elearning africa report 2013

The

eLearningAfricaReport

2013

THE eLEARNING AFRICA REPORT 2013 3

CONTENTS

Acronyms ....................................................................4

List of Interviews, Opinion Pieces and Comic ..........5

Acknowledgements and Disclaimers ........................6

Foreword.....................................................................7

An Editorial Note .......................................................8

Executive Summary ....................................................9

1. Introduction..........................................................10

2. Survey Respondents and Their Use of

Digital Technologies.............................................11

2.1 Who are the eLearning Africa Survey 2013

Respondents? .......................................................11

2.2 Digital Learning Technologies:

What, How and Why? ..........................................13

Laptops and Social Networking are

More Popular ......................................................13

Online Resources and Classroom

Learning are Top Educational Uses.......................15

Access to Learning Opportunities

Matter More........................................................15

Technologies Influence Positive

Learning Outcomes .............................................15

Mobile Has Not Eclipsed Non-Mobile...................18

3. Constraints, Failure and Change.........................20

3.1 Finances, Hardware and Bandwidth

are Top Constraints ...............................................20

3.2 Almost Half Have Experienced Failure ...................25

3.3 Changes to Expect in the Next Five Years..............28

3.4 Mobiles are the Top Change Driver .......................32

Mobile Technologies............................................32

Social Media........................................................33

3.5 Government Still the Most Important

Change Agent ......................................................36

4. Key Themes ..........................................................38

4.1 Producing Local Digital Content............................38

4.2 Mother Tongue Matters ........................................40

5. The Future of Development................................48

Future Priorities in International Development .....48

Technology-Specific Priorities in

International Development ..................................50

6. Conclusions and Recommendations ...................52

Bibliography .............................................................53

Appendices ...............................................................55

Appendix 1: Methodology ......................................55

Appendix 2: Summary of the eLearning

Africa Survey 2013 ...................................................57

Appendix 3: Biographies of Editorial Board,

Editor and Sub-Editors............................................58

The eLearning Africa Report 2013Contents

4 THE eLEARNING AFRICA REPORT 2013

ACRONYMS

ACP-EU African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States and the European Union

ADB African Development Bank

ADSL Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

API Application Programming Interface

BBM BlackBerry Messenger

CAADP Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme

CASAS Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society

CC Creative Commons

CMS Content Management System

COL Commonwealth of Learning

CSIR Council for Scientific and Industrial Research

CTA The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation

DBSA Development Bank of Southern Africa

DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo

ECCE Early Childhood Care and Education

EFA Education for All

FAO Food and Agriculture Organisation

FOSS Free and Open Source Software

FOSSFA Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa

GIZ German International Cooperation

GSM Global System for Mobile Communications

HRD Human Resource Development

ICASA Independent Communications Authority ofSouth Africa

ICT Information Communication Technologies

ICT4D Information Communication Technologies for Development

ICWE International Conferences Workshops and Exhibitions

IEBC Independent Elections and Boundaries Commission

ISP Internet Service Provider

ITU International Telecommunication Union

MDG Millennium Development Goal

MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MOOC Massive Open Online Course

NGO Non-Governmental Organisation

OER Open Educational Resource

OLPC One Laptop Per Child

SIDA Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency

SME Small and Medium-sized Enterprise

TENET Tertiary Education and Research Network

TVET Technical and Vocational Education and Training

UIS UNESCO Institute for Statistics

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNECA United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation

USAID United States Agency for International Development

VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol

VSAT Very Small Aperture Terminal

WAPA Wireless Access Providers' Association

WHO World Health Organisation

WTS Well Told Story

Acronyms


LIST OF INTERVIEWS, OPINION PIECES AND COMIC

Seeds 2.0 to Modernise and Boost the Agricultural Sector Ken Lohento .............................................................14

Technology Enhances Learning and LifeDavid Angwin...........................................................19

Harnessing TV White Spaces for LearningJenny King ................................................................21

New Models of Management Education for AfricaGuy Pfeffermann......................................................24

“Don't be afraid to fail.”An Interview with Darylene Komukama................27

OERs and MOOCs: Old Wine in New Skins?Neil Butcher .............................................................30

“Entrepreneurship isn't about easy money.”An Interview with Markos Lemma .........................33

Security, Learning and InvestmentHarold Elletson .........................................................37

eLearning and Knowledge Management in an African University ContextKingo Mchombu.......................................................39

Comics for Peace: Shujaaz and the Kenyan Elections..........................42

“No country can make progress on the basis of a borrowed language.” Professor Kwesi Kwaa Prah, Interviewed by Alicia Mitchell.................................46

How Technologies Can Help with Investing in Girls’ EducationMaureen Agena .......................................................48

List of Interviews, Opinion Piecesand Comic


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DISCLAIMERS

The eLearning Africa Report 2013 has been a collaborative endeavour that has benefitted from the input of many talentedand committed individuals. Those who served on the Editorial Board and those who contributed opinion pieces, interviewsand cartoons, deserve particular thanks.

The members of the Editorial Board: Boubacar Balde, Maggy Beukes-Amiss, Mawaki Chango, Pierre Djandjinou, AhmedEl-Sobky, Harold Elletson, Evelyn Namara, Lee Muzala, Catherine Ngugi and Rebecca Stromeyer.

The authors of the opinion pieces, interviewees and cartoonists: Maureen Agena, Rob Burnet and Shujaaz, Neil Butcher,Harold Elletson, Jenny King, Darlyne Komukama, Markos Lemma, Ken Lohento, Alicia Mitchell, Guy Pfeffermann and KwesiKwaa Prah.

Thanks also to Rebecca Stromeyer, Harold Elletson and Adam Salkeld for their strategic guidance, to Geraldine De Bastionand Joris Komen for their input, to Adrian Ernst for his technical support with the Survey and to Janina Knoche, MarjonMul, Claire Thrower, Gregory Vespasien, Juliane Walter and the rest of the team at ICWE.

We would also like to thank Dell Wyse for their support of The eLearning Africa Report 2013.

The eLearning Africa Report 2013 is available for use through a Creative Commons License (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs). This means that content from the Report can be used in any non-commercial publication but must be fullyattributed using the references below.

When citing from the Survey Findings, please use:

Isaacs S, Hollow D, Akoh B, and Harper-Merrett T., 2013 Findings from the eLearning Africa Survey 2013., in Isaacs S (ed)2013. The eLearning Africa Report, ICWE: Germany

When citing from one of the opinion pieces within the Report, please reference the surname of the individual author,followed by the report reference. For example:

King J, 2013. Harnessing TV White Spaces for Learning. In: Isaacs, S. (ed) 2013. The eLearning Africa Report 2013, ICWE:Germany.

The word cloud inside the front cover depicts the combined answers to the question asked in The eLearning Africa Survey2013: ‘What do you think are the three priority issues related to the use of learning technologies in Africa that the globaldevelopment community should commit to after 2015? The word cloud on the back cover depicts the combined answersto the question asked in The eLearning Africa Survey 2013: ‘What are the reasons behind the top three drivers of changein the use of learning technologies in the African country where you work?’

Design and Layout: Christina Sonnenberg-Westeson

ISBN 978-3-941055-20-9

Acknowledgements and Disclaimers


FOREWORD

On behalf of the Government of Namibia, it gives me great pleasure toannounce the launch of The eLearning Africa Report 2013. As proud hostsof this year's eLearning Africa conference, we believe that the informationin this report will enrich the conversations, debates and arguments at thisyear's conference.

The eLearning Africa Report 2013 covers a wide range of critical issuesrelated to our collective interest in improving our education systems inAfrica with the support of digital technologies.

I am delighted by the honesty with which many of you have articulatedyour views in The eLearning Africa Survey 2013 on which the report isbased. I was particularly encouraged by the failures in eLearning that wereso openly shared and the attention given this year to local digital contentand the integration of indigenous African languages.

Furthermore, the report highlights the views of 413 eLearning practitionerson priorities for the post-2015 development agenda. Not only can wenow take stock of our collective endeavour to reach the Education for Allobjectives and the Millennium Development Goals, but it is also ourmoment in Namibia to consider our experience with digital technologiesin helping us to reach these noble goals. Africa in general, and Namibiain particular, now boast more than 15 years' experience with policy de-velopment, design, implementation and evaluation of ICT in educationand training at national and institutional levels. The insights offered byThe eLearning Africa Report 2013 provide us with a platform to learn fromthese practices, both 'good' and 'bad'.

At the same time, change is constant and rapid and many of us are chal-lenged to make choices about an ever increasing array of technologies,platforms and solutions, all claiming to be good for education. Similarly,so much is changing in the learning and teaching terrain including theemergence of new forms of learning, new literacies and new pedagogies.New ‘players’ are entering an increasingly commercialised education andtraining market. These conditions highlight the importance of sharing ourknowledge, experiences and ideas.

The eLearning Africa Report 2013 and the eLearning Africa conferenceoffer a space for us to learn, share and grow with our peers. It is up to usto harness this opportunity to develop our learning network. Only in thisway can we overcome the mammoth task of resolving our most pressingeducational problems in Africa.

Joel KaapandaMinister of Information and Communication Technologies,

Government of the Republic of Namibia

Foreword


AN EDITORIAL NOTE

The recent death of the 'father ofAfrican literature', Nigerian-bornChinua Achebe, and the legacy thathe leaves behind, is symbolic of theoverarching theme of the eLearningAfrica 2013 conference: Tradition,Change and Innovation. ProfessorAchebe championed the re-imagina-tion of Africa. Through his writing hecelebrated, explained and defended local culture and challenged the inter-pretation of Africa and Africans in dom-inant Western literature. His eloquentportrayal of the Continent also revealsthe chameleon-like nature of our trans-formation process, our ambiguous his-tories, traditions and stories of change.Today, the rapid diffusion of digitaltechnologies in African society furthercatalyses changing perceptions, notonly of ourselves as Africans but alsoof the views from the wider worldabout Africa.

