TELECENTRE FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Evaluation of the Tunjang Telecentre, Malaysia

Linda Johansson Hedberg
Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, Sweden.
[email protected]

Introduction

Since the last five years of the 20^th century telecentres have emerged as responses to enhance access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the Internet in places where individual access to ICTs is unavailable or unaffordable (Colle & Roman, 2001; Harris 2001). The rise of telecentres has emphasized reaching rural and poorer areas with ICTs and there is a growing interest in using telecentres in developing areas which can spread the cost of equipment and access among a larger number of users (Colle, 2000; Akst and Jensen, 2001).

Telecentres seem to have neither universal performance indicators nor a universally approved definition. But founded upon the assumption of increasing access to ICTs, telecentres have been developed to provide ICT services ranging from basic services such as Internet connectivity and e-mail to more specialized services such as telemedicine and e-learning. They operate within different types of environments and under various modalities such as public libraries, schools, post offices, local government facilities, churches and petrol stations (Cisler, 1998). One definition of telecentre is provided by Reilly & Gomez (2001) stating that

telecentres are physical spaces that provide public access to information and communication technologies, notably the Internet, for educational, personal,
social and economic development.

Telecentre initiatives are commonly motivated by sincere attempts to improve people’s lives by using ICTs, with an underlying belief in the potential for underdeveloped areas to develop faster through the access and use of information technology. According to a World Bank report (1998/1999) the principal purpose of telecentres is to bring forth development outcomes for the community it aims to serve. Providing access and related services to users are intermediary goals, but as long as development fails to occur then the telecentre fails to fulfil its primary purpose. This speaks for a widespread view of the telecentre as a catalyzing force in the community and that ICTs will enable poor, underserved communities to contribute more effectively to their own development, a hypothesis reported on by Colle (2000), Hunt (2001), Rothenberg-Aalami (2005) and Whyte (2000). The telecentre network, telecentre.org (2007) argues that although telecentres are diverse in nature their shared values are to utilize technologies for development. ICTs are regarded as not only providing a connection between people, but also to act as a link in the chain of the development process where the ability to access and share information can lead to development benefits (Hudson, 1999).

But development assumptions and techno-centric attitudes where ICTs are regarded as positive tools for change are challenged; Gomez & Ospina (2002) and Warschauer (2002) assert that there is no simple recipe in how ICTs can meaningfully support human development or bring about necessary results. And while numerous telecentres struggle with viability, there is a need to learn from the shared experiences of telecentres in practice—of what works and what doesn’t work. With prevailing visions of telecentres as tools for development there is a need for research on telecentres on the ground; on how telecentres are adopted in their local contexts and how telecentres can make a difference for the communities they are serving.

Understanding telecentres in practice

This case study aims to contribute to shared experiences through an evaluation of the Tunjang Telecentre in rural northern Malaysia. The aim is to evaluate telecentre performance and to understand how a telecentre can provide meaningful access for its community, by examining the achieved impacts and the community needs being satisfied by the telecentre. From identified scarcities and challenges further actions will be proposed for improvement.

When discussing the value of access to ICTs Warschauer (2002) and Gurstein (2003) state that the focus should not simply be on access but rather on meaningful access (Gurstein uses the term “effective use”) to ICTs, and both further assert that the most important aspect of ICTs is the ability to make use of the technology and engage in meaningful social practices. To understand if the telecentre is providing meaningful access an evaluation needs to be locally grounded, context sensitive and consider local practices, world views and priorities. An evaluation should also enable shared learning and contribute to capacity building by identifying needs, consider stakeholder viewpoints and contribute to making the services more relevant (Reilly & Gomez, 2001). The actions proposed to improve the telecentre pay regard to community needs, relevance of use and social inclusion.

