Tim I specifically like the statement - what LuG can do - For sure the university has been trying to teach both theory and 'interesting stuff' and arranged for initiatives that should introduce students to such great real life problems, but the response hasnt been that good.
e.g. IBM launched Makocha Minds mentoring program now has more than 250 mentors, 24 African universities and a growing number of participating companies, including Coca Cola, Cisco, FedEx and Symantec. I am not sure how many students could have benefited from this. The British Council set up an office that is dealing directly with the Private Sector, an organization comes up with a problem, British Council brings this problem to the University where a member of staff is identified and a student British Council facilitates the academic staff to supervise this project and the organization will facilitate the student who is solving the problem. Nuffic provided funding for public-private sector linkages where we expect such issues to come -up........... but how many of the students have benefited from such schemes? This issue has been discussed a lot, and perhaps we need to start suggesting solutions. We do have very interested and bright students, but perhaps they lack confidence. Little mentoring and pushing could do the trick, and here is where LuG can come in. There is really a lot to be done, but i think it begins with the mind-set.. Majority of our students do not to work hard, they just want to get papers and burst. Considering how many universities we have to the number of students applying to join these universities, leacturers shld be over whelmed by the numbers and 1-1 mentoring may be not possible. J.. On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 3:45 PM, Tim Schofield <[email protected]> wrote: > This is a really interesting and important discussion, which I am > enjoying reading. > > I don't think there is a single answer, but here are a few views of my own. > > I agree that GSoC is a not a perfect indicator of how good and how > interested students are in programming, but it is an interesting > indicator. USD 5000 pay for a few months of coding is a great > incentive, and a much bigger incentive in EA than for a student in > Silicon Valley, so why no one accepted? Either they are applying and > getting turned down (maybe the university should be offering to help > to them to apply. Maybe we could help them to apply??), maybe they > haven't heard about it (does it get publicised at the University? I > haven't seen it), or maybe they lack the confidence to apply. I don't > know. > > Governments do have a role to play here. Which is the country in EA to > have invested most in IT? Rwanda. Which is the only country in EA to > have had anybody accepted onto GSoC in both of the last 2 years? > Rwanda. Maybe a coincidence but...... > > I'm sorry to say that the standard of the education at Makarere also > has some blame here. I have seen first hand that they lack some basic > knowledge of real world programming. a simple thing such as proper > code indentation and formatting was lacking. > > Spending too much time on facebook, and a lack of a reading culture is > a problem wherever you go in the world, not just in Uganda. > > Is there something the LUG can do? I think there is a lot we can do to > highlight the benefits to the students of writing and using open > source code. I have come across the view many times that writing open > source is just for rich westerners. We need to show them how they can > leverage open source to work for them. The project I am mentoring on > at the moment has real world commercial value, and their incentive is > to get it working and I will start a company with them to market > services around this software. There are many such possibilities, > maybe others here can start their own similar initiatives. > > Thanks > Tim > > -- > WebERP Africa Ltd > +447710427049 > +256752963327 > +255784602561 > www.weberpafrica.com > _______________________________________________ > LUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/lug > > LUG is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ > > All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > > The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including > attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. > --------------------------------------- > > -- += Johnson -------------------------------------- Mob UG: +070 1 735800 / 0392 948 368 http://www.astro.rug.nl/~jmwebaze <http://www.astro.rug.nl/%7Ejmwebaze> skype: mwebazej
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