There are varying, conflicting and intersecting interpretations of Africa:a 'second scramble for Africa', the riseof a new Africa, and decades-old socialand economic challenges that tell talesof continuing pain and suffering. Examples of paradigm shifts in educa-tion and innovation co-exist with traditional ways of learning. The mediaand popular literature is awash withstatistics on the exponential rise of Internet-enabled mobility in Africa, saidto be ushering in Africa's 'leapfrog'into the 21st century and 'revolutions'in the field of open education, highereducation and schooling have been de-clared. Buzz-words such as MOOCs,cloud computing and crowd-sourcingare currently in vogue.

Today’s dominant story presents theway Africa's spectacular economicgrowth over the past decade is openingup 'frontier' investment markets oncebelieved to be too risqué. This dovetailswith another important issue: the development agenda in light of thetarget date of 2015 for the achieve-

encing spaces of learning. This year,413 respondents to The eLearningAfrica Survey, 80% of whom areAfrican by birth, express their beliefsand aspirations based on experienceswith digital technologies in their class-rooms, workplaces and communities.Opinion pieces by experts, interviewswith practitioners, photographs fromThe eLearning Africa Photo Competi-tion and a comic strip add nuance tothe colourful contributions of surveyrespondents.

We hope that this illustrative review ofAfrican opinion will provide us withsome insight into how tradition,change and innovation in educationare understood. Our report tries to illuminate the current thinking of animportant segment of a growingeLearning network. We hope it servesto promote informed conversationsand better decision-making in waysthat are beneficial to all.

Shafika IsaacsEditor

ment of the Millennium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs) and Education For All(EFA) objectives. Evaluations and mon-itoring reports of the past 13 years' experience with the MDGs and EFAsuggest that some progress has beenmade in the numbers of children in pri-mary, secondary and tertiary education,including girls and women in Africa,and that gender parity levels have im-proved. Many of these reports demon-strate that deficiencies in education resources, textbooks, teachers, educa-tion financing and skilled personnel inministries of education and training remain an overriding preoccupation.They also suggest that there needs tobe a stronger focus on improvementsin the quality of our education andskills development systems. The dom-inant struggle goes beyond numbersand focuses on building an educated,skilled and entrepreneurial continentof people who lead fulfilling lives.

Numerous projects, programmes andinitiatives are under way across Africa,related to experiments with mobilephones, tablets and social media inlearning and teaching. National policieson ICT in Education are being revisitedin a few African countries and imple-mentation plans are being evaluatedand renewed. New partnerships arebeing forged, new financing modelsare being designed, innovation hubsand technology-related start-up com-panies are sprouting up.

This is the vibrant backdrop againstwhich opinions on the influence of dig-ital technologies on learning, teaching,education delivery and skills develop-ment in Africa, are shaped. The eLearn-ing Africa Report 2013 takes the pulseof these opinions. It seeks to makesense of reality amidst the hype by ask-ing African teachers, lecturers, trainers,entrepreneurs, executives, governmentofficials, investors and policy makersabout their views and experiences withthe way digital technologies are influ-

An Editorial Note

Photo: Mignon Hardie, Zambia, “Teens get reading on FunDza”


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The average respondent to The eLearn-ing Africa Survey 2013 is based in Nige-ria; works in higher education; has auniversity degree; makes daily use of alaptop and social networking for learn-ing and uses technologies mainly forclassroom-based learning. They believethat the use of digital technologiesleads to improved learning outcomes;that mobile technologies are a domi-nant change driver; that national gov-ernment is the most important changeagent, and that education and ICT arethe top priorities for the post-2015 development agenda.

These are some of the key findings ofa survey completed by 413 practition-ers involved in eLearning in Africa, 80%of whom are African by birth. TheeLearning Africa Report 2013 is basedon this survey and provides a snapshotof the opinions and views on a widerange of issues related to the use ofdigital technologies for learning andteaching in various African environ-ments. This report is the second of itskind, building on the experience of TheeLearning Africa Report 2012.

The report shows how the urgent chal-lenges to provide equitable and qualityaccess to education for all combinewith the new learning spaces that dig-ital technologies open up. In this way,the report aligns with the overall themeof the eLearning Africa 2013 confer-ence which focuses on TraditionChange and Innovation.

Laptops, Mobile Phonesand Social NetworkingMore Popular

Key highlights of the report focus onthe kind of technologies that Africanpractitioners use for learning, how theyare used, why they are used and theirimpact on learning outcomes.

learning and 52% use them for theirown personal learning. When askedwhy they use digital technologies forlearning, expanding access to learningopportunities (33%) featured moreprominently than developing employ-ability skills (8%). Unsurprisingly, giventhat the vast majority of respondentsare actively involved in using digitaltechnologies for learning and teaching,71% say that technologies have a pos-itive effect on learning outcomes intheir experience and only 1% say thatthey have a negative effect.

African eLearning Practitioners EmbraceKushindwa1

When asked about their experiencesof failure, 49% say they have experi-enced failure in eLearning with manyof these failures associated with tech-nology and infrastructure breakdowns.With this insight, eLearning Africahopes to open up valuable conversa-tions on the topic of failure, in an attempt to promote a culture of learn-ing and reflection. A dedicated sessionentitled the eLearning Africa KushindwaBazaar serves to encourage conferenceparticipants to share their lessons offailure in order to improve practice.

Mobile is the Top ChangeDriver and Government isthe Top Change Agent

The report also highlights the views ofrespondents on the top drivers ofchange in the use of digital technolo-gies for learning in Africa. Here mobiletechnologies (27%) and social media

For the majority of the survey respon-dents, laptops and mobile phones arethe most popular learning devices com-pared to computer tablets, zero clientlabs and smart boards. Yet, eventhough 83% of respondents makedaily use of laptops and 71% makedaily use of mobile phones to supportlearning, 67% still use stand-alone PCs,34% still use TVs and 31% use radiosfor learning every day. This goes toshow that newer, more mobile tech-nologies have not yet eclipsed oldergeneration technologies and their usefor learning and teaching.

Tablets, zero clients and smart boardsmay still be emerging. While 20% ofrespondents are using tablets for learning, 30% say they never usetablets, 42% say they never use zeroclient labs and 34% never use smartboards. This finding may reflect thelevel of exposure by respondents tothese technologies at the time the surveywas conducted.

With the rapid emergence of new media, the eLearning Africa surveyteam was also keen to know whethersocial media in particular are used tosupport learning. Here, the use of socialnetworking sites such as Facebook,Google Plus and LinkedIn featuredprominently with 60% of respondentsusing them. This compares with 29%who use Voice over Internet Protocol(VOIP) such as Skype and 22% whouse blogs, mobile apps and mobile chat.

Accessing Online Resourcesand Learning Opportunitiesare Key Concerns

Accessing online resources, classroom-based learning and personal learningare top technology uses for survey respondents. 65% of respondents usetechnologies to access online resources,56% use them for classroom-based

Executive Summary

1Kushindwa is Kiswahili for 'failure'


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY INTRODUCTION

(16%) are the top change drivers andas in 2012, national government is themost important change agent.

Local Content, Local Languages

This year, the report pays special attention to the use and creation of local digital content, including contentproduced in indigenous African lan-guages. It reveals that 40% of respon-dents are involved in creating local dig-ital content but only 16% are involvedin creating content in indigenousAfrican languages.

Education is the Top Post-2015 Development Priority

With less than 1000 days to go toachieve the Millennium DevelopmentGoals and Education For All goals by2015, respondents were asked to name

insights of the traditionalist educationpractitioners and those without accessto new learning technologies - thosewho are primarily focused, due to theirpersonal views or circumstances, ondelivering the basics of education:chalk, textbooks, qualified teachers andfunctional classrooms.

These conversations about innovationstill seem to be taking place in parallelwith resolving our traditional educa-tional problems. There is an urgentneed to establish points of connectionbetween these conversations. Eachyear the eLearning Africa conferencehosts The eLearning Africa Debate. Thisyear, the debate focuses on whethersustainability matters more to educa-tion than innovation. This is a timelydiscussion and will hopefully point tokey areas for further exploration inforthcoming eLearning Africa reports.

the development priorities for a post-2015 development agenda. Unsurpris-ingly, with the vast majority of respon-dents working in the education andskills development sector, 27% of respondents highlighted education asthe top post-2015 development priority,followed by ICT (22%).

When asked to name their top tech-nology-specific priorities, ICT use in education (16%), training (15%) andinfrastructure (16%) rank as the topthree priorities. Within the category ofinfrastructure, bandwidth and electric-ity are highlighted as the key priorities.

The report highlights the views of thoseat the forefront of eLearning in Africa.Arguably, the majority are 'front-run-ners' and 'digital pioneers'. Collectively,these views reflect a strong optimismabout the newness and positive changethat digital technologies can catalysein Africa's education and skills devel-opment systems. Yet they also highlightimportant gaps in our knowledge. Keyamongst these are the views and

The eLearning Africa Report 2013 is abarometer of African opinion onchanges in our learning landscape under the pervasive influence of digitaltechnologies. The main purpose of thereport is to reflect the stories, viewsand experiences of African practitionersand their contribution to the broaderAfrican eLearning narrative.

This year we have the advantage ofbuilding on the lessons and experience

the eLearning Africa conference, thisyear held in Namibia. Consistent withthis theme, we illustrate the thoughtsand ideas of 413 survey respondentson a wide range of issues related toour traditional and changing learninglandscape. Key among these is an appraisal of respondent beliefs and attitudes about the priorities for a post-2015 development agenda.

of The eLearning Africa Report 2012which was cited on numerous blogs,magazines, journals and news articlesfrom all over the world. We were alsopleased to learn that the 2012 reportserved as an important source of infor-mation for conversations about ICT inEducation policy in a few African countries.