In the telecentre literature several guidelines or frameworks for telecentre evaluations are proposed. The approaches presented are overlapping but each give prominence to certain objectives for evaluation or research such as sustainability (Ernberg 1998; Hudson, 2001; Harris, 1999), need assessment (Roman & Blattman, 2001), telecentre performance and impact assessment (Wakelin & Shadrach, 2001; Earl & Carden, 1999; Whyte, 1999), gender analysis (Holmes, 1999), evaluation planning and guidelines (Whyte, 2000; San Sebastian, 1999; Contreras-Budge, 1999; Scharffenberger, 1999; Hudson, 1999).

Harris, has in his research and evaluation model, (2001) proposed five characteristics for evaluating telecentres and outcomes of telecentres. The model raises questions concerning the needs of the telecentre among its community members and to what extent the community engages and accepts the telecentre. Harris’ evaluation model was chosen to guide the evaluation for this case study as well to form a template for interpretation. The choice of model builds on existing theories within Information Systems, such as Information Centre Success (IC) and End User Computing (EUC) theories as well as on experiences in the field of telecentres. Harris has used and tested the model in evaluations of five telecentres.

A strong motivation for choosing this model is that it takes the social system into account, and links closely to the local context and what the community is motivated to achieve from using the telecentre. Also according to Harris, it is essential to understand the expectations and objectives of the telecentre within its community, and in this case study the expectations and objectives of those stakeholders influencing the telecentre’s progress, as telecentre users, non-users, managers and initiators are investigated.

Harris states that the outcome variables of telecentres depends on the level of use of technology and services, on the level of satisfaction of users, as well as factors related to community development. In contrast to other evaluation models, Harris’ model explicitly builds on characteristics related to the changes that the community is motivated to achieve. The model also points to the potential sustainability and level of social inclusion of the telecentre.

The model proposes that the ability of telecentres to induce desirable community development will be a function of the telecentre’s characteristics; the characteristics of the community in which the telecentre is located; the characteristics of the information that the telecentre obtains and distributes; a variety of structural conditions relating to telecentres in the country or region in which the community is located; and the characteristics of the individuals who use the services of the telecentre. These five characteristics embrace more detailed research questions, i.e. indicators, which can help explaining telecentre performance and potential outcomes. For a full description of the five characteristics, their indicators and hypotheses see appendix A.

An evaluation is highly contextual, but also dependent on time. A telecentre will take time to become fully integrated in community life. This level of maturity needs to be taken into consideration, in analysing the extent to which telecentre services have been taken up by a community, and to guide corrective actions which might be needed for the telecentre to contribute more effectively towards community development (Harris, 2001; Rothenberg-Aalami, 2005).

The case study

A motivation for using the Tunjang telecentre as a case was their use of the explicit rhetoric of community development and of the telecentre being a contributor in creating a knowledge society. Another strong reason for choosing the Tunjang telecentre was that it had initiated its services and was employed in community work, but was not yet fully integrated into the community. The process of conducting the evaluation gave community members opportunities present their view of the telecentre and to identify corrective actions for improving telecentre services and activities. Further the centre was located in a rural area, where the telecentre was thought likely in the future, to bridge access to services such as education, banking, health and commerce.

The evaluation of the Tunjang telecentre had both a formative and a summative function (Hudson, 1999); it aimed both to examine what was accomplished and to provide feedback on required improvements as well as to examine what could be learned from the telecentre with regard to addressing development concerns within the community. The participatory research of this case study where the researcher worked as facilitator in the telecentre for 3 months, allowed for an understanding of the local and social context of how the telecentre was received and adopted in the community. This role allowed for direct observation of the telecentre activities. It should also be noted that the role of the researcher was unintentionally semi-veiled; as not everyone in the community knew that the facilitator was also undertaking research on the centre.  

Observation was used to record information on indicators such as user awareness, the adoption process; and user behaviour, interest, involvement, needs and problems. This proved to be a valuable method to initially understand the local organisation and community before embarking on the collection of data on telecentre adoption, as well as to win user trust and find informants for interviews.

