The Uganda Institute of Communications Technology (UICT) has concluded a week-long training for 80 teachers, farmers and business personnel in ICT skills. The training was held under the Digital Change Agents Initiative of the Institute and it aimed to enhance digital skills of participants in order to empower them to drive community transformation; train participants in emerging ICT fields including Virtual Reality; Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security and to equip participants to design and deliver impactful ICT programs tailored to their communities.
The Digital Change Agents Initiative, now in its third year, was formed to address the ICT learning gaps across various regions in the country. UICT was selected as one of the Digital Transformation Centers under International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and has been conducting training in basic and intermediate digital literacy to various categories of beneficiaries.
“Under this initiative, 20 participants from the East, West, Central and Northern Regions were selected and together formed the Digital Change Agents group with the aim to drive change in education through digital transformation. These are charged with reaching rural communities to mobilize youth and women and small and medium sized enterprises to skill them in ICT,” Francis Bwire, the Initiative Lead said in an interview.
He notes that through this training, held between December 9-13 2024, participants were equipped with knowledge and skills as per the CISCO curriculum including Digital Awareness; using computer and mobile devices; introduction to Internet of Things and Introduction to Cyber Security. This curriculum empowers people through a comprehensive e-learning environment that enables them to learn anytime, anywhere, at their own pace, and with more targeted assessments and accountability than traditional class settings.
Using the Internet to provide instructionally supportive-assessment, the CISCO program provides immediate and ongoing feedback to teachers and students about the knowledge and skills students are or are not acquiring. This feedback allows teachers to modify and adjust their instructional approach on an ongoing basis over the duration of a course.
“Schools in rural areas are challenged with inadequate laboratories and equipment to teach certain subjects like chemistry. However, using the knowledge that I have gained here, I will now use a computer and projector to create a virtual lab where I will teach my students,” said Racheal Tayebwa, a Chemistry and Mathematics teacher from Sembabule district.
Dickson Bwambale, a business man from Kasese who participated in the training, said that through the knowledge and skills acquired, he will create his personal blog and invest in creating websites for others.
MILESTONES
The Digital Change Agents initiative has had several milestones up its sleeve since inception. According to Stephen Kaziba, the initiative coordinator, milestones include ICT integration in classrooms and community; ability of trainees to train their fellow teachers and community members and virtual seminar connectivity.
“Trainings received by teachers has enabled them to use ICT in their classrooms, which has made learning more engaging, meaningful, and impactful in the long term. Farmers have also benefited from the training by learning how to search and look for market for their products and other items they may need, but most importantly how they can collaborate online,” Kaziba said in an interview.
Additionally, he says that many digital change agents have successfully connected their schools to participate in virtual seminars hosted by the Holistic eLearning Platform (HeLP) and trained their community members on how to use phones and laptops; how to create and install some apps and create blogs and websites.
WAY FORWARD
To maintain the program’s benefits, Bwire says that UICT is considering scalability through multiple stakeholder engagement with women, youth, small and medium sized enterprises, Ministry of Education and Sports and Ministry of ICT and National Guidance.
During workshop closure, Annet Ingabire, the Principal Human Resource Officer at Ministry of ICT notified participants that the ministry is in the process of developing an ICT Impact Capacity and Development Framework which will consist of an ICT course repository; capacity tracker at individual level and progress monitoring tracker. She urged participants to leverage the knowledge, partnerships and networks gained during this training to accelerate Uganda’s digital transformation.
“The systems, skills and partnerships established through this training must continue to evolve ensuring that ICT remains a transformative force in Uganda’s development. Together we will ensure that every Ugandan benefits from the opportunities presented by a digital economy,” she concluded.
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