Zambia and the African continent as a whole is lagging behind in the development of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT).
Deputy Minister in the ministry of Science, Technology and Vocational Training, Lucy Changwe attributed the widening divide to insufficient human and financial resources.
Ms Changwe said the training of human resource and the reduction of cost of ICTs products is one of the ways to enable the country reduce the cost of doing business.
She noted that the use of optic fibre in the ICT networks is one way of reducing the cost and application of ICT adding that this will also benefit rural communities and eliminate the rural-urban digital divide.
Ms Changwe said this in Lusaka today when she officiated at a regional training course for developers of ICT materials at the National Institute for Scientific and Industrial Research (NISIR).
She said there was need for African countries to start developing their own programmes and materials for ICT’s in order to compete with the western world and make communication on the continent cheaper and easier.
Ms Changwe observed that the training course was critical as it is meant to equip professionals from various fields in Africa with tools that are used in the development of ICT materials.
And NISIR Executive Director, Mwananyanda Mbikusita Lewanika, said the Africa is facing a critical shortage of qualified scientists and technicians.
Dr Mbikusita Lewanika said there was need for policy makers to provide a conducive environment at work places and be supportive to new ideas and initiatives of scientists.
The one week course is been attended by participants from the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Niger and Nigeria.
Others are Sierra Leone, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia.
Nice English: but what action are we taking to reverse the trend? For starters,start teaching grade ones( in GRZ schools) on the use of computers so that you rid them of technophobia.Tax regime must also promote importation of computers or alternatively computer parts to encourage assembling them in Zed and thereby create some jobs.
#1
I Can assemble computers. My friend and I taught ourselves how to assemble them (with the help of my uncle on some parts) and given the parts, we can probably do it. I was actually thinking maybe one day i could start an assembly plant in Zambia but then reality hit me and i found out i was in Africa and i wont be able to make any money. Mostly because of TAXES, HIGH INTEREST RATES, SKILL SHORTAGE, INFRASTRUCTURE, COPYRIGHT FEES, LICENCE FEES, IMPORTATION OF PARTS and last but not least, also the big one MARKET!!!!!!!
cont…
I GUESS AFRICA LIVES UP TO ITS NAME. IT REALLY IS THE DARK CONTINENT FOR SURE.
Lets go the Nigerian way, which paid some billions to Microsoft so that Nigerians could assemble and label their own computers. The governemnet also removed tax on computers and its accessories. Hence we have all sorts of Computers in Nigeria, e.g. Abacha computers, Murtala sotfware incorporation. Zambia and other SADC countries could do the same. GRZ and private schools should offer computers as a subject in Primary up to Secondary level. OUr leaders really let us down at times. Look at Bostwana.
We scientists are there although we are few in number. what we need are condusive environments to carry out research and also put into practise what we have learnt.
Do not just train people and then fail to give them resources and workplaces to enable them do the needful.
Ba Crazy #2 bakaamba…The negatives granted, something still needs to be done.Look at the Tigers of Asia.Lets’ work on the mental obstacles also.The fact that you can catalogue the impediments means you are not far from the solution.And you need’nt go it alone.Groupy works except we in Zed do’nt seem to think it worth the try for our own reasons.But it will be folly for us to give up.
#5,You cant come up with your own conducive enviroments?
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE MINISTER IS TALKING ABOUT ( ZAMBIA LAGGING BEHIND) ALL THESE CONTRIBUTIONS ARE JUST TALKING ABOUT COMPUTERS. ICT IS NOT JUST PC’s.
sure #7, I cant. However, I will try to do something for Zambia. Hopefully, it will materialise.
THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE MINISTER IS TALKING ABOUT ( ZAMBIA LAGGING BEHIND) ALL THESE CONTRIBUTIONS ARE JUST TALKING ABOUT COMPUTERS. ICT IS NOT JUST PC’s.
When the Govt spends K800million on developing rural IT infrastructure and allocates K250 Billion to the Office of the President, it is not lack of resources it is misapplication. You have killed UNZA in the same way. Can’t Govt be honest and just say we only care about ourselves and our children whom we send abroad. Ba Deputy Minister, if you have don’t have anything reasonable to say sometimes its best you keep quiet and maybe talk about how beautiful the weather is than making these annoying statements. Its only 4 months in the year but your President is hardly in the country. When does he get to attend to issues at home?
I dont know why we r lagging behind because this is a field which has quickly gotten saturated in RSA, Botswana etc and now a lot of chaps who were excited with this course are stranded without jobs! ICT should not be treated as a career subject but a supplement to what most people have already studied. There should be a deliberate policy to equip all tertially education facilities with capacity to deliver ICT to all student and at a later stage, roll it out to secondary schools. Its not only jobs that r becoming hard to find in this field, but also incomes are reducing, the very thing which was most attractive when this field was in high demand.
