Tuesday 4 August 2015

Counting the high cost of Malawi’s Internet on higher education

Her mobile phone is on the open pages of her notebook. Susan Mhango is  a cheerful and shy girl probably in her late teens, she is intently studying her heart out in a shade from the warm sun at one of the outer study spaces inside the Malawi National Library Headquarters at City Centre in Lilongwe.

She tells me that she is pursuing a course in Shipping and Logistics at Lilongwe Technical College which is situated on the other end of town but comes to the library at City Centre for her study time.  She adds that her  mobile phone is  her study companion.

“ I use the Internet on my phone to check for meanings of big words when I am studying. I normally buy bundles for 5MB which costs K49 [ 10cents]  because the Internet is expensive. When the bundle finishes, I buy another one.

“Yesterday I bought a bundle for 750 Kwacha [ $1.5] and it is still there.”

On my way out of the library, I meet Sharon Somba. Sharon is brimming with energy and enthusiasm as she leaves the Development Resource section of the National Library to take a breather outside. I intercept her with my greeting and straight questions on using Internet use in  her education.

“I  use  the Internet for my school.  I use about 500 Kwacha [$1] a day to browse. I buy data bundles on both TNM and Airtel  but it is so expensive for me since I am not working,” says Sharon who also tells me that the course that she is studying is Procurement and  Supply Chain Management.

From my own experience, I know that the data bundles that cost  less than 500 Kwacha  normally finish in  about two hours if the user is opening multiple pages but can last longer  with fewer downloads. At the prevailing Dollar rate 500 Kwacha is about a Dollar. A Dollar for Internet a day may sound like nothing to many but not here in Malawi. A Dollar means  much to this nation but Education means much more. Higher education is seen as highway out of poverty and mobile Internet is paramount.

 Mobile Internet remains critically important for Malawi’s education sector as very few universities have networked campuses that offer free connectivity to their academic communities. Far from this, there is yet to be a dedicated backbone for education and the last mile connection from the telecommunications companies remains too expensive for most Universities to provide free Internet access for  their students.

When the Regulatory Authority MACRA recently disclosed that Malawi had some of the highest Internet charges in the region due to the duopoly that Airtel and TNM enjoy, Malawians were eagerly anticipating that the two providers would  be pressed to reduce prices. However, prices remain high and the new tax on Internet  has further caused a spike in Internet prices.

Internet has unfortunately become a commodity to be enjoyed by  the wealthy as it is too costly for the average Malawian to have a relevant  session online. But perhaps the cost is being paid mostly by girls like Susan who are bent on attaining higher education and simply cannot do without the Internet.  Indeed only research would tell us, with some precision, the impact of these Internet prices on Malawi’s education sector.

Still, MACRA is optimistic that increasing competition among the Mobile Phone companies will bring down Internet costs. The Regulatory Authority recently announced that Malawians would soon enjoy  tremendous price reductions in mobile Internet services  as well as phone and SMS  with the bringing in of new mobile phone company Lacell  Private Limited of Singapore.  And just last month MACRA further  announced an eminent  price reduction in Internet of 300 percent with the coming in of a new Internet provider Ciba net as Balancing Act Africa reports.

Some of the other promising initiatives for providing affordable Internet include the EU funded AfricaConnect Project which provides affordable dedicated broadband high speed Connectivity to the education and research community channeled through a countries National Research and Education Network (NRENS) and respective universities and research institutions. The World Bank funded Regional Communications Infrastructure Program  which aims at providing rural areas with Internet access through telecasters is another promising initiative which is already on the ground establishing and managing rural telecentres across Malawi. The RCIP Program is now set to scale Connectivity to 100 public institutions including universities.

The Connectivity challenge for Malawi's higher education community could be over as early as next year as hinted by Malawi’s Minister of Education in Malawi, Dr Emmanuel Fabiano at a recent research and education networking event. According to Dr Fabiano, the  Malawi Government’s plans  to provide two dedicated backbone networks for education as well as for the entire civil service.

Another low cost solution that has just proven itself is the use of Television White Spaces  or  extra signals that would have been used for TV frequency  for Internet signals which has been piloted by MACRA. Through the pilot phase of the Project MACRA provides low cost Internet to Education institutions in Southern Malawi Districts of Mulanje and Zomba.

Whichever path Malawi takes, a national solution is needed and urgently too in order to bridge the gap  and level the field of higher education for girls like Suzen. For now, this digital era dictates  that the promise of improved higher education in Malawi continues to hinge largely on widening the gateway to the information society through provision of affordable mobile Internet.