In 2013, we focus on Tradition, Changeand Innovation, which is the theme of

1. Introduction


SURVEY RESPONDENTS AND THEIR USE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES WHO ARE THE ELEARNING AFRICA SURVEY

2013 RESPONDENTS?

The average respondent to The eLearn-ing Africa Survey 2013 is male, has atleast one tertiary level degree, worksin the higher education sector andworks for a government or govern-ment-supported organisation in Africa.Within this overall picture there is a

Outside Africa, the highest number ofresponses came from people with Ger-man or British nationality (each 3%).

29% of the respondents were female,70% were male and 1% did not spec-ify their gender. This contrasts slightlywith the gender distribution of the totalnumber to whom the survey was sent,which was 29% female, 46% maleand 25% unspecified.

The eLearning Africa network seemsto have been stable and relatively un-changed over the past year, with thedistribution of respondents’ educationsector and type of organisation remain-ing very similar between 2012 and2013.

In 2013, the majority of the respon-dents (52%) work for a governmentor government-supported organisa-tion, 19% work for an NGO, followedby 18% who work for privately-ownedorganisations. 6% responded that theywork independently of any organisa-tion, 3% work for international gov-ernment organisations and 1% fordonor organisations.

Survey respondents are most likely towork in higher education (42%), fol-lowed by those who work across alleducation levels (21%). Another 15%work in schools (primary, middle or secondary), 14% work in TVET, 4% in informal education and 1% in EarlyChildhood Care and Education (ECCE).

diverse range of respondents, workingin 42 African countries across differentsectors and at all levels of educationand skills development. As may be expected, individuals who have expe-rience with learning technologies arethe most likely to respond. 80% of theresponses to the survey came frompeople who stated an African countryas their country of birth.

The countries with the highest numberof respondents were Nigeria with 15%,South Africa with 10%, Kenya with8% and Tanzania and Zambia with 6%each. Notably, this group of five coun-tries still account for less than half(45%) of the total number of responses, demonstrating the breadthand diversity of the respondent pool.

2. Survey Respondents and TheirUse of Digital Technologies

Nigeria...................................................15%

South Africa ..........................................10%

Kenya.......................................................8%

Tanzania ..................................................6%

Zambia.....................................................6%

Uganda....................................................4%

Namibia ...................................................4%

Cameroon................................................4%

Ethiopia ...................................................3%

Benin .......................................................3%

Ghana......................................................3%

Cape Verde..............................................3%

Zimbabwe ...............................................3%

Other .....................................................28%

What countries do respondents work in?

Who are the eLearning Africa practitioners, policy makers,investors and role players? What digital technologies dothey use to support learning? Why and how do they use

digital technologies? What are the educational outcomesresulting from their use? These are the important questionsthat the survey and report try to address.

2.1 Who are the eLearning Africa Survey 2013 Respondents?

Male.......................................................70%

Female ...................................................29%

Unspecified .............................................1%

What proportions of respondents are female

or male?


SURVEY RESPONDENTS AND THEIR USE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES WHO ARE THE ELEARNING AFRICA SURVEY

2013 RESPONDENTS?

The final 3% selected ‘other’ or didnot answer the question. Once again,these figures link closely with the surveyrespondents from 2012.

The educational qualifications of surveyrespondents are significantly above theaverage achieved in sub-Saharan Africa.

• 99% of respondents indicated thatthey had completed their secondaryeducation, whereas across sub-

they had completed a PhD, whereasacross sub-Saharan Africa it is esti-mated that less than 0.1% of thetotal population complete doctoraleducation (World Bank, 2012; UIS,2011).

The instrumental role of positive learn-ing experiences and role models in pro-moting educational achievement is illustrated by the experience of an interviewee from Namibia who said:

"A truly gifted, knowledgeableand inspiring biology teacher

taught me in my last two yearsof high school. I chose to

pursue a career in the natural sciences as a result of this

teacher's enormous enthusiasmto (freely!) share knowledge

with her learners. She gave somuch more than was requiredto pass a final matriculation

exam and instilled an incrediblesense of urgency to learn farmore than what was simply

conventional."

Saharan Africa it is estimated thatless than 20% of the total popula-tion complete secondary education;

• 87% of respondents indicated thatthey had completed at least one degree at tertiary level, whereasacross sub-Saharan Africa it is esti-mated that less than 5% of the totalpopulation complete tertiary educa-tion; and

• 18% of respondents indicated that

A government or government-supported organisation........................52%

An NGO .................................................19%

A privately-owned organisation..........18%

Independently of any organisation.......6%

An international government organisation............................................3%

A donor organisation.............................1%

N/A....................................................... 1%

What type of organisation do respondents work in?

Higher education..................................42%

Across all education levels ...................21%

Schools (primary, middle or secondary) .............................................15%

TVET.......................................................14%

Informal education.................................4%

ECCE.........................................................1%

Other .......................................................3%

What education sector do respondents work in?

Photo: John Kessy, Tanzania, “Interactive IT in universal primary education”


SURVEY RESPONDENTS AND THEIR USE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES DIGITAL LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES:

WHAT, HOW AND WHY?

Laptops and Social Networking are More Popular

This year, laptops rank as the most pop-ular device to support learning com-pared to mobile phones, tablets andstand-alone PCs. Respondents wereasked what technologies they makeuse of every day to support learning intheir organisational contexts. 83% ofrespondents said they use laptops tosupport learning, followed by mobilephones (71%) and stand-alone PCs(67%). At the other end of the spec-trum, the technologies least likely tobe used every day to support learningare zero client labs at 2% (a server-based computing model where theuser's 'computer' has no processingand storage power) and smart boards(7%). We also wanted to establishwhat technologies are most likely neverto be used by respondents to supportlearning in their organisational con-texts: 42% never use zero client labs,34% never use smart boards and 30%never use tablets.

Building on this, respondents wereasked specifically what forms of socialmedia they make use of every day tosupport learning in their organisationalcontexts. Social networking sites (suchas Facebook, Google Plus and LinkedIn)were the most popular, with 60% ofrespondents making use of them tosupport learning on a daily basis. Some29% make use of VoIP every day andan equal 22% make use of blogs, mobile chat (including WhatsApp, BBMand Mxit) and mobile apps. We alsowanted to establish what forms of so-cial media respondents never make useof to support learning in their organi-sational contexts. The figures indicatethat occasional use of social media isvery widespread within the sector. Only8% never make use of social network-ing sites, 16% never use blogs, 21%never use wikis and 24% never makeuse of mobile chat.

2.2 Digital Learning Technologies: What, How and Why?

Laptops

Mobile phones

Stand-alone PCs

TVs

Radios

PC labs

Digital data projectors

Tablets

Video cameras

Smart boards

Zero client labs

Other technologies

What technologies do you use every day to support learning?

0 20 40 60 80 100

67%

24%

83%

71%

7%

23%

34%

31%

15%

2%

6%

20%

Social networking sites (such as Facebook, LinkedIn)

VoIP (such as Skype, Google Talk)

Mobile chat (including WhatsApp, BBM, Mxit)

Mobile Apps

Blogs

Micro blogging (such as Twitter)

Video sharing (such as YouTube, Vimeo)

Wikis

Other forms of social media

What forms of social media are used to support learning?

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

22%

15%

19%

29%

17%

22%

22%

4%

60%

Photo: Willy Ngaka, Uganda, “Computers excite and motivate intergenerational literacy learners in a rural school”

“Really? But what has the agricultural sector got to do withWeb 2.0?” That was the sarcastic question I was asked one daywhen I was describing the Web 2.0 training that I provide toCTA (the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Coopera-tion). It was an understandable question; on the one hand theWeb 2.0 concept seemed to be a current reality reserved onlyfor geeks, and on the other hand, combining new ICTs and theagricultural sector in Africa appeared to many to be a utopiandream, or not far off from one. However, since 2009 CTA, cre-ated as part of ACP-EU (African, Caribbean and Pacific Group ofStates and the European Union), has provided highly soughtafter training on the subject of Web 2.0 for Development, aimedmainly at players operating in the agricultural and rural sectors.

Popularised by Tim O’Reilly in 2004, the Web 2.0 concept denotesa set of IT applications (sometimes called “social media”)which enable ordinary users to produce and share multimediainformation on the web, very often free of charge. It can beseen in services such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, GoogleMaps and Dropbox. By 2012, in conjunction with a number ofdifferent institutions, CTA had trained 1,684 people from 32 ACPcountries in the use of these tools as part of development activ-ities. In particular, these people were agricultural associationrepresentatives, ministers, extension agencies, researchers,teachers, students, trainers and, occasionally, farmers. A num-ber of other activities are also carried out to support training,as illustrated by the content on www.web2fordev.net.

Strengthening networks and managing information andinstitutional communicationTraining in Web 2.0 for Development enables agricultural play-ers to more effectively manage their access to information (forexample, by understanding RSS feeds and using a site such aswww.agrifeeds.org). It easily strengthens external communica-tion (with blogs, etc.), at the same time as reducing costs andmaking it easier to co-author collaborative documents (withplatforms like Google Drive, Framapad.org or Wikis). Agriculturaldocumentation centres can then interact with their users moreeasily, thanks to Facebook pages, which are distinct from indi-vidual Facebook accounts. For example, the Senegalese andKenyan Ministries of Agriculture, convinced of the relevance ofthese tools, have included this training in their agents’ educa-tional programme. In the same way, Ning platforms, such asthose established by AgriProFocus in various African countries,facilitate online collaboration between various agricultural networks.

