Large Scale Software Development - Essay Example

The ensuing violence has led to the destruction of thousands of homes and farms and has forced nearly 170,000 people to settle in the makeshift camps (IRIN, 2008). The political situation in this province is certainly volatile and has attracted the attention and concern of the International Community. The biggest victim of this ethnic violence has been the education system in the Rift Valley province. The schools are sans any qualified teachers owing to the large scale migration of the teachers hailing from the ethnic communities to the safer regions (KEPNW, 2008).

Most of the students have been uprooted from the areas where their schools are located. Those who are left behind are too scared to attend the local schools out of the fear of violence and bloodshed. Hence a large scale displacement of the teachers and the students and the prevailing levels of insecurity in the region call for an urgent customization of the education system so as to meet the special needs of the students staying in the camps. The Kenyan Ministry of Education is collaborating with the NGOs and the world organizations like UNICEF and Red Cross, to chalk out a 'response and recovery' plan to revive the primary and secondary education system in the region (KEPNW, 2008).

The scarcity of the qualified teachers and the disinclination of the students to go to schools has manifold enhanced the relevance of computer aided instruction in the given scenario. Customized computer software can not only provide the students staying in the camps with an easy access to education, but can take care of all the important aspects of secondary education like, classification of students, preparation of time-table, allocation of learning resources, maintenance of progress reports, ensuring direct interaction, providing immediate feedback, developing problem solving and creative assignments, supplementing laboratory and practical work, revision, evaluation and guidance.

Since ensuring an unhampered access to internet could prove to be a problem in the region under consideration, so it is imperative that the software used for educational purposes in the area offers ample control over layouts, users and bandwidth (WiredRed.com, 2008). Besides, the software to be used for educational purposes in the Rift Valley will have to be something much more then any ordinary video or web conferencing software. It will have to be amply self contained and aught to be loaded with relevant self learning modules that must include the set of activities intended to facilitate the students' achievement of a specific objective.

Such self learning modules will have to be essentially self teaching and must be oriented to individuals working alone or in small groups. These modules will have to be such as to ensure easy usage by the students even in the absence of a teacher or any information giver. The software under consideration must also extend varying alternatives to the students in terms of language, mental ability and availability of resources and must aim at