In April 2023, a team led by Kaalo Nederland’s senior Monitoring and Evaluation officers visited the schools that have benefited from the solar energy installation and computer lab establishment projects. The aim of this visit was to monitor and oversee how the schools are taking advantage of the equipment they were given.
During this visit which lasted for a week, the team paid visits to ten education and community centers in seven different towns and one city. Three of these centers are in the city of Garowe whereas the rest are in the towns of Budunbuto, Dangorayo, Garyaqaan, Uusgure, Kalabayr, Sinujiif and Eyl.
While the team were in the visit, they met the school administrations, the students and the communities of those towns. All of these three groups talked about how the benefitted from the equipment they received for their schools and community centers. Their responses were 100% positive and they showed how the they needed the equipment and the needs it covered.
We have visited villages are located in very remote areas where electricity is rarely available. In some of these villages, the people didn’t even have generators. Villages like Budunbuto and Uuskure include the ones that really needed the solar energy. In Budunbuto, the solar did just help the school, but it also gives electricity to the town’s only health center. Furthermore, the school of Budunbuto used the solar energy for making ice & popsicles to generate some income from it.
All of the centers are making the most advantage out of the equipment by using it for printing, teaching students at night, making use of the computer labs and preparing examinations and assignments for the students with the help of computers and printers.
Besides the advantages that the solar energy comes with and the word of opportunities it opens for the schools and their students, this visit also showed the importance of computers in the teaching/learning environment. Computers are more important in schools now than ever before. They facilitate effective learning and prepare students to be tech-savvy and competent in the 21st-century job market. Computers enable students to acquire practical skills and become familiar with amazing accomplishment one can achieve if they know the proper use of computers. Furthermore, they improve instructional practices by reducing teacher workload, increasing efficiency, and incorporating multimedia presentations.
There are more schools and students in many other remote towns and villages that need the same equipment these schools received. By these schools with the equipment they need, the quality of education in these schools will automatically get better.