Observations are complex tasks. There is only a limited field for data collection, dependent on the senses of the observer;  selection from extensive impressions and facts are difficult; the data can not be as systematically collected as in more controlled methods as interviews and questionnaires. And as the researcher is to various degrees involved in the context of the studied phenomena, this can pose questions of bias, as well as the possibility that the presence of the researcher may affect the phenomena. As an example, one of the local managers stated that the fact that someone from outside the community, and even someone from another part of the world, was teaching in the telecentre had raised the level of awareness of the telecentre, and potentially increased the interest to participate in the courses given.

Interviews were used to collect data of the community needs of ICTs services and content, their visions of the telecentre, to find achieved impacts of the telecentre as well as discuss the potentials and obstacles with the telecentre. The study consisted of thirteen in-depth unstructured interviews with telecentre stakeholders as initiators, managers and users. Data was collected through off-record dialogues with telecentre users as well as non-users regarding their interest and needs for ICTs and their views of telecentre services and performance. The users were selected during telecentre training sessions and the non-users were selected at an informal ICT training session in one of the user’s home (with a donated PC from the telecentre). They were chosen since they had an interest to learn of ICTs but neglected the services provided by the telecentre.

In connection to the ICT training provided in the telecentre, two survey questionnaires were conducted, at the first and final lessons of the training course. The training was divided into students group (both male and female, aged 12 to 19); and adults, who were in turn divided into men’s and women’s groups aged 20 to 54. The questionnaires evaluated the ICTs capabilities and provide a gauge of skills and interest in ICTs among these telecentre users. The first questionnaire contained ten questions to find information on the user’s background, their pre-knowledge in using computers, Internet, e-mail and other applications. It was also used to grasp the expectations from training courses. The second questionnaire contained twenty-three multi-choice and free-text-answer questions to evaluate the training course and how that could be improved, skills after attending the course, but also to explore the interest and need for content and telecentre services. The first round provided 70 responses and the second round provided 80 responses.

The Tunjang Telecentre

The Tunjang telecentre is situated in Tunjang in north western Malaysia. Tunjang is a traditional Malaysian “kampung” (village) located in Kedah, one of Malaysia’s rice farming states. Tunjang is an area consisting of 19 small villages ranging in size from 21 to 175 households. At the time of the study there were in total 1339 households with a population sof 6539 persons.

Among the Tunjang residents the main occupation is farming. About half of the population are involved actively in the Farmers Association. Other occupations include civil servants and teachers. All the Tunjang villages have electricity; 40% of the households have telephone lines; while less than 10 households (in total) had a computer at the time of the study. The monthly income was between 500-3000 RM per month, though as a rule most had a monthly income between 500-1500 RM per month (3 RM=$1USD approx.). Public facilities in the village were the primary school, a library in the school and a mobile library. As well the village area included 2 small health centers, 2 markets, 1 factory (rice mill) and 1 bank. A hospital, post office, police station and secondary school were located 10 km from Tunjang.

The telecentre was partly initiated and initially sponsored by the Malaysian National IT Council (NITC). It was based in the primary school of Tunjang but with an aim to provide service for the entire community. Further the telecentre project was established within the frame of Vision 2020, a government agenda of introducing ICTs to create a Malaysian knowledge society. The telecentre had, at the time of the evaluation, reached the acceptance stage (Cooper & Zmud, 1990) implying that the telecentre was available for use in the community and community members were being trained in using ICT. But the use of the telecentre and its services was not yet a normal activity, and the telecentre was still perceived as something extraordinary. For full maturity the telecentre should be encouraged and used as a normal activity, it should be used to increase effectiveness and to be integrated into community work. In this context, the telecentre was being employed in community work, such as in school education and administration. All classes in school (1187 students) had learnt basic computing and were using computers in education.

Table 1.   Basic facts of the telecentre, mission, equipment and services

Evaluation findings

Here the findings from the evaluation are presented, according to the five characteristics proposed in Harris evaluation model (2001).

