Learning About Living: Nigerian Students enrolled in the new eLearning program. Photo credit: African News

As much as I pride myself as a new-media enthusiast, reading the Learning About Living story on White Africa (an excellent blog that discusses the impacts of technology on Africa by the way), I couldn’t convince myself I wasn’t reading another utopian’s agenda. Excerpt:

Learning About Living is a new eLearning program to teach children in Nigeria about sexual health, HIV/AIDS, maternal mortality and gender violence. Young people in Lagos, Cross Rivers State and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja will be piloting the project, which is specifically designed for the OLPC (One laptop Per Child), Classmate and government computer programs.

The project aims to “use ICT to educate young people on issues around adolescent reproductive health so that they can make informed decisions about their sexual health, prevent HIV/AIDS and maternal mortality and morbidity, and gender violence.

“Mobile service MyQuestion –a part of this e-learning programme, “will enable young people to ask their personal questions through text messages, the website or through a free hotline.”

If this isn’t a great and novel concept and I don’t know what else is!

However, the concept provokes me to ask these questions: Why do people do interventions? It is because: 1) they know the intervention works”, 2) driven by the need to test and perfect techniques, 3) or simply because the idea is “cool”, novel, and can be done?

While # 1 and 2 are legitimate reasons, I doubt if any serious person would be driven solely by #3. However, as multitudes of innovative interventions are constantly being tested in Africa/Nigeria, #3 is exactly what social scientists and various enthusiasts need to watch out for.

Queen Maud, the Empress of Germany and Queen of England during 12th Century made this: “In science, as in common life, we frequently see that a novelty in system, or in practice, cannot be duly appreciated till time has sobered the enthusiasm of its advocates.” Novelty by itself doesn’t mean much if it adds no value, or “fails to advance a cause”, and this can only be discerned over time.

At the moment, Africa may be the ideal spot to “test” innovative ideas and novel concepts, however, it’s getting to a point where we would need to know what works and don’t; we will need this information in order to move forward rather than being in a state of perpetual innovation. Not only is this based on simple economic sense, but in the face of limited resources and competing interests, who would rather prefer esoteric untested gambles over the use of tested, proven (and where possible evidence-based strategies) and sustainable interventions?

It’s now becoming standard practice to incorporate “Evaluation Plans” into any project no matter how small. It is my hope that as more novel ideas and concepts are being tested in Africa, the executors of these projects also take deliberate steps to measure and document their performance, impact, successes and or failures.

Submitted by James Obinna