By Khaled Habib Fouad Tawfik, SMART Technology’s regional master distributor, standsin front of the interactive whiteboard. News Focus Achilles Heel The crisis in Greece, and the collapse of the euro, could scuttle Egypt’s plans for economic growth. River of Strife A new agreement among East African countries may spell the end of Egyptian control over the Nile . On the Block Foreign investors buy up African farmland, sparking fears of a new colonialism. By Courtesy Nancy Knowlton Nancy Knowlton, co-founder and CEO of SMART Technology

By Osama Diab

Ahmed Tawfik takes a covered pick-up truck to school each day, carrying a bag full of textbooks on his tiny back. He shares a classroom in Mansheyet Nasser with about 80 other students and, like millions of students across Egypt, Ahmed’s education relies heavily on textbooks, chalk and blackboard, and a one-way information flow that does not allow him to contribute to the learning process.

This old-fashioned style of teaching is how millions of Egypt’s students still receive their education. And it is a scene that SMART Technology’s CEO and co-founder Nancy Knowlton hopes to make history, replaced by classrooms where children contribute to the learning process in an interactive and engaging environment.

“Today students are very challenged to come into school where things might be a little bit different from what they experience in the outside world,” says Knowlton, contrasting a world “where things are pretty much computer based, digital, entertaining, visual and interactive,” with the blandness of Egypt’s classrooms.

“I think having interactive products in the classroom can gain the attention of students and make them far more engaged and motivated to learn,” she says. “This motivation is intrinsic rather than having a teacher stand over them and monitor them. If the teacher can bring out the will to learn, I think they will have a more productive environment.”

SMART Technology is the largest interactive whiteboard producer in the world. Interactive whiteboards are large electronic displays, similar in size to a blackboard that when connected to a projector and computer can perform allthe operations of a computer. The boards can be controlled with a stylus or by hand.

The company was founded in 1987 by Knowlton and her husband David Martin and today SMART products — including software, audiovisual equipment and even an interactive table — are sold in more than 100 countries.

In 1Q2009 the company had a 50.2% share of the global market for interactive whiteboards and more than 80% of the Egyptian market. Egypt has more than 6,000 SMART boards, most of them being used in the education sector, according to figures provided by Gimpex, SMART Technology’s regional distributor.

A study concluded in 2007 by the Education and Social Research Institute at Manchester Metropolitan University on 7,272 students in 332 classrooms found that the use of interactive whiteboards significantly improved the students’ learning progress. As for the teachers, 89% said that whiteboards had a positive impact on their lesson preparation.

Yasmin Youssef, head of the German department at Future Education System, a group of Egyptian private schools, and a German tutor at the Goethe Institute says that the boards can accommodate the needs of different types of learners: visual, audio and kinesthetic or tactile (those who learn through hands-on or interactive activities).

“You can see the excitement in the students’ faces. They fight to go to the board and move the objects with their hands,” says Youssef. “It also goes in line with their lifestyles. They can’t use internet and computers at home, and then a pen and paper in the classroom.”

Youssef thinks that the use of technology in the classroom will prepare students for the technology-enabled environment they will encounter in the marketplace.

“I make my students make movies using video cameras and film-editing software about their lives and families with a German narration. This way they can learn some technology skills while improving their German skills by explaining their daily activities in German,” explains Youssef. “Instead of being recipients of education, children should choose the way they want to learn.”

Other teachers, however, do not always share Youssef’s passion for digital education. A public school teacher, who preferred to speak under the condition of anonymity because he was afraid of losing his job for speaking publicly, says that there are a million things that need to be fixed before adopting such technological luxury. “In schools in Egypt, we lack sports and arts facilities, which I think are more important than electronic boards,” says the teacher. “We also need a better wage system for teachers so they are more motivated in the classroom.”

George Khayat, chief operations officer of Gimpex, thinks this is the kind of resistance any change faces in the beginning. “We’re not dealing with such resistance by showing more resistance, but rather by raising teachers’ awareness that the board is not here to replace them, but to make their job easier,” he says.

Omar Heshmat, an independent education consultant says that interactive boards don’t enhance learning, but do make things easier for both teachers and students. “When we talk about interactive boards we can’t claim it enhances learning, but it facilitates learning,” he says. “The teacher is the one responsible for enhancement of education. A good teacher will be good no matter the tool he is using. This tool just helps the teacher save time and gives them options.”

The price of a SMART board starts from LE 10,500, making cost one of the primary concerns about replacing traditional blackboards.

“I truly understand the issue around affordability and making sure the benefits we talked about are available to all countries,” says Knowlton. “A company like ours is certainly aware of the affordability question and we’re working to make these tools and products affordable.”

According to Khayat, the board is “extremely cheap.” He argues that if each classroom has at least 30 students, the price of the board across the number of students, amounts to LE 300 per student. He adds that a student will benefit from this investment throughout their entire 12-year education. “People pay at least LE 600 a year to talk on the phone, and don’t want to pay a one-time LE 300 [fee] for their children’s education,” he says.

Khayat also explains that the price includes much more than just the device. “We provide software and the content that will enable teachers to use the board. So it’s not just the price of the board, but the whole solution,” says Khayat

Educational benefits aside, digitalizing the learning process can actually save money, argues Heshmat. “Do you know how much the Ministry of Education spends on printing books every single year? LE 2 billion,” says Heshmat “What we should do is save some of this money and put it toward adopting such technologies and digitalizing content.”

The company has already taken steps to reduce paper usage by the ministry. “We collaborated with [local educational publishing house] Nahdet Masr to digitalize the Egyptian curriculum to encourage the Ministry of Education to buy the boards,” says Fouad Tawfik, SMART Technology’s regional master distributor, “we don’t want to provide a car without providing a driver.” According to Tawfik, the ministry bought 500 boards last year and Nahdet Masr will provide the ministry with content to be used starting the coming school year.

SMART Technology’s rollout in Egypt also has a philanthropic face. The company has donated 100 whiteboards to 20 schools and trained 250 teachers to use them as part of Suzanne Mubarak’s 100 School Project. The second phase of the project, launched by Mubarak in June 2008, aims to develop 108 schools in Greater Cairo in addition to the 100 developed in the first phase of the project. The goal of the initiative is to improve the education environment and to provide schools with services to complement the learning process, such as science and computer labs and libraries.

Knowlton believes that more important than donating the boards was the training given to teachers. “We want those teachers to have a positive experience and therefore be able to affect the learning of the children in the classroom.”

In Egypt, most private international schools already have interactive boards up and running, but a very small slice of the population can afford to send their children to such schools. The cost of the board combined with the limited resources of many schools may leave the less-privileged behind in the chalk dust.

Knowlton’s position is clear. “I think it’s absolutely critical for emerging countries because their prime natural resource is people. Our resources are children and getting them productive and having them conversant and able to work in a technology-enabled environment is key to transitioning whole economies in the future.”  bt