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ICT IN UGANDA

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become an essential element of sustainable economic development of nations and the hope for the developing countries to leap frog into developed nations.

Crede & Mansell (1998) foresaw that Information and communication technologies (ICTs) would become critical for sustainable development in developing countries; this is evident in the last decade. It is important to note that developing the ICTs of a nation is critical in realizing these benefits. This development can be seen from different angles of infrastructure, use and skills (e-skills).Much as the infrastructure is important, it is useless if not used, and the usage of this infrastructure is dependent on one’s ability to use it. This makes the e-skills a very important aspect of this equation.

According to ITU (2011), e-skills are defined as ICT capability. This is one’s ability to use the ICTs. Uganda’s e-skills landscape is really low, regardless of fact that Uganda adopted the use of ICTs earlier than many countries in Africa.

Most countries that Uganda started the ICTs journey with, like Mozambique, South Africa and Mauritius are way advanced in e-skills and economic development.

Asio Evelyn Patra (2013) in her report “Developing National e-Skills in Uganda” she stipulated that When a nation adopts the use of ICT as a crucial aspect for development, it moves towards becoming an information society, which unlocks it to various benefits; narrowing of the digital divide, affordable means of accessing information, better standards of living and a more literate labor force.

Uganda has not been able to achieve many of these despite the long-time use of ICTs and the Internet. The Uganda government has recently shown keen interest in developing the nation through ICTs and National Informatization; which is the process by which an economy or society becomes more dependent on Information for survival.

Everett Rogers (2000) defined Informatization as “the process through which new communication technologies are used as a means for furthering development as a nation becomes more and more an information society.”

The main motivation of this article is the fact that despite the completion of the implementation of the National Backbone Infrastructure / e-government Infrastructure (NBI/EGI) in 2011(NITA-U, 2011), there is high underutilization of Uganda’s bandwidth ICT infrastructure.

Secondly, in 2012, Uganda’s Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MoICT) together with The National Information Technology Authority – Uganda (NITA-U) embarked on the e-government master plan project, which is bound to develop various e-services for Uganda. This project plans to increase the ICT utilization through development of e-services, thus creating a demand for e-skills. These projects have caused a hunger to use ICTs in Uganda.

Third is the very high rate of unemployment among the youth of Uganda, who are the majority portion of the population.

Development of national e-skills can help in improving the labor force of Uganda and creating employment opportunities for these youths. This calls for focused capacity building of the nation’s citizen.

Baryamureeba (2008) stated that the single most important thing that any country will need in order to prosper in the future is a large, well educated work force.

This is true because once the e-skills are developed in the citizens; they will be able to use the ICTs that are being implemented in Uganda fully.

“Sheer abundance of information and technology will not in itself create more informed citizens without a complimentary understanding and capacity to use information effectively” (Bundy, 2004)

Lastly as a teacher and trainer of ICT in secondary schools a greater challenge has been brought to us, leaving the fact that we are under paid, we are the platform for prosperity of ICT in the country because we give basic ICT skills to the future generation.

We have to cope up with the rigidity of our leaders, lack of internet services, students’ lack of support from their parents, bureaucracy, corruption, and lack of resources.

I no say “FOR GOD AND MY COUNTRY” and now say “GOD HELP MY COUNTRY”