International Robotics Competition B

Village Primary School A

I have a confession to make:

When I hear cries from the US of “Digital inequality!”, I cringe inside.

Before you get mad, please understand…

I know it is true that there are American students in poor families who,
especially during Covid lockdowns, have not had access to reliable internet or
the devices necessary to keep up with their education like those in more
economically stable families (of all races).

I know this was and continues to be more prevalent for minority students than
for white students (except for the oft-forgotten communities of Appalachia).

I know that there were and still are students who may have access to certain
technologies, but do not know how to use them well enough to make effective
use of what is available.

I know that there are barriers to tech access and full participation in the digital
world for students with a variety of disabilities.

I know that digital and technological skills are more and more important in the
world economy and that the digital divide is real and is a concern.

These are all legitimate problems worthy of blog ink and real action.

But I live in Uganda.

Here is our reality:

➢ The median per capita income for Uganda’s 48.6 million people is $964.20,
compared to $76,398.60 in the US1. If parents must choose between a
Chromebook and shoes, rent, charcoal, and food for their children, well, you
can do the math.
➢ A whopping 14% of primary children and 25% of secondary children are not
in school2 – and considering that almost 52% of Uganda’s population is
under 183, this is a significant number.
➢ As of 2022, there were fewer than 11
million smartphones in Uganda4.
➢ In 2021, only 45% of Ugandans had
access to electricity to charge their
devices5. Charging must be done at a
fortunate friend’s house or a charging
station.
➢ Less than 1% of schools have electricity5, Phone charging station.C
much less a single piece of technology to share between them.

So please understand my inward cry of “First World Problems!” The digital divide
in the US is only a fraction of what that divide looks like in other parts of the
world. Perspective is important.

That said, it is very clear that the world is moving farther and faster down the
digital rabbit hole for better (mostly) and for worse (for neighborly relationships).
Technology opens incredible doors and expands the potential and reach of so
many people and resources. (That is a blog post for another day.) In a country like
the US, where the resources are truly available, we should expect the digital
divide to be comparatively small. But what do we do in a place like Uganda,
given our very real and seemingly insurmountable disadvantages, to keep up and
hopefully gain ground?

Thankfully, Ugandans are scrappy, resourceful people, and when they do have
technology, they find ways to make it work for them. When my husband and I first
came to Uganda in 1997, there were very few landline phones and of course, no
cell phones to speak of. I heard a statistic of 40,000 phones in all of Uganda
before cell phones started to really take off, but I can’t cite that with certainty.
Sure seems like an accurate number, and I know how hard it was to get one,
especially if you weren’t willing to bribe someone in the company to hook you up.

But once cell phones and eventually smartphones became accessible, the country
pretty much skipped the whole landline scene (and the credit card phase) and
went full-on into a smartphone economy. Simply add money to your phone money
account, and you can even get interest on your deposits. Smartphones became a
dominant form of payment for everything from goods in the market to bills to
rent, long before Venmo became popular in the US. Cell
phones here are so much easier to manage than in the
US – no contracts, all are unlocked and you can have
SIM cards from multiple providers in one phone. Easy.

Similarly, traffic problems in Kampala led to a booming

business of meal and goods delivery on the seats of
boda-bodas (motorcycles) that was cheap and easy.
Just order and pay on your smartphone and it’s there
for less than a dollar. DoorDash in the US was late to

Lunch delivery by GodfreyD the scene and still can’t compare in price and speed.

This tech resourcefulness hasn’t trickled down to impacting education yet,

especially due to the lack of devices. Our Covid learning performance was
abysmal, except for the wealthy schools in the cities that could go online for most
of the students, who had easy
access to devices at home. There
are a couple of schools that might
currently have smartboards, high-
end software systems, or devices
for most (or all) of their students,
but those are for the very wealthy.
Most schools outside the higher-
end international and private schools 91 children in this Kampala classroomE

scramble for enough textbooks (and desks and paper and…) and trained teachers
(average class size is 43 students2 and there is rarely any support staff). Given
this, the classroom technology that the West takes for granted is only a dream.
The access simply isn’t there and won’t be for some time. The world will move on
without most of us.

But all is not lost. There are some initiatives in-country and in partnership with
international bodies to try to improve the situation and bridge these gaps.

➢ 5G connectivity will increase speed and the number of devices supported.

(Assuming there are devices...)
➢ Solar power for schools and communities (In case there are devices…)
➢ Reducing the cost of internet connectivity for schools and increasing access
to unserved communities (Hoping there will be devices…)
➢ Digital Skilling Program (Once there are devices…)
➢ Devices for Underserved Communities Program (YAY! Some devices! – Only
6000 of them and with free connectivity for only 6 months, but its a start.)

These are efforts to be applauded and encouraged. They will not be nearly enough
in themselves to be more than a drop in the ocean of need, but we must keep
moving forward, hoping
and praying that inertia,
cynicism, and corruption
will not derail the efforts.
Ugandans are strong,
and who knows, we may
lag behind (WAY behind)
for a while until new
devices become more
Classroom DreamerF available, and then you
may see us jump over the gap to new and more creative use of technology than
could be imagined today. We’ve done that before. Let’s hope we can do that
again.

When you open your device tomorrow, be thankful. And when you read about the
digital divide in the US, still be thankful, and say a prayer for Ugandans.
Statistical References:

1
World Bank (2022). GDP per capita (current US$)
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?

2
Education Policy and Data Center (2018). National Education Profile, 2018
Update: Uganda.
https://www.epdc.org/sites/default/files/documents/EPDC_NEP_2018_Uganda.pdf

3
World Population Review (2023). Uganda Population Pyramid.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/uganda-population

4
Statista (2023). Number of smartphones registered in Uganda from 1st quarter
2018 to 1st quarter 2022(in millions).
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1082286/number-of-smartphones-registered-
in-
uganda/#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20smartphones%20registered,the%20first%2
0quarter%20of%202022.

5
Macrotrends (2023). Uganda Electricity Access 1991-2023.
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/UGA/uganda/electricity-access-statistics

Photo Attributions

A
Kamuganguzi Primary lesson by Laura Slater CC 1.0

B
"RiSE 2015 – Cape Coast by US Embassy Ghana CC 1.0

C
kiwanja_uganda_shops_2 by Ken Banks, kiwanja.net CC BY 2.0
https://flickr.com/photos/kiwanja/3170244160/in/photolist-5Q9k95-5Q55hk-
5Q55ce-9kHyWK

D
Lunch by Godfrey by Laura Slater CC 1.0

E
91 kids in the classroom by Andrew Janjigian, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
https://flickr.com/photos/dikaryon/4107876240/in/photostream/

F
Classroom by Ben Grey, CC BY-SA 2.0
https://flickr.com/photos/ben_grey/7104915601/