I’ve just returned to Windhoek from an incredible trip to Walvis Bay with Schoolnet Namibia. Executive Director, Joris Komen and three technicians, Helena, Pelinawa and Alexis were demonstrating the model that has won them awards around the world - especially for the great free and open source software policies that they have spearheaded in Namibia.

I am with a group of representatives from Tajikistan who are here trying to learn from the Schoolnet experience as they begin to set up a similar initiative in central Asia. We couldn’t have had a better learning experience, visiting two vastly different schools and learning first hand the kinds of challenges that are faced by the incredible staff of this initiative.

We started off at Duneside High, a semi-private school that was hosting a 3 day educational publishing “expo” in their hall. Schoolnet Namibia had been invited to show off their technology, setting up a small 5 station LAN which was humming constantly with kids from the primary school on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

The expo was a facinating display of old meeting new technology. The traditional publishers had set up their stands, selling their paper wares - some beautiful, most over-priced - while Schoolnet set up their LAN to access millions of books and info gems from around the world.

Many reeled in horror and disbelief when Joris swung by to tell them about the end of copyright as we know it, and the gift of free and open source and Creative Commons to schools in Namibia. I couldn’t help thinking that this is how many revolutionaries are received - especially in the small dorpies where change is slow to arrive.

We left the expo after two days, and took the computers (refurbished processors, servers and components new) to Kuisebmond High, a school in a starkly disadvantaged area in town. The teachers were thrilled to receive the LAN with free Internet access from Schoolnet Namibia - and about 12 learners sat with the technicians until about 8pm that night, learning how this new technology worked, taking notes and chatting curiously and furiously to us about the world ‘outside’.

The Schoolnet LAN was set up in the school’s ‘resource centre’ which houses a measly amount of books - many of which are old and outdated texts.

One book I picked up, ‘complete guide’ to health, was published in 1923 with pretty hilarious descriptions of ‘insanity’ and ‘mental disease’ - I was afraid that any student would take advice from the book!

By the end of our visit, Joris and I were talking excitedly about a project to develop Creative Commons-licensed content for Schoolnet Namibia networks. This is definitely being seen as the ‘missing link’ in the school connectivity projects that I’ve visited - and with the HIV/AIDs pandemic impacting critically on the numbers of teachers in Africa, it will become increasingly important to develop learner-driven educational solutions in the future.

See this space for more in the future!

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