Strengthening agricultural marketing, promoting agriculture and its imageThe development of blogs has enabled many young people tobecome involved in agricultural citizen journalism while pro-moting the sector. Although agriculture accounts for 30% of

gross domestic product (GDP) in most African countries, thissector has been forsaken by these same countries, due to a cer-tain negative image, and states do not pay enough attention toit. Certain platforms identified by the agriculture blog competi-tion, the YoBloCo Awards (ardyis.cta.int/yobloco), such as theNawsheen’s World blog (nawsheenh.blogspot.nl) and AnneMatho’s blog (annematho.wordpress.com), fall within this cate-gory. Others such as Technology4Agri (technology4agri.word-press.com) and Agro-Benin (www.agrobenin.com) promotenational agricultural or technological opportunities, includingICT, which could modernise agriculture. Sometimes, agricul-tural product marketing is also carried out via Facebook orblogs, in line with the increased commercialisation of this plat-form. A new service offered by accessagriculture.org allowsagricultural videos to be shared.

Advocating access to ICT at an affordable price for the agricultural sectorThis penetration by Web 2.0 into the agricultural sector formspart of the increasing use of ICT, and mobile telephony in par-ticular, within the agricultural sector. With more than 700 mil-lion subscribers, this medium makes it easier to access theInternet every day, to share information about the agriculturalmarket, even in a rural environment, and to encourage the usesof Web 2.0.

However, it is necessary to increase the benefit of Web 2.0within agricultural institutions and less at an individual level.The development of the Web 2.0 communications culturewithin organisations remains embryonic. The cost of internetaccess remains prohibitive for many of them. The interactivitywhich their platforms can enjoy is also very limited, because ofinternal considerations, but also because the public overlooksthem or does not know about them. It is also appropriate to encourage the implementation of social media communicationstrategies since absent or uncontrolled communications on themany networks can today be dangerous for an organisation. Ofcourse, poor ICT infrastructure and the absence of electrifica-tion in rural environments are serious handicaps. Consequently,it is essential for agricultural players to get involved in demandsfor access to ICT at an affordable price. To do so, the most effec-tive channel should be the Comprehensive Africa AgricultureDevelopment Programme (CAADP), the flagship in the develop-ment of the sector, set up by African states.

Ken Lohento is ICT4D Programme Coordinator at the Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) in the Netherlands, where he

coordinates projects related to ICT and agricultural value chains, eAgriculture strategies, youth and ICTs, Web2fordev training. Ken is a National

of Benin Republic and has been working with national and international organisations for several years on ICT for development activities and policies.

Seeds 2.0 to Modernise and Boost the Agricultural Sector

Ken Lohento


SURVEY RESPONDENTS AND THEIR USE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES KEN LOHENTO



WHAT, HOW AND WHY?

Online Resources andClassroom Learning areTop Educational Uses

The most frequently cited reasons forrespondents using the various tech-nologies and forms of social media areto access online resources (65%), tosupport learning in the classroom(56%) and to support their own per-sonal learning (53%). As the graph onthe right demonstrates, the respon-dents have a broad range of educa-tional uses for technologies.

Access to Learning Opportunities MatterMore

Having established what technologiesare being used, and the way in whichthey are being used, the survey soughtto find out the motivation behind usingdigital technologies to support learn-ing. Respondents were asked what

their biggest motivation for using learn-ing technologies is. The most popularresponses were to expand access tolearning opportunities (32%), followedby the desire to improve the quality oflearning (23%) and improve the qualityof teaching (18%).

This suggests that the need to expandaccess to learning opportunities remains a preoccupation among survey

haps surprisingly, developing employ-ability skills is only considered the mainreason for using digital technologies inlearning by 7% of respondents.

Technologies InfluencePositive Learning Outcomes

Within the survey, respondents wereasked to express what they had expe-rienced to be the effect of digital tech-nologies on learning outcomes withintheir respective organisational contexts.The majority of responses were posi-tive, with 71% saying the effects havebeen positive and only 1% saying theeffects have been negative.

respondents relative to the improve-ment of quality learning and teaching.However, when combined, the issuesof improving the quality of learningand improving the quality of teachingdo rank higher in the priorities of surveyrespondents than issues of access. Per-

To expand access to learning opportunities

To improve the quality of learning

To improve the quality of teaching

To develop employability skills

To become economically competitive

N/A

Other

Why do respondents use learning technologies?

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

33%

24%

18%

7%

7%

3%

8%

To access online resources

To support learning in the classroom

To support respondents’ personal learning

To support distance learning

To support self-learning by learners

To support professional development

To support collaborative learning

To support skills training programmes

For administration of data

To support project-based learning

To support teacher training

To support peer learning

Other

How are digital technologies used to support learning?

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

52%

50%

53%

30%

56%

37%

37%

40%

46%

44%

39%

65%

5%

The effects on learning outcomes have been primarily positive

I don't know what the effects on learning outcomes have been

There have not yet been any effects on learningoutcomes

The effects on learning outcomes have been primarily negative

N/A

What effect does technology have on learning outcomes?

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

71%

11%

9%

8%

1%



WHAT, HOW AND WHY?

Those respondents who indicated thatdigital technologies have had a positiveeffect on learning outcomes wereasked to outline the ways in whichthese positive attributes are mani-fested. The objective for asking this

was to establish the detail behind theoverall perspective and to understandwhat the eLearning Africa network perceives to be the most significantways in which technology is affecting learning outcomes.

Before focusing on the majority whoresponded that the effects on learningoutcomes have been primarily positive(71%), it is worth considering the smallminority who said that technology hashad a negative effect on learning out-comes (1%). The reasons that theserespondents gave were that computersserve to distract children from formallearning in the classroom, studentshave stolen equipment, the equipmentis too expensive to maintain and trainteachers in its usage and there is a lackof understanding of how to use theavailable technologies for learning pur-poses. Together these encapsulate thewidely-acknowledged challenges withthe optimal integration of digital tech-nologies in learning and teaching. For

90% of all responses were groupedinto these six categories. The final 10%(28 responses) were generic descrip-tions that could not be easily cate-gorised. These categorised responsesprovide valuable insight into the dom-inant perspectives of the sector andthe most common beliefs held regard-ing the way in which ICT can affectlearning outcomes and facilitate edu-cational change.

Increased access to resources, infor-mation and knowledge was the mostpopular response, with 20% of the responses grouped into this category.Respondents emphasised the ways inwhich digital technologies have openedup possibilities to access the materialsrequired for effective learning, with themost regularly repeated single responsebeing ‘access to information andknowledge’. This issue was emphasisedby many of those working in highereducation. A male respondent workingin the higher education sector in Zim-babwe commented that the use oftechnology means ’students and lec-turers are now able to access the Internet for research’. He went on tonote that ‘the quality of students’ workhas been enhanced as they have accessto more resources’. Similarly, a femalerespondent working in the higher education sector in Nigeria explainedthat ‘access to information has greatlyimproved the quality of graduates being produced from our University’.The positive impact of increased accesswas also expressed by respondentsworking in the private sector. One respondent working in TVET in Nigeriain a privately-owned organisation articulated how they now have ‘accessto publications which would otherwisenot be accessible or even known to us’.

The emergence of new methods oflearning and teaching representedthe second largest category of response(15%). Within this the dominantthemes included the way in which tech-nology can facilitate new pedagogiesand promote collaboration, enable stu-

this minority, the challenges are signif-icant enough that technology has anoverall negative effect on learning out-comes. For the majority, the effect re-mains positive despite the presence ofthe challenges!

A total of 268 respondents chose toexplain the ways in which technologyis leading to an improvement in learn-ing outcomes. There was a high degreeof overlap between the individual re-sponses but they can be categorisedinto six dominant and interrelatedthemes:

• Increased access to resources, infor-mation and knowledge

• The emergence of new methods oflearning and teaching

• Increased effectiveness in the edu-cation system and infrastructure

• Increased student motivation

• Improvement in teacher training andteaching itself

• Improved understanding of how tomake effective use of technology

Increased StudentMotivation

Improvement inTeacher Trainingand Teaching ItselfThe Emergence

of New Methodsof Learning and

Teaching

Increased Effectiveness in Education Systems

& Infrastructure

Increased Accessto Resources, Information & Knowledge

Improved Understanding of How to Make Effective Use of

Technology

Why Digital Technology Integration Enables Positive Learning Outcomes



WHAT, HOW AND WHY?

dents to enhance their research skills,break the barriers of geography – pro-moting distance and flexible learning– and facilitate online learning com-munities. These sentiments were ex-pressed by a respondent working in agovernment-supported organisation inMauritius, who stated that ‘people wholearn about ICT are able to undertakefurther research on any subject’ andby an employee of an internationaldonor organisation, noting that ‘work-ing and exchanging with others hasbeen improved … learning at any timeand everywhere is possible.’

Increased effectiveness in the edu-cation system and infrastructurewas identified by 13% of respondents,emphasising the way things can nowhappen faster and at a lower cost, witheducation management systems andservice delivery mechanisms becomingmore efficient, and with the ability toscale up more easily than before and

trainings and earning income: the organisation is extending its reach withlittle investment’.

Increased student motivation wasthe fourth common theme with 10%of respondents suggesting that thiswas the reason that technology is lead-ing to improved outcomes. Key issueshighlighted were the way in which thecommitment to learning increases,alongside increased student enjoymentand participation. This theme was par-ticularly common among those work-ing at the school level (primary, middleand secondary) in government sup-ported organisations – as demon-strated in the following three responses.A respondent working in Togo explainedthat they had found ‘using the ICTswith young children from primaryschool is a great source of motivationin their learning process’. Similarly, inKenya it was noted that the integrationof digital of technologies is having apositive impact on learning outcomesbecause it makes it possible to visualisedifficult, abstract concepts through theuse of animations.’ A respondent fromUganda offered a similar explanation,pointing out that, following the inte-gration of digital technologies, ‘teach-ing of complex concepts became easy,the attitude of learners towards my les-sons improved greatly, pass rates of mystudents increased, students increasedtheir participation in project work andgroup and collaborative learning wasenhanced’.