Telecentre Characteristics

The telecentre was started and initially supported by the National IT Council (NITC) after requests from community members and school management to enhance ICT skills among the community members and to be able to use computers in school education and administration. The services provided in the telecentre were access to computers, to the Internet and to standard Microsoft Office applications. ICT training was provided for school students during school hours and for other community members after school hours. Two training programmes for community members existed;  “ICT for family” where families were trained together and “Cyber Corp training” – a programme to train community members to be able to work as volunteering teachers in the telecentre. The demand for access to the telecentre was high, and during training sessions commonly 2-4 persons had to share one computer.

A tri-sectoral cooperation with government organisations, business organisations and educational institutions existed, all parts contributing with finance, content and human resources for training, during the two initial years of the project. Investments and contributions for the Tunjang Telecentre were mostly voluntary contributions from the tri-sectoral partners. Two Malaysian ICT companies had donated the 20 computers. The community telecentre was using the premises of the school, and the costs for hosting and maintaining the telecentre was included in the school budget. The school management was responsible for the maintenance and decided who should access the telecentre and when.

Cooperation or knowledge sharing with other telecentres did not exist, and there was an expressed lack of knowledge sharing and skills concerning the running of the telecentre, to mend broken equipment and to use computers effectively. The aim was to enhance ICT skills among the community members by the community members themselves, and that the telecentre should be self-maintained within the community. The teachers who should run the telecentre during school hours faced problems in the maintenance of the telecentre.

Community Characteristics

The National IT Council, the local telecentre management and the telecentre users had disparate ambitions and aspirations for telecentre outcomes. The local telecentre management, consisting of teachers and school management, expressed a need for improvement in English and Science among their students. In recent years the Tunjang Primary school had had poor results in several subjects, but students were excited to learn about ICTs, and the use of ICTs in the school was expected to have an effect and improve on results in these subjects. Another aim was to render the school administration more effective.

The aspirations of the National IT Council management were to get all community members trained in basic ICTs, and to bring about development in the community with a focus on improving learning in school, achieving better agriculture by providing farmers with useful information, and enhancing private businesses through ICT learning.

Among the adult community members aspirations were to let their children learn the tools of ICTs, which was regarded important for their future. Though many users had problems in expressing their needs and interest in the telecentre, they had ideas for using ICTs for personal pleasure, for business and for educational matters. Findings from interviews and observations indicated that they appreciated the use of ICTs to communicate with friends, to play games, for browsing news sites and to search for recipes. Two of the adult participants wanted to develop and market their private businesses on the web. One participant was, after participating in the ICTs training, giving lessons in the basics of using the computer and Internet, both in his home and in another school.

The rate of examination results were low in the Tunjang area. The interest in education and the attitude to learning was poor especially among already poorly educated groups. The school results for the primary school were poor; in the year 2000 only 36.7 % of the students passed the primarily level examination (Suradi et al, 2001) and several students had to repeat one year during their primary school. Still the literacy level was good both among younger and older community members.

The main part of the users had no ICT-skills before entering the telecentre and training sessions. The younger users attending training courses seemed more motivated to learn than the older users. It was also observed during the training sessions in Tunjang that the motivation was higher when using e-mail, browsing the web and creating web pages than when using Microsoft office applications.

The aim was to let the community have equal rights to the telecentre and let community members collaborate in the use and maintenance of the telecentre. The headmaster of the school, the volunteers and the external partners from the NITC were “champions” who encouraged use and created awareness of the telecentre.

It was observed and also stated in interviews that the Tunjang Community had a strong unity and tight relationships, and telecentre participants were cooperative and helpful to each other when using and learning about ICTs. The imam of the mosque and the headmaster of the school were two leaders of influence in the community. The community was traditionally tight and there was a strong community sense, where family values were important and family gatherings were prioritized. Relationships were close within the community, they had a common ethnic background and the community was tight and cooperative.

Information Characteristics

According to the NITC partners and the telecentre managers there was a need to raise the ICT awareness and skills, in order utilize ICTs effectively in education and in school administration. One aim was to use interactive learning materials to enhance skills in subjects such as Science and English among the students. Furthermore the NITC partners had the intention to provide applications useful to simplify daily life in the community such as content about farming, business applications and educational applications.