We may lag behind in ICT but I think we have other more important fields which are more indespensable for life on our continent e.g. agriculture & food management programmes. I mean what’s the good of ICT when calamity strikes by tribal war, diseases and drought?
ba chimbwi ba ZRA, y the hell don’t they reduce taxes on computers or make them tax free? that way, it will be cheaper and easier for pipo to have pcs.
First, its a pitty that some people in zambia think IT is not an import part of the economic development like #13 gives the impression. My friend Chale, no country or any sector of economic activity can survive without computers nowadays. I dont know where to start from in order to put you in the know. But, where are you going to get real time information about just anything else if you ignore computers. I do not want to go into technical staff. But, did ever here about Just In Time Manufacturing? You can never achieve it without a computer. Do you know why in Zambia it takes a week instead of a day for an inland mail (post) to reach its destination? Even then there are no means of…
…tracking it if one should like to know how far it is from receipt. Do you know that time is very important in whatever one is doing. You can’t do a thing forever. It will be too costly. If its running a busines you will ever be making losses. #13, unfortunately, thats how even our ministers think-in the same way you do. They dont think a computer is important. They think its a luxury. On a critically serious not, computers aren’t a luxury. It is an essential tool for any form of production, communication, information, name it. Ignoring ICT is tantamount to suicide. Govts the world over are investing in teaching IT, not only to young people but to senior citizens alike. Think twice #13.
Ba Peter,
I don’t know which minister you think doesn’t appreciate the importance of a computer. If they were, their ministries would have been buying the volumes of Desk tops and Notebooks (Laptops) I have been shipping to the GRZ market. FYI, between 2006 and today, I have documentable evidence of selling out 85 laptops and 293 desktops. It’s their support that has made me win a vendor license from Dell to be given line of credit supplied inventory at a face value discount. I have just shipped two mainframes at thousands of Dollars cost to MoD and Ministry of commerce. More than you think, they know the significance of mechanizing development.
#17 tell that to #12-13 who think ICT is not important. Anyway were’re you getting these ICT orders?
#17, thanks very much 4 having responded to my contribution. More so for your business acumen in this area-ICT. I wish u the best, too. U may not know-what u r doing can go a long way in alleviating computer illiteracy in Zambia and I would encourage to acquire even more such contracts. However, I still do not agree that our grz is investing those computer for our childrens’ academic purposes in primary and secondary schools. U give me an impression that u live in the US. If thats true and u have school-going offsprings, they use computers and maybe even more literate than yourself. Maybe US is such a big country to compare with Zambia. Just in the neighborhood, Botswana, Namibia, etc have..
…equipped schools with computers. The ministers practically fully understand the short/long term benefits of computer literacy. The computers you are sending to zambia if anything are just for the ministers and their children/dependants/ and families. What the nigerian govt has done is the best. Nigeria has signed a contract with Microsoft (correct me) to beef up all primary and secondary school with a cheaper model computer but with all the systems a school may require, including internet facility (for research, etc). Schools even allow kids to take them home. So, brother, its the purpose to which computers are deployed for with a view to national progress and not merely the stunted…
…distribution of computers to previledge few individuals.
#18, thanks so much, too for your constructive observation. I agree with u. #17 should have directed his contribution to #s 12 n 13 who seem to bin the fact of ICT.
#17 what waste management strategies have you put in place for your clients (GRZ) since old used up computers need carefully planning disposal methodologies to avoid environmental contamination?
Patriot is Pragmatist.Now i understand why Pragmatist is unyielding in his support for the MMD.Some friends at ZRA have hinted to me that containers with some Dell Computers have been shipping in from the USA by some Zambian running a company with a Zambian name in USA.It is good for the country but how are such big supplying tenders won? My sister has been saying i have been missing out on such opportunities. Are we back to the it pays to belong to UNIP days? There are just too many networks in the MMD businesses.I hear this same supplier-Patriot has teamed up with some of his Zambian friends IT engineers to raise the ICT license fee to establish a big IT business in the SADC region.
Please don’t take me for a jealous Zambian. Such entrepreneur spirit is good for our brothers in the Diaspora, please lets extend the opportunities to all. I’m an engineer myself and feel very limited in the homeland opportunities. You who are connected ,network others too or consider them to contribute their skills are commitment.This issue of people who have known each other for years or went to school with partnering up only is not helpful in sharing the cake.I have always known that Pragmatist aka Patriot is smart and not just passionately defending the MMD regime but the more his business interests.That is why politics is dirty and exploitative every where in the world.
ARE THERE COMPANIES IN ZAMBIA DEVELOPING SOFTWARES? ALL I SEE ARE INTERNET CAFES, AND PEOPLE SELLING COMPUTER PARTS OR A FEW BUILDING WEBSITES… THERE IS NEED TO ENCOURAGE SMALL SCALE SOFTWARE ENTERPRENUERSHIP.. WHY NOT START BY UP SETTING UP A TAX FREE ZONE “TECHNO CITY” AT UNZA? MOST THE OF UNVERSITES ABROAD HAVE THESE FACILITIES…
I’m a Database applications developer. I’m employed, I’m not a ‘Bill Gates’ yet.