The improvement in teacher train-ing and the practice of teaching wasthe emphasis given by 6% of the respondents. The answers focused onhow technology has enabled betterquality and more diverse training totake place, and the way in which thishas had led, in turn, to an improvementin teaching itself. These commentswere exemplified through a female civilservant working in Nigeria across alllevels of education who explained thattechnology ‘has made teaching andlearning more interesting and improved

connect with a greater number oflearners. This was expressed by a femalerespondent working for an NGO focused on higher education in Tanza-nia, who suggested that technology isleading to an improvement in out-comes because ‘it has reduced work-load for faculties, it has enhanced com-munication between faculties, studentsand administrators … it has also enabled monitoring and evaluation ofthe school activities’. This was corrob-orated by an employee of a donor organisation working in higher educa-tion in Namibia, who explained that,due to technology, their work is nowmore ‘cost-effective and we can reacha geographically wider audience’. Finally, a male respondent working independently on higher education inthe Ivory Coast expressed clearly: ‘morelearners are on the platform, materialsare being updated, self-learning is going on, trainers who have beentrained are now rolling out national

Photo: Afanou Séti, Togo, “eLearning has made her the queen of the kitchen”



WHAT, HOW AND WHY?

the performance of teachers and stu-dents’. Similarly, a female respondentfrom Togo, working in the school sector(primary, middle or secondary) sharedher observation that ‘teachers have access, from their workplace, to enhancement opportunities for theirlessons and the professional develop-ment’. Finally, another female respon-dent from Tanzania, working in TVETfor a government-supported organisa-tion, remarked that the introductionof technology ‘has improved the qualityof teaching and time management’. Inturn, this has meant that ‘resources areeasily searched from the Internet’ andthis becomes a ‘very effective way toshare learning material’.

Improved understanding of how tomake effective use of technologywas the smallest of the six categories,emphasised by 3% of respondents.These responses attributed the im-provement in learning outcomes simplyto the fact that there is now a greatergeneric understanding of how tech-nology works. This is illustrated by afemale respondent from South Africa,working in the school sector, who observed that ‘the learners are gradu-ally becoming computer literate by using computers at school’ and, simi-larly, by a female respondent fromNigeria, working in higher education,who explained that the learning out-comes were improving because ‘morepeople are becoming techno-savvy andare developing their technology skills’.

Mobile Has Not EclipsedNon-Mobile

It is worth noting that 31% of respon-dents still use radio every day to sup-port learning. This demonstrates theongoing relevance of radio for learningeven amidst the rapid increase in thevariety of technology devices that sup-port learning. The high use of stand-alone PCs and PC labs perhaps alsopoints to a longer period of use in the

ber of respondents reporting that usingdigital technologies has a positive impact on learning outcomes serves tohighlight the importance of deeper exploration of the nature of the learningexperience with technologies in variousAfrican contexts. In addition, there iscontinued work required in assessingthe nature of learning outcomes andthe value in investigating more openlythe possible negative effects of tech-nological integration and ways to man-age these effectively. The latter is astory that remains under-explored.

African education system for oldertechnologies. The more popular use oflaptops, PCs and mobile phones sug-gest that these have been 'main-streamed' by respondents far morethan tablets. The low reported usageof the latter in learning may also bedue to this technology device enteringthe learning arena at a similar time tothe survey being conducted. With oldertechnologies taking longer to becomeobsolete, the survey findings alsodemonstrate the proliferation of optionsof technologies to support learning.

The popularity of social networkingsites reflects the new avenues that areopening up for communication, knowl-edge-sharing, collaborative learningand growing learning communities andnetworks in Africa. Anecdotes regard-ing the use of Facebook for learning inAfrica suggest that they particularlysupport teachers in their communica-tion with learners (Verster 2010, Bosch,2009). However the integration of social networking as part of a widersocial media milieu, in learning andteaching, has also opened up theprospects for cyber-bullying and privacyinfringements which are only begin-ning to surface in the eLearning Africa conversation.

The top educational use for technolo-gies is to access online resources andthe top motivation for their use is toprovide access to learning opportuni-ties. This demonstrates clearly that access to learning resources remains apreoccupation with eLearning practi-tioners in Africa. Furthermore, the highuse of digital technologies for class-room-based learning, learning outsidethe classroom, distance learning andpersonal learning reflects both the levelof ICT integration in learning and thevaried and flexible ways it is used.

Globally and in Africa, the role of dig-ital technologies in improving learningconditions, experiences and outcomes,is still subject to significant debate (Hinostroza et al, 2012). The large num- Photo: Karolina Lagiewka, Kenya,

“Legio Maria follower using mobile technology”

Technology vendors Dell and Microsoft have been working todeliver classroom technology for remote regions and, in partic-ular, into schools that have not previously had access to anyform of computing technology.

Mamoeketsi School in Lesotho is profoundly aware of the importance of technology in educating and empowering youngpeople. The school is located in Lesotho, near Maseru. HIV/AIDS affects a third of the population and around 50 per cent ofthe school’s students are orphans. Most are familiar withpoverty. Although the government invests 12 per cent of itsgross domestic product in education – and the country’s literacy rate is one of the highest in Africa – few students haveaccess to technology. Less than 5 per cent of the population has access to the Internet or even basic mobile phones withtext and call functions. However, through the efforts of MoliehiSekese, a charismatic maths and science teacher at theMamoeketsi School, students now have access to affordabletechnology that is significantly raising their academic achieve-ments and enhancing their potential.

After attending a Microsoft Shape the Future event – an initia-tive that supports access to technology in developing countriesthrough partnerships with companies such as Dell – Sekese wasinspired to see how technology could engage pupils in a dynamicway. She devised a project about native plants and herbs, requir-ing students to report to her by text message through mobilephones borrowed from relatives or friends. The project was ahuge success, exciting students so much that Sekese foundherself receiving text messages in the middle of the night.Sekese realised that the school needed to empower studentswith access to technology, but cost was a major barrier to this.

Mamoeketsi School wanted to implement an affordable, low-maintenance IT solution to provide its students with access to theinternet, supporting research and collaboration, so the school im-plemented a shared computing solution with Dell ‘zero clients’and Microsoft Windows® MultiPoint Server to deliver a low-cost, centrally managed computing environment for students.

As a result of its dynamic use of technology in teaching, theschool has reduced truancy. While access to technology can bea big motivator for students and increase attendance and engagement in learning; it can be challenging for students whoare slow learners. Shared computing addresses this by enablingthe teacher to remotely monitor and interact with an individualstudent from the teacher’s computer station. Sekese says:“Children who are slow learners often feel embarrassed aboutasking questions in class and so they stop coming to school.Truancy has stopped being a problem since we deployed the solution because I don’t have to disrupt the rest of class or callattention to the slowest learners.”

Students are also more excited and motivated about school be-cause it is a place where they are discovering a world that holdsmore possibilities than they previously imagined. Sekese says: “It’samazing to see how much the students can learn when they haveaccess to things that can help and inspire them. With the nativeplant project we saw that we could motivate and engage pupilswith just a few resources. We can do a lot with an affordable, smallsolution, and that’s why working with Dell is so important to us.”

Students are now motivated to study and train for careers following online research and collaboration. As part of her cur-riculum, Sekese has created numerous research projects thatrequire students to collaborate and share their work with theirpeers, as well as online with students in other countries. Collab-oration with a school in Norway, for example, involves the stu-dents communicating what life is like in Lesotho through blogsand comparing this to the students’ lives in Norway. Studentsuse their observations of their own lives and research topics thatthey are not so aware of, such as local events. This increases theirunderstanding of their country and the world at large.

Sekese says: “One consequence of the students’ internet research and collaboration is that they’ve discovered careersthey want to follow. For example, some want to be police-women or policemen to help reduce crime in the country. Others have decided they want to be self-employed and opentheir own motels to support tourism in their country. There’s so much that the students know about now that they wouldn’thave had the opportunity to find out about before – this isthanks to the this solution. By providing them with technology,we’re maximising their potential as human beings.”

Since implementing the technology solution, Mamoeketsi stu-dents are top out of 700 schools for English exam results. All cur-riculum subjects in Lesotho are taught in English. In addition tocompleting coursework in English, students are required to takean English language exam before they can register with a second-ary school. As Sekese marked the students’ coursework and readtheir online blogs for the Norwegian students, she noticed thattheir fluency was increasing quickly. She says: “Our English exami-nation results were the highest out of 700 schools in Lesotho afterour students had been using the Dell solution to collaborate withNorway. When the students had to register with a secondaryschool they also found it easy to communicate effectively with administrators, making it easier to secure their place in a school.”

“There’s no doubt in my mind that technology enhances learningand life. Our results and progress with Dell and Microsoft are proofof what you can accomplish with affordable technology,” Sekese says.

David Angwin is director of global field and channel marketing for Dell | Cloud Client Computing

Technology Enhances Learning and Life


SURVEY RESPONDENTS AND THEIR USE OF DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES DAVID ANGWIN

David Angwin


CONSTRAINTS, FAILURE AND CHANGE FINANCES, HARDWARE AND BANDWIDTH ARE TOP CONSTRAINTS

Some of the primary objectives of the survey and report areto uncover the challenges faced by respondents, to engagerealistically with failures that they have experienced and to

build an understanding of the anticipated changes that willinfluence the use of digital technologies, with the aim of im-proving learning and teaching in Africa over the coming years.

3. Constraints, Failure and Change

3.1 Finances, Hardware and Bandwidth are Top Constraints

Respondents were asked to identify thechallenges they face when using digitaltechnologies for learning in the Africancountry where they work. The lack offinancial resources, appropriate hard-ware and training, along with limitedelectricity and bandwidth constraints,were reported to be the biggest chal-lenges faced.