Among the community members a commonly stated need was to enhance skills in using ICTs, especially among the younger generation. Improved Internet connectivity, increased training and support, instructional materials in Malay and improved networking with skilled people were other stated needs. Some respondents asked for content where the effectiveness of ICTs could be realised and where the daily life within the community could be improved. But with a resulting question of what that implied, no answers were given

Few websites in Bahasa Malay, the first language of Malaysia, existed. In Tunjang the English language was not widely used and few of the people visiting the telecentre were comfortable in using English. Electronic services for commerce, health or banking that could be of use for remote areas did not exist and few local businesses or governmental services were provided online. There was an ambition within the telecentre to develop local content and local websites during training sessions, but at the time of the study only one of the user’s webpages was published online.

Applications and information used on the Internet were mostly for entertainment or personal communication. Observations implied that e-mail was the most inspiring application since it was communication in a new manner, where the local language could be used.

Structural Conditions

The telecentre was a government supported project (through the NITC). The Malaysian government had a top-down strategy regarding ICT and infrastructures where the The National IT Agenda was framing the use of ICT to endeavour national development and pursue Malaysia to become a knowledge society. Within this agenda the government had rolled out several ICT projects, of which the Tunjang telecentre was one of them.

Individual Characteristics

In Tunjang the main users were students, teachers and school administrators using the telecentre during school hours. In total 1187 primary school students had used the telecentre for school work. Regarding the community users in Tunjang the profile of users was that they were aged between 10-54 years old, and were living in the Tunjang area. The most common occupations among women users was that of teachers or housewives, and the most common occupations among the men were teachers, civil servants, businessmen or farmers. The younger participants were primarily students from primary and secondary school, but also some college students did use the telecentre.

The skills level was diverse among the telecentre users, ranging from users who had never used or seen a computer before to a student taking a masters degree in Information Technology at the regional college. Most of the users had problems using the computer devices, had no previous knowledge of how to handle files and folders, and no pre-knowledge of Microsoft Office applications. Few participants knew how to surf the web or how to use e-mail. None had experience in web page creation. Content development within the community did not exist.

In the women’s group the level of skills was similar; some were teachers and knew basic ICT from their work, but most still did not know how to give input to the computer by using the devices. Some women brought their children to the class, to do the computing while the women took notes. Among the men’s group the skills were more diverse. Commonly the older users needed strict guiding principles of how to use the computer, while the younger students were more independent users.

ICT awareness and maturity was low in the community. Several of the participants had problems expressing their expectations for the telecentre, what services they were interested in, or in need of. Still they showed a curiosity to explore ICTs and its possibilities, with a general regard of ICTs as something future-bringing. Both an educational divide as well as an age divide existed, regarding ICTs awareness and interest among the telecentre users. Responses from interviews indicated that computers were seen as expensive and as a status symbol, which should be used with special care if used at all.

Participants in the women’s and men’s groups expressed pleasure in attending classes and were motivated to further enhance their skills. They wished for extended time for training, mainly to repeat what they had already learnt but also to learn new things. The attendance was poor in the women’s classes, while the men and youth  had reasonable attendance. A reason indicated to learn about ICTs in the telecentre, as expressed in interviews, was that it encouraged better ICT behaviour than to learn in an Internet café that was commonly used for playing games. Parents attending the family-training program expressed that they wanted to join classes to learn more on how the use of computers and Internet might impact their children. Having teachers from the outside was said to be both a hindrance (the participants felt shy to ask when they did not understand) as well as a source of inspiration (by having external guests and influences).

Impacts observed and lack of interest

Additional findings from the study were that several community members were uninterested in the telecentre and the ICT training provided. Finding no personal use of computers, or not giving priority to take a course in their free time or being unwilling to visit the school in order to learn were three stated reasons for the lacking interest in the telecentre and its services. For some community members the location of the telecentre in the school created a barrier to attending and using its services, since they disapproved of going to school. Some of them however, were able to learn about computers and using the Internet in the house of one telecentre user. These persons stated that they felt it was easier and more comfortable to learn at a more individual pace together with friends.

