Abstract:

In 2015, world leaders adopted and committed themselves to 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to address extreme poverty, fight inequality, injustice, and fix climate change in the whole world. The fourth goal focuses on ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education as one of the strategies to achieve a prosperous, equitable and sustainable world. Investment in quality education was identified as one the key activities to achieve this goal. In line with this objective, Rwanda had in 2009 launched the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project under the Ministry of Education. The project aimed at transforming the delivery and quality of education in primary schools by introducing technology in the learning process (Ministry of Youth and Information and Communication Technology, 2014). The paper investigated the extent to which OLPC Project improved delivery and quality of education in primary schools in Rwanda. Therefore the paper explored the question: Does technology improve the delivery and quality of education in a developing country? The paper evaluated the extent to which the desired outcomes were achieved and their sustainability. The theory of Change and the evaluation theory tree were used to analyse the project design, strategy, implementation, evaluation and impact assessment (Vogel, 2012; Alkin and Christie, 2004). Data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis and regression analysis for quantitative data, while content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data collected. Findings indicate that: there was evident migration of students from those schools without laptops to those with laptops, the child with OLPC was found to have an open mind compared to the one without; the student who had dropped out rejoined schools and students were leaving streets to rejoin school and other schools had accessed electricity because they wanted to access the laptops; computers were used by teachers as teaching tools rather than learning tools, thus the project was designed as teacher centered instead of being learner centered. There was improvement in the delivery of education as the project motivated both teachers and learners and enhanced their presence in class. However, sustainability of the project can only be attained if there are qualified project staff, to work with teachers, train them and redesign the program in terms of aligning the content to the curriculum. The study concludes that technology can improve the delivery and quality of education in a developing country if it is aligned and harmonized with institutional programmes and policies to ensure sustainability.

Keywords:

Technology, One laptop per child project, Primary schools, Delivery and Quality of education.