The lack of financial resources wasthe most significant reported con-straint. This is linked to the expressedfrustration of respondents regardingthe lack of resources available to pur-chase hardware, pay for software andweb services, train personnel, imple-ment programmes and maintain infra-structure.

The majority of respondents work inpublic organisations and many of thesedirected their frustrations at the lackof available government funding, bothhistorical and as a result of the morerecent international economic down-

of a local bank to provide credit fortheir organisation: ‘The reason for lackof financial resources has been the inability of the local banks to providemy organisation with a loan.’

The second most frequently cited con-straint in the effective use of technolo-gies to enhance learning was the lackof appropriate hardware. Within thiscategory, the dominant themes wererespondents’ reflections on the limitedaccess to computers, laptops and dig-ital projectors within their respectiveorganisations. One example of this isa male respondent working in a government-supported organisation inMauritius who highlighted the lack ofoverall access by stating that 'only 34%of the population own a computer'.Similarly, a government employee inZambia expressed that they experiencea ‘lack of enough laptops/desktops anddigital projectors’. Speaking from aninstitutional context, a training man-ager at a university in Zimbabwe mentioned that ‘a number of staff donot have personal computers that theycould use in accessing the Internet andprogrammes that could enhance learning’.

The third most common category ofresponse related to bandwidth con-straints. Once again, the majority ofrespondents identified the financialcost of adequate network connectionsas the primary prohibitive factor. Othershighlighted the significant bandwidthdisparities between urban and rural

turn. One male respondent, workingfor the government in Liberia, explainedthe challenging, long-term constraintsthat they are facing: ‘As an emergingcountry coming out of crisis for over14 years, our resources were depleted,thus creating the problem of financialscarcity. The brain drain in Liberia iscausing the lack of quality educational

content because there are no special-ities or specialists in the country thatcan guide the learning experiences ofthose desirous of learning … we lackfinancial resources to achieve our objectives.’ Another male respondentworking in TVET in a government-sup-ported organisation in Tanzania notedthat the biggest constraint was simplythe ‘dependence on budgetary alloca-tion from the central government’.

However, in contrast, one respondentworking in a privately-owned organi-sation in Ghana identified the key constraint as being the limited ability

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

54%Lack of financial resources

Lack of appropriate hardware

Bandwidth constraints

Lack of political will

Limited electricity

Lack of appropriate training

Other

Top Constraints to the Use of Digital Technologies for Learning

43%

38%

37%

31%

50%

40%


CONSTRAINTS, FAILURE AND CHANGE JENNY KING

areas, both in regard to cost and capacity. This is exemplified by a respon-dent from Kenya working in informaleducation who explained that, in ruralregions of the country, ‘poor connec-tivity makes it hard to make a vast impact – there is slow and unreliableInternet connection which at times is

owned organisation in Uganda: ‘Wherethe Internet is, bandwidth makes it im-possible to have meaningful interactionwith the product. Where bandwidth isreliable and available, schools cannotafford to pay for it.’

expensive to maintain’. Others said thatthe bandwidth available across theircountries was inadequate for effectivelysupporting interactive usage, streamingof video or for other common eLearn-ing practices. This category of con-straint is well summarised by a malerespondent working at a privately-

What constitutes good connectivity? The answers to this ques-tion seem to be related to personal experience: dial-up usersthink that every other option is great, whereas ADSL users wantcheaper, faster upload and download speeds. So we need tostart with the premise that good connectivity is subject to theindividual user's experience, and this is by no measure an observation unique to South Africa.

The areas that need to be urgently addressed are those in ruraland under-serviced locations where adequate infrastructure isnot available. Access to information is vitally important inmany sectors, but the one that is relevant to this discussion iseducation.

Looking for ways to overcome the difficulties posed by lack ofconnectivity infrastructure, we have chosen to become involvedin a TV white space trial. We hope to find answers to addressmany of the questions about distance, upload and downloadspeeds, latency, bandwidth regulation and the potential impacton other users of the spectrum. The trial went live on the 25thMarch, 2013, enabling me to share what we have learnt so far, ina fairly generalised way.

Firstly, what is TV white space? Put simply, it is the unusedchannels in the broadcast TV spectrum. New radio and data-base technologies allow that spectrum to be used to transmitwireless Internet over distances of up to ten kilometres. As aresult, white spaces can be used to deploy broadband accessand other mobile data technologies. This technology is impor-tant as it has the potential to overcome the problem of dis-tance where there is a lack of infrastructure.

We chose to use schools to trial the TV white space technology,this being partly due to the e-Schools' Network's relationshipwith the schools and partly because we know schools will useall the capacity that is available to them. The schools that weselected currently use connectivity in fairly broad ways. Thegoal of this trial is not to measure the existing ICT interven-

tions in the schools but rather the faster, more stable connec-tivity over greater distances.

As the trial is still in its early stages, we have yet to record anyimpact on teaching methods. However, I expect that Bring YourOwn Device (BYOD)-based practices will slowly be utilised dur-ing the lessons. Mobile phones will come into the classroomand their importance cannot be underestimated. As a result ofthe increase of devices in classrooms, providers of content willhave to rethink the way that the content is delivered.

The success of the South African trial can be attributed to theIndependent Communications Authority of South Africa(ICASA) supporting the trial right from the start. It has beenvital to have the right people in place, including a professionalproject manager, committed financial backer, members of thewireless fraternity, support structures at school level and com-panies that were prepared to specially build radio devices andsoftware for these devices. A further crucial stage is the evalu-ation and reporting that will take place and the cooperation ofall the partners – Google, CSIR Meraka, TENET, WAPA, ComsolWireless Solutions and the e-Schools' Network – workingclosely to ensure a successful outcome.

Let me briefly discuss some of the limitations we are facingwith this, one of the first African trials. The new hardware andsoftware had to be specially manufactured for the trial as thereare currently no off-the-shelf solutions. Each of these deviceshad to be programmed to communicate with each other and afair amount of troubleshooting was needed. This also meansthat at this stage there are no pricing models, as the equip-ment used is not commercially available. In addition, thisbroadcasting spectrum has yet to be regulated, so the cost ofusing white spaces in this way is currently unknown and willlikely be influenced by license agreements and regulations.However, our trial will provide essential data for ICASA to regu-late this bandwidth appropriately. A further point to mention isthat all staff had to be trained on using the software and

Harnessing TV White Spaces for LearningJenny King



Following bandwidth constraints, thefourth category of response was thatthe lack of political will is the topconstraint. Within this group, respon-dents articulated frustration with theirown governments and often expressedconcern that their respective countrieswere lagging behind the rest of Africaor the rest of the world. For some, political will was viewed as the overar-ching issue that triggers all other important constraints. This was demon-strated by the respondent fromCameroon working in TVET whostated: ‘Political will is the main con-straint … education and everythingthat goes with it depends on govern-ment … for a successful introductionto ICT education, the willingness of thestate must be accompanied by a majorinvestment in both hardware acquisi-tion that supplies connection, electricityand construction of appropriate facili-ties, and in the training of supportstaff’. Additionally, a respondent fromTogo, working in the private sectoracross all levels of education illustratedthe way in which the lack of politicalwill impacts everything else: ‘Sincethere is lack of political will from thedecision-makers of the country, the

political will is there but the implemen-tation is poor’ and a female respondentworking across all education levels inCape Verde who noted that ‘CapeVerde is a country with strong politicaland human resources capacities, wejust need financial resources’.

The fifth category of responses identi-fied the limited availability of elec-tricity as the most significant con-straint. For this group, power was often

acquisition of necessary hardware andsoftware to support the learning andteaching is still overpriced for the com-munity … this leads to a lack of equip-ment for educational institutions andtraining’. However, it is important tonote that not all respondents consid-ered the lack of political will to be amajor constraint. Some actively statedthe opposite, as exemplified by a malerespondent from Zambia working forthe government, who argued that ‘the

devices. Although there was no problem with staff developingnew skills, this required a significant investment of time.

In our setup we have three base stations and ten specially chosenschools. The schools were selected by a rigorous process: theyhad to be within a 10km radius of the base station and neededto have technology champions in the school as well as the enthusiastic support of their principals. Starting with a short-list of twenty, we whittled these down to ten final trial schools.The three base stations are located at the Stellenbosch MedicalFaculty building at Tygerberg hospital and use different 8MHzchannels to avoid interference.

To date the trial has shown that the signal has the capacity todeliver non-line of sight connectivity (although line of sight remains preferable). Speed tests have achieved downloadspeeds of 8Mbps (megabits per second) and upload speeds of2Mbps. At this point, I am liaising with the schools on a

monthly basis to gather feedback from staff, and CSIR Merakawill perform spectrum field measurements.

With connectivity available across the entire country, learninganytime, anywhere could truly become feasible. It will enablechildren anywhere in the country to log on whenever they wantto and receive lessons online, from a centralised hub of teach-ers. So no matter where the teacher is, or the child, educationcan be delivered to them. Lessons could be streamed from oneschool classroom to another, no matter what the location. Thismeans a child in a deep rural school wanting to take a subjectthat is not offered by the local school can participate and willhave every chance of doing as well as a child in the middle ofthe city. Equal education for all.

