At home they can see their young ones communicating with others far and wide, playing games with individuals as far away as Indonesia or simply designing graphics that make them wonder how their offspring are so fast in doing what they never could do in their entire life.

In the office new recruits who are computer literate can churn up data and comparative statistics in only a few clicks and can come up with attractive accounting or other presentations that make the older typewriter versions ancient.

Knowing this trend, our community schools have been installing computers for children but the situation is that many students have to share one terminal thereby allowing any one child very limited time to adequately explore through different computer software.

It is understandable that with the current modest level of fees, it is not easy for our schools to spend substantial sums on computer equipment. With limited equipment, schools have to struggle to ensure that all pupils receive their weekly entitlement of use, if at all such levels of entitlement are in place. 

A logical question to then ask would be, "how many children should share one computer to allow them optimum usage?"

Ask Bill Gates and he will tell you every child should have his or her own computer. At school level this is not possible because of the cost implications involved but schools need to give thought to a scheme whereby the cost of computers is incorporated in the fees that a child would pay for say 10 years of his or her academic life.

In this way schools can buy a fairly large quantity of computers to take advantage of quantity discounts and claim it back from students on a piecemeal basis. There are many optional ways to handle the mode of repayment by the children.

For example if a computer costs say Shs 1,000,000/- and the school decides to allocate one computer to say 10 students for 10 years. The 10 students would need to pay Shs. 100,000/- per year or Shs. 10,000/- each per year for use of that computer. Parents who are offered such a scheme are unlikely to refuse especially because the money involved is not much especially in consideration of the benefit enjoyed. To safeguard the interest of the school, children who leave the school prior to ten years can be asked to pay their balance instalment or alternatively another child can replace the outgoing child with the same scheme.

When PCs are installed the next step is for schools to ensure that Class teachers are computer literate to an extent that they are able to use software and the Internet to allow students to explore subjects in new ways. It is unlikely that any teacher would want to abstain from computer literacy but it is the institutions - our schools - which should encourage them to do so at breeze speed or else the PCs that are installed in computer labs would simply gather dust or be used in a very ordinary way.

PCs used as learning tools have a profound effect and most teachers have a great love of learning and are bound to get excited about anything that will help them to assist their students to learn faster. What teachers don't want is to be thrown into something they have not had the opportunity to learn about  and be then expected to perform miracles. Teachers can also use PCs in schools to discuss subjects between each other through e-mails rather than having constant meeetings.

Children spend a lot of time at home and it would be very useful for them to have computers at home too. However because many parents are as yet unaware of their importance, parental involvement could be instrumental in the drive to enhance computer literacy among children. Parents can create a direct link to a school or its web site (if it hosted on the Internet) that would readily show parents what students are supposed to learn each week and would also explain the approach used by teachers along with details of the curriculum. In this way parents can link to the materials used and theapproach taken by teachers when disseminating information to the students.

According to an article carried in  a recent issue of the Toronto Star the world's total production of  information amounts to about 250 megabytes for each man, woman and child on earth. The Internet is reported to be carrying some 2.5 billion documents growing at a healthy clip of 7.3 million pages per day. It is clear we are all drowning in a sea of information and our challenge is to teach our students to learn to swim in this sea rather than drown in it!