is it is clear what added value e-learning is to their learning process. Reward is in this acceptance process mostly underestimated.
- Strategy
The most important factor, however, is that an e-learning project must be started from with a long period vision and an associated strategy.
If an organization wants to start with any form of electronic learning they:
- First must examine what the targets and objectives of the organization are,
- Secondly what the learning targets and learning objectives are,
- Thirdly how these learning targets must be reached,
- Fourth, what is the target group,
- Fifth, if e-learning has an added value in this anyhow.
Without a clear strategy supported by top management the e-learning project will not become a success.
In Part 2 we’ll discuss how to use e-learning in various (African) organizations, the various components of e-learning to be used in specific situations and a step by step implementation plan.