At the time of the evaluation some reported impacts included that students in the primary school had improved their results in the English exams since they had started working with the computers in the telecentre, and e-mail was being used to keep in touch with former volunteers, conversing in English. Still a clear connection of the telecentre and the improvement in English skills was hard to affirm. One telecentre user was provided with a PC and held classes in Internet and e-mail for family and neighbours at home. The same person held ICT training in a school in a neighbouring village. Another person used the homepage creation class to create a web page for his business; a family stay facility, marketing his business for travellers. Another person used the Internet to research how to start a franchise. ICT awareness increased and the usage of computers changed; participants who mostly knew computers for playing games said that they had learnt more of the usefulness of a computer, and its applications and the Internet.

Discussion

Summing up the evaluation findings, individual characteristics, structural conditions and community characteristics suggest positive possibilities for the telecentre to be a viable and valuable tool for the community. Still the telecentre faced many challenges that need to be considered, and further actions are proposed taking account of these challenges (in the next section).

Telecentre characteristics

The service mix provided in the telecentre was simple but likely sufficient for the users to gain basic ICT skills to a fairly reasonable level. However, the technical equipment consisting of 20 computers and one modem for Internet connection was of poor quality and the Internet connection was slow and unreliable.

The viability and self-sustainability of the telecentre was another challenge. From the perspective of the community the pace of implementing and hand-over of the project as required by the NITC partner was fast and did not correspond to the need of learning and support within the community. The ICT training provided was insufficient; the community members were not skilled enough to use the computers effectively on their own and not comfortable enough to be able to teach others or to maintain the telecentre, which was the sponsor’s intention.

Competence on how to seek and disseminate useful information for the community as well as skills on how to use applications effectively were lacking among the community members. A knowledge broker who could inspire and support the use of ICT could be a solution to this. But there was no organised support function for the telecentre and voluntary teachers and staff from the NITC were only temporarily and loosely tied to the telecentre, during the start up of the project and during the first year of the telecentre and training programmes.

The partnership between the government and the community existed on paper but was not working out well in reality. The partnership existed to set up, run and evaluate the project in the initial phase, but provided only limited cooperation and networking that could benefit the telecentre users. Also the voluntary contributions were unreliable; the community got only sporadic help from outside competent staff. And there was a need for better networking for several purposes; to share knowledge of how to run the telecentre effectively, to practise electronic communication and to practise the use of other applications. Both partnership and voluntary efforts needed to be improved upon if they were to form a supportive function for the telecentre.

The telecentre was well used by teachers and students in school education, but provided only limited access for other community members. Furthermore problems in finding volunteer personnel willing to run the telecentre and conduct ICT training outside school hours restricted the community’s use of the telecentre.

The objectives of the telecentre stakeholders were sometimes in conflict, with the aim of the local management being towards limited public access being in conflict with the aim of the telecentre to be inclusive and to reach out to the community. When the local school management controlled the key to the site, they were in a position to decide on who could access the telecentre and who could not. Lack of finances and problems with technical equipment were stated reasons for the restricted access to the telecentre. Additionally the location of the telecentre in the school created a barrier to use the telecentre for some community members who are not comfortable with the school environment.

Community characteristics

In Tunjang the community characteristics were positive and formed a solid ground for the outcomes to be positive. The telecentre was initiated within the community by community members, and a willingness to learn of ICTs existed within the community. The Tunjang community had a strong unity and tight relationships, which according to the hypothesis will help to achieve better outcomes through better learning and collaboration than communities who do not. Learning from each other and together with family members may have positive effects as a more informal way to learn.

Possible champions being motivated to run the project existed within the community, but besides the local management, potential champions were not yet experienced enough to run the telecentre. And the community members were in substance passive users rather than participating collaborators in the operation of the telecentre. The intention was that the telecentre would focus on students, teachers and farmers, but few farmers were using the telecentre.