Jenny King is Executive Director of eSchools Network, an NGO servicing the IT needs of schools in South Africa

Photo: Glory Ibrahim, Tanzania, “Integrating ICT into medical education”



described as unreliable rather than entirely absent. Significant challengeswere the regular power cuts due tonational utility shortages and the erraticoutages due to failing transmission infrastructure. The constraint was sim-ply articulated by an NGO worker inTanzania: ‘You may acquire technologybut if you do not have power you can-not operate any equipment given’. Onerespondent working for a private organisation in the schools sector inUganda argued that it is the lack of reliable electricity that stops people investing in technology: ‘Electricity inUganda is so unreliable that people arenot eager to spend on technology-related ventures’. Similarly, in Nigeria,a respondent working in higher edu-cation noted that ‘in Nigeria, electricityis so unreliable that the talk of usingtechnology sounds unrealistic to man:,even if the instructor has some reason-able access to electricity, learners whoare the end users and targets of thetechnology adoption are unlikely tohave power … this creates frustrationand discourages many from trying’. A

supported organisation in higher edu-cation, went further in criticising theapproach taken in providing trainingin ICT for learning, stating that ‘thereis no provision by the government totrain the people’ and suggesting thateven when provision is made, politicsinterferes and resources are misdi-rected’. Particular issues highlighted in-cluded the lack of training programmesthat are adapted for the technologiesavailable and the local realities andneeds, alongside a significant mismatchof training and employment opportu-nities. Finally, the consequences of astark rural-urban disparity were iden-tified again as a major constraint in ref-erence to teacher training. A femalerespondent working in Zambia in theschool sector explained that ‘teachingis looked down upon as being low pay-ing and therefore the teachers trainedat universities or teaching colleges aresaturated in urban areas, leaving ruralareas to have to make do with volun-teer teachers who are not always qual-ified enough to do the job’.

male respondent working in the privatesector in higher education in Nigeriabegan by stating that ‘limited electricityor lack of it at all is a major challenge’but, in contrast to others who critiquedthe government, he went on to notethat ‘the Nigerian government is work-ing really hard to solve this problembecause it is one that has really affectedevery aspect of the economy’.

The final category of responses focusedon the lack of appropriate trainingor re-training of staff as the biggestconstraint to the effective use of tech-nologies. A lack of initial or continuingteacher training both in the basic useand pedagogical integration of tech-nologies was the most widely citedchallenge. Regarding the quality oftraining, the limited appropriateness ofthe training eventually delivered to stu-dents was repeatedly referred to, asexemplified by the Nigerian NGOworker who simply highlighted the‘lack of appropriate training’ as the keyconstraint. Another respondent fromNigeria, working in a government-

Photo: Jonathan Kalan, Kenya, “Bringing Mogadishu online”

During the last decade a team of researchers interviewed executives in thousands of firms in twenty countries, includinghospitals and schools, about the quality of management inthese organisations – the most comprehensive such researchever undertaken. The researchers found that, when they sortedthe twenty countries by levels of affluence (gross domesticproduct per person), the two rankings – quality of managementand affluence – matched exactly (Figure 1, Bloom et al, 2012).

In other words, there is a clear relationship between averagequality of management in a country and the poverty or prosperity of its population.

Of course, correlation does not necessarily mean causation.Fortunately, the same research team ran a randomised man-agement experiment on 28 large textile plants in India. Thefirms with the large improvements in management also sawlarge causal improvements in productivity. The research sug-gests that continuing such improvements over 20 years wouldgenerate five additional percentage points to India’s annualeconomic growth – a momentous improvement over currentperformance (Bloom, Eifert et al.).

In Africa, where according to the African Management Initia-tive there is only one business school for every 10 million people, there is a drastic shortage of the management talentneeded to make these kinds of gains. Not just industry, butsectors such as health, education, agriculture, infrastructure,

even tourism, lag behind because there aren’t enough peoplewith the management skills necessary to build companies anddeliver services effectively. And on a continent where jobs inthe formal economy are often scarce, having the skills to run asuccessful small business can be a major factor in many peo-ple’s ability to feed their families.

All of this points to an acute need for more and better manage-ment education throughout Africa. However, the traditional

model in developed countries, where it requiresUS$50,000 annually to come to a campus and listento lectures for 15 hours a week, is both impracticaland uncompetitive.

In Africa, and across the globe, emerging technolo-gies and rapidly expanding access to them will havean enormous impact on generating efficiencies tobring down the now prohibitive costs of managementeducation. New technologies will go well beyondsimply delivering content in new ways and may ultimately lead to a complete reorganisation and refocusing of educational institutions everywhere.

One way to conceptualise ongoing changes is thatthe traditional structure, in which universities (including business schools) supplied the entire valuechain from knowledge-generation to course delivery,is breaking down. Instead, specialised players areemerging. Knowledge generation is very costly, andonly well-endowed schools or schools that have access to sufficient public funds can afford that

‘stage of production’. Business schools are becoming ‘peda-gogic engineers’ whose role it is to adapt knowledge that isgenerated elsewhere to local needs. Soon faculties will be lecturing less and tutoring more, along the lines of the ‘flippedclassroom’ model in which students are assigned videos andonline materials for their homework, and come to class in orderto discuss what they saw with their teachers.

The bigger question for Africa is how educators, industry, devel-opment agencies and other stakeholders can work together tore-imagine the development and delivery of management edu-cation in light of the technological advances and economic real-ities of the modern age. With these disruptive forces at work, it may be possible as never before to make management education accessible, affordable and relevant to millions ofAfricans across the continent.

Guy Pfeffermann is the CEO of the Global Business School Network, a non-profitorganisation with a mission to improve management education for the

developing world, which he founded in 2003 when he was serving as the ChiefEconomist of the International Finance Corporation at the World Bank.

New Models of Management Education for Africa

Guy Pfeffermann


CONSTRAINTS, FAILURE AND CHANGE GUY PFEFFERMANN

Figure 1: Management Practice Scores (in Manufacturing) Vary by Country, but are Strongly Linked to Level of Development

Note: Averages taken across all firms within each country. 9079 observations in total.

2.6 2.8 3 3.2 3.4management

USJapan

GermanySwedenCanada

AustraliaUK

ItalyFrance

New ZealandMexicoPoland

Republic of IrelandPortugal

ChileArgentina

GreeceBrazilChinaIndia

Management and Development


CONSTRAINTS, FAILURE AND CHANGE ALMOST HALF HAVE EXPERIENCED FAILURE

The eLearning Africa conference hassought to give increasing attention tothe conversation around failed exper-iments and experiences in the use ofdigital technologies to support learningin Africa. The 'Fail Faire' at eLearningAfrica 2012 encouraged conferenceparticipants to provide honest, trans-parent accounts of situations wherethey have experienced failures. AteLearning Africa 2013, the conversa-tion focuses on the embrace of failureand the importance of learning lessonsfrom mistakes. The focal point for thisis a session entitled Kushindwa Bazaar(kushindwa means ‘failure’ in Kiswahili).In contributing to this focus at the con-ference, the survey also asked respon-dents to reflect on and assess their ownexperiences of failure.

Among the respondents to the survey,49% identified that they have experi-enced failure in their use of technologyto support learning. Another 21%

experienced failures, the most commonresponses were hardware malfunc-tions, power outages, intermittent Internet connectivity, and inadequatebandwidth. ‘Softer’ failures were alsoreported within institutions, as remarkedby a male respondent working inhigher education in Zambia: ‘it is diffi-cult to find champions in certain areaswho will move things, sometimes thereis a lack of political will where majordecisions are required – this makes itvery difficult for things to happen’. Sim-ilarly, a training manager working inKenya noted that their failure waslinked to the fact that ‘there was noreal commitment by managers to sup-port participants. Career and talentmanagement does very often not exist,besides basic HRD’. Similarly, a manfrom South Africa working in a pri-vately-owned organisation in highereducation expressed his belief that fail-ure is linked to the way ‘eLearning requires committed and consistent sup-

indicated they had not experienced fail-ure and 21% said that the questionwas not applicable to them.

For those who indicated that they had

3.2 Almost Half Have Experienced Failure

Combined answers to the survey question: What are the nature of the failures you haveexperienced when using technologies to support learning?

Yes, I have experienced failure ............49%

No, I have not experienced failure......21%

I don’t know............................................9%

N/A.........................................................21%

Have respondents experiencedany failures in using technologies

to support learning?


CONSTRAINTS, FAILURE AND CHANGE ALMOST HALF HAVE EXPERIENCED FAILURE

port and nurturing - it is a living thing.Developing a platform and hostingstatic content without any form of interaction, feedback or communica-tion is not effective.’

The majority of reasons given for thefailures experienced were linked to net-works and infrastructure, especially alack of sufficient initial investment inthe network, limited policy to overseethe use and development of the net-work and a lack of technical trainingfor those responsible for its mainte-nance. An executive manager at aNigerian university suggested that serv-ice outages occurred ‘due to the factthat the technology is not home-grown’. More generally, several respon-dents attributed the failures to the reluctance of educators to adapt andadopt new methods for using tech-nologies in their teaching.

Respondents were also asked to pro-pose changes or solutions to the fail-ures that they had encountered. Therewas a wide range of innovative ideasproposed by survey respondents basedon their experiences, with many recog-nising that their endeavours wouldlikely have been more successful ifbandwidth and electricity were pro-vided where previously they had beenlacking, if financial support had beensustained, if teacher training had beenprioritised and if there had been betterleadership, policies and planning inplace around the effective use of tech-nologies to support learning.

Several respondents emphasised theway in which their programmes couldhave been made more effective by reg-ularly improving and upgrading thenecessary infrastructure for technologyto be used in education. This was exemplified by a male respondentworking in higher education in Zambiawho advised ‘investing in backuppower supplies such as generators anddedicated power lines’ and to ‘upgradehardware every two to three years’. Afemale academic from South Africa

respondent from Tanzania working foran NGO at the school level argued thatmost of the failures encountered aredue to corruption, combined with alack of commitment. He suggested thatthe important lessons they had learnedare the importance of promoting trans-parency and ‘enhanced policy advocacytargeting all stakeholders including par-liamentarians in demystifying ICTs foreducation and strategic alliances withinternational partners’.