Information characteristics

The prevailing use of English (rather than Malay) in websites, in technical documents and in reference materials created a barrier to benefiting from ICTs and to sharing useful information on the Internet. Irrespective of the services available at this stage of maturity (as discussed above), both content in local language or content concerning local issues were lacking, which created a barrier for the telecentre to attract community members not proficient in English. The community had limited possibilities to influence information characteristics, but could contribute by creating local information sources. The language issue was a hindrance, but may also become an opportunity for learning English (one of the aims stated by the local management). The lack of effort in developing locally usable and meaningful applications or services was notable, especially considering the vision that the telecentre should reach all community members and bring about development.

Structural conditions

A strong belief in ICTs for progress and strong investments in ICT on a national level provided a decent support for the telecentre. Well-defined government policies and strong political ambitions regarding ICT implementations were explicitly inspiring the telecentre managers in their efforts with the telecentre. Still the top-down support and ambitions in forming the tri-sectoral partnership, with a government agency participating, could have worked out better especially with respect to the support for development of services and for maintenance.

Individual characteristics

The users ICT skills, their expectations for the project and their interest in training were diverse. But put in relation to the level of ICT maturity the expectations and ambitions were high and the telecentre was not able to provide for all persons interested in using its services. There was a gap between the older and younger generations regarding interest and use of ICTs. In that sense the family education program was a valuable effort to reach the parents, who said that they found a use for computers for themselves and not only for their children during the course of their engagement with telecentre.

Composing a tool for development?

With the common understanding of telecentres as being tools for development it is of interest to understand Tunjang telecentre as a potential tool for change within the Tunjang community. Motivating telecentre initiatives with development objectives is problematic in many respects, particularly as the term “development” is both complex, political and controversial (Sundén & Wicander, 2007). Harris (2001) suggests that development outcomes of telecentres concern changes in the community, and are closely related to “what the community is motivated to achieve”. And following such an understanding of “development” the stakeholder objectives and aspirations indicate what role the telecentre in Tunjang might play to improve the life of the community.

Yet the objectives accounted for in this research indicate a fluctuation in the levels among stakeholders’ aspirations of the telecentre. The NITC partner is committed to a more general hypothesis of development with ambitions of creating a knowledge society, and aims for the telecentre to be inclusive and to enhance ICT skills among community members. The local management had more limited and practical objectives of improving administration within the school and enhancing ICT skills mainly among the students, and with a minor interest in the telecentre being inclusive for all community members. The telecentre users stated an interest in increasing their ICT skills, with confidence in the telecentre to support them in exploring the utilities of ICT. After attending the ICT training the vast majority were pleased to have opened their minds on the range of uses of ICT; “Computers are not only for playing games” as one user stated it. Apart from a few ideas of ICT supporting private businesses, enhancing skills and being future-bringing, few other concrete ideas on the use of ICT in their daily lives, on needs of telecentre services or on what role the telecentre can play in the community, were stated.

Among the community members the telecentre raised expectations about stimulating learning and enabling private businesses, and in extension, potentially creating employment. A few cases of creating or supporting business and employment had already started to happen at the time for evaluation.

But the primary potential for the telecentre to make a significant change within the community was to enhance ICT maturity and skills within the community, through training. For the Tunjang community the telecentre provided new means of social communication and entertainment which the telecentre users stated to enjoy, and as such the telecentre can compose a tool for personal pleasure.

Proposal for further action

The evaluation findings indicated several shortcomings that need to be considered in order to improve the telecentre, in accordance with the needs and aspirations of the stakeholders. The telecentre had not reached full maturity as yet, implying that its full potential was not as yet used within the community. Further actions need to be taken for the telecentre to evolve to the stage of routinization (Cooper & Zmud, 1990) where the telecentre would be encouraged as a normal activity and its full potential would be used within the community.

The following actions are proposed in order to realize the full potential of the telecentre within the community, and to address the challenges for the telecentre to become a valuable tool for the community users. The actions focus on challenges concerning social implications of local involvement, increased training and support components to enhance maintenance and improve ICT-skills, as well as increased efforts to create meaningful content and services.

To build capacity to maintain and run the telecentre

• Extend and improve the Cyber Corp programme and include detailed tutorials and teaching material in the Malay language.

• Collaborate with experienced persons for support in ICT training and content development.

• Develop strategy to motivate voluntary personnel, through opportunities for competency enhancement and benefits (as for example free loans of PCs at home).

• Collaborate with ICT students at the Teachers College to teach or support in the telecentre activities, who in turn can get credit for practice in their college education.

• Thorough hand-over to the local management with seminar on issues for sustainability.

To improve skills in ICTs for the users

• Extend the training programmes with larger efforts on how to create and update web pages, using free software, and maintaining the computers.

• Increase accessibility to the telecentre.

• Provide PC-laboratories to examine hardware.

• Create project works for collaborative learning, aiming to create local content as community or personal web pages.

Future ICT services to attract and reach (all) community members

• The location in the school creates a barrier for some people. An open and informal atmosphere in the telecentre is needed. To reach people computers can be exposed in places where the community members commonly gather such as at the market or in the mosques.

• Collaborate with the state library who owns an Internet bus. The bus can be used for venues to raise the ICT awareness to reach community members who have not exploited computers in the telecentre. Places for the bus to visit are the market, shops and the bank.

• Finding and marketing services that can be of use in the everyday lives; services that can spare trips to the city for administrative matters, agricultural content to inform farmers about weather, prices or new farming techniques.

• Contribute to develop local content in Malay including personal web pages as is dealt with in the training of volunteers, families and students in school (see above).

• Establish a function to inspire in the use of ICTs and to disseminate useful information for telecentre users.

Conclusion & further research

The aim with this work was to evaluate the performance and viability of the Tunjang Telecentre, and from identified gaps and challenges suggest how the telecentre can be improved to be of value for the Tunjang community. The evaluation findings positively indicate that individual characteristics, structural conditions and community characteristics suggest positive outcomes for the telecentre. The main gaps could be found in telecentre and information characteristics, in problems concerning partnerships and networking, lack of skills for telecentre maintenance and operation, and lack of relevant and meaningful content. With regard to the identified gaps and in order to work towards greater meaningfulness and greater level of social inclusion several further actions were proposed. In substance these actions concern strengthening the skills and external support for telecentre operation, to create local content and to attract and reach more telecentre users.

Using this particular evaluation model was helpful since it helped provide a broad view of the telecentre within its local context. The model also strongly considers the human aspects of using and supporting the telecentre, both on the individual and the community level. Other strengths of using this framework are that it is clearly linked to both indicators and hypotheses, and it is also well-based in theory. The indicators are sensitive and form guiding questions to approach the collection of data.

A common problem with use oriented concepts related to data collection is that they tend to be general and hard to apply. Some of the indicators in this model, such as those related to personalities and community unity, can be seen as rather vague both in approach and as a basis for analyzing the empirical data. The framework could be improved through suggestions and discussions of how indicator data is to be collected and analyzed. In this sense it could serve as a more practical guideline for telecentre evaluation to be used by telecentre practitioners that might not be acquainted with academic research.

One interesting aspect of this model is the attempt to deal with development and to evaluate the telecentre success through its achievement of development outcomes. However, these complex issues are touched upon only superficially--development outcomes are referred to as what the community is motivated to achieve. The needs and aspirations within the community will certainly determine the potential success of the telecentres in its local context, but to treat this in terms of development is overly simplistic.

An overly simplistic treatment of development is repeated in much of the debate on telecentres as tools for development. But the contention here is that before one can understand how telecentres can possibly address concerns of development the notion of “development” needs to be clearly defined and the underlying assumptions of such motives need to be revealed. And further studies critically addressing the relation of telecentres in practice and development assumptions are important, both in order to clarify telecentre objectives towards progress and to understand what values the telecentres can potentially bring forth.

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Appendix –A       Model for evaluation