Finally, it was encouraging to note sev-eral responses where respondents emphasised the way in which they havelearnt from their failures and thenadapted their approach accordingly.One female respondent working in anNGO in South Africa explained thatpreviously they had provided ‘too littleongoing support … and training thatwas too broad and not directly useful’but that now their ‘approach to train-ing has changed radically to focusingon a cumulative, relevant, ongoingmodel of training, based specifically onthe needs of the individual teacher andthe school’. eLearning Africa is com-mitted to promoting such a culture ofreflective, collaborative and positivelearning from failure in order to improve practice.

choose to explain why this lack of investment is such a frequently encoun-tered limitation, stating that ‘no-onelikes to fund the boring enabling infrastructure’.

Others expressed that their biggest les-sons concerned the need for planning,strategy and commitment. A male respondent working in a privately-owned organisation in South Africa explained that the reason for their fail-ure was the ‘limited support from sen-ior management as well as a misun-derstanding of what eLearning requiresto be successful’ and that the key les-son learned is the need for ‘a clear,long-term strategy and aim of what isto be achieved using eLearning, as wellas committed financial and organisa-tional resources’. With a similar emphasis, a government worker work-ing in higher education in Swazilandtold of how they had learned the importance of ‘institutional practicebased on policy’ rather than simply depending on the ‘individual interest’of staff. He suggested that his institu-tion ‘needs a clear policy on the use oftechnologies to support learning as abase to the efforts it makes in acquiringthese technologies’ and highlightedthe importance of rewarding staff formaking use of technologies. Again, a

Photo: Hija Salehe, Tanzania, “Urban farmers: Solutions through cell phones”

Please tell us about your personal journey: what was yourmost influential formative educational experience as youwere growing up? I have always loved to read. aA far back as I can remember, Ihave had some sort of literary fiction in my hands and this allstarted with the very first book my mother bought me, Thumbe-lina, which I started and finished right there in the store. I wasabout five years old.

Why did you find this to be so influential?This love of reading has really opened up my mind and myworld and given me a curiosity that I have found to be very useful to me as an early adopter of the Internet.

What was it that inspired you to start Shakai Media? I started blogging in 2004. Over the first three years, the blog-gers in Uganda built a great community that would meet upevery month. This was my first foray into social media so natu-rally I took to Facebook and Twitter like a fish to water and Isaw how easily social media could be leveraged as a means to a wider audience.

Honestly, a lot of it was selfish. I wanted to be able to engagewith the Ugandan brands that I was using and I was disheart-ened by how few of them were online. I decided to start ShakaiMedia to help them figure out how to use these tools that werealready there to allow them to talk to people like me.

Please tell us how you influenced Shakai Media since itwas started?Seeing as I started it, that would be the first way I influenced it.To date, I have been in charge of the business end of things butI am still able to pitch in on the creative side.

Can you give us an example of the challenges you havefaced in the process of initiating Shakai Media and howdid you overcome them?The biggest challenge would have to be slow adaptation. Eventhough using social media is a relatively inexpensive way tokeep in touch with an audience, the public was slow to gainawareness. This has changed drastically since I started thebusiness. There are a lot more companies offering the sameservice now in the Ugandan market and even more have addedit as a department in itself. This has led us to concentrate moreon the SMEs and get them using social media too.

How do you think technologies can best help build sustainable human development across Africa?I think that it’s important to adapt technologies to the realityon the ground. I am especially excited about technologies com-ing out of Africa, being developed by people who’ve lived theproblems they’re working to solve. A great example is

WinSenga (winsenga.wordpress.com). These young Ugandanmen modified the traditional Pinnard horn used by midwives[to measure the heart of a foetus during pregnancy] and created a Windows Phone application that reads the information it collects.

It’s important to avoid simply transplanting technologies thathave worked in one place and thinking they’ll apply anywherethey’re introduced.

What do you think is the most significant change thatneeds to happen in order to tackle the education andtraining challenges that Africa faces?Speaking as a Ugandan who grew up and went to school here, Ithink there needs to be a major paradigm shift. Our educationsystem is not training people for the jobs they’ll realisticallyhave or the jobs that are even available. A lot of emphasis isplaced on white collar professions at the expense of all others.In turn this breeds a sort of resentment for any jobs that aren’tin the corporate sector.

The streets are full of recent and not-so recent graduates looking for jobs that just aren’t there. A spirit of entrepreneur-ship is lacking in a lot of them and some of the blame for thisgoes back to the schooling system. The tide is slowly starting to turn and I hope that in my lifetime, I will see some significant changes.

What do you consider to be the most transformative, innovative and exciting initiative currently taking place in technologies and education, skills development andlifelong learning and training in Africa?I am following closely the progress of Fundi Bots (fundibots.com)here in Uganda. Fundi Bots is working to introduce students to,and get them excited about, electronics and especially robotics.It has already won a Google RISE grant and I can’t wait to see thescientists it produces. It holds sessions at schools across thecountry and it really is something to see the joy on the kids’ faceswhen they make something they’ve built move!

What is the most significant lesson or piece of advice you would share with others seeking to follow in your footsteps?Don’t be afraid to fail. That is the most important thing I havelearned. All my failures haven’t been total because there’s always something to take away from your mistakes.

Looking forward to the next five years, what do you see on thehorizon in terms of influential changes, transitions, technolo-gies and trends that will affect the integration of educationaltechnologies in education, skills development and the lifelonglearning landscape in Africa?

"Don't Be Afraid to Fail"

An Interview with Darlyne Komukama, Founder of Shakai Media


CONSTRAINTS, FAILURE AND CHANGE AN INTERVIEW WITH DARLYNE KOMUKAMA, FOUNDER OF SHAKAI MEDIA

When respondents were asked whatthe most significant changes with usinglearning technologies will be over thenext five years, social media, mobiletechnologies, increased bandwidth,MOOCs and policy implementationeach featured prominently.

A sense of inevitability about the increasing influence of mobility on education is evident from the commentof a manager from an association inKenya who noted: ‘Mobile technolo-gies continue to penetrate larger areasand therefore the reach will definitelyincrease education levels in one wayor another.’ Similarly, a governmentworker from Tanzania anticipated that‘more and more people will be able toaccess information through hand helddevices’.

A respondent from Uganda workingin higher education attributed thegrowth in use of mobile technologies

increase in the use of mobile technolo-gies and connectivity: ‘As more peoplehave access to mobile technologies,demand for faster and more efficientconnectivity will force service providersto improve their connectivity’. This isreflected in the RIA report that recog-nises the way in which the emergenceof Internet-enabled mobile phones andlower bandwidth adaptations of appli-cations, particularly social media, aredriving the rapid diffusion of mobileInternet. This sentiment is expressedagain by a government worker fromGhana who commented on the emer-gence of Internet-enabled phones andthe growth in smart phone access: ‘Alot of students and teachers and thegeneral public have access to smartphones with all the applications thatenable them to learn’.

to the competition that has arisen asa result of the rapid expansion of mobile technology companies: ‘The increased number of mobile companiesin African has opened a wider oppor-tunity for almost the majority to haveaccess to and own mobile phones. This

creates low calling rates due to thehigh competition among the telecom-munication companies’. These senti-ments resonate with views expressedin a research report by Research ICTAfrica (RIA, 2012), which states thatmobile phone ownership in mostAfrican countries is higher than the40% threshold in voice networks whichare believed to trigger the network effects associated with economicgrowth. It is expected that there willbe one billion mobile subscribers inAfrica by 2015 (Ventureburn, 2013).

A Zambian secondary school teacherhighlighted the link between an


CONSTRAINTS, FAILURE AND CHANGE CHANGES TO EXPECT IN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS

3.3 Changes to Expect in the Next Five Years

0 5 10 15 20

18%Mobile technologies

Social media

Increased bandwidth

Rise of MOOCs

Policy implementation

What will be the top changes in the use of learning technologiesover the next five years

13%

9%

9%

12%

Already, mobile has proved itself formidable on the Africanmarket. I see this growing even more over the next five years.Access to affordable smart phones will increase the number ofAfrican apps in the marketplace and I can’t wait for some ofthese innovations.

What will Shakai Media contribute to Africa's human development over the next five years?We will continue to get as many people on to social media aswe can. As Tim Burners Lee said at a TEDX event that happenedin Kampala, and I am paraphrasing, the most important thingis to get the content on the Internet. The more information wehave, the more we’ll be able to do with it. Shakai Media willcontinue to do its small part in helping this happen.

Photo: Felix Warom Okello, Uganda, “Communication opportunities have made life easier for rural residents”



Similarly, when asked to name the mostsignificant change that can tackleAfrica's education and training chal-lenges, a Namibian practitioner statedthe following in an interview:

which sees over 6,000km of fibre-opticmesh throughout the territory, in orderto facilitate broadband access to allsections of the population’.

With reference to the rise of MOOCsas a significant change over the nextfive years, respondents demonstratetheir optimism that MOOCs may offera significant opportunity to expand access to higher education across theContinent. Several respondents expressed the belief that MOOCs openup the prospect of achieving ‘educationfor all’. A respondent working in highereducation in Swaziland explained that’Institutions of higher learning will increase [their] intake since access tothem will improve with the learningtechnologies’. Others noted that manystudents and lecturers are already mak-ing significant use of online materials,perhaps suggesting a flexible definitionregarding what respondents considerto constitute a MOOC. Much of thediscussion on the potential of MOOCsto transform higher education has focused on the role of open coursesfrom elite international universities.eLearning Africa 2013 contributes tothis conversation based on the experi-ences of OERs, open learning andMOOCs in different African contexts.

Commenting on the rise of social media, a Kenyan respondent workingin the private sector stated the beliefthat ‘social media is becoming like adigital version of you and if you do nothave a social media account you simplyare non-existent.’

These views on social media also res-onate with trends identified in popularliterature related to the rise of socialmedia, the mobile Internet and increased bandwidth. A recent reportby Deloitte and GSMA (2012) suggeststhat in 2012 there were an estimated22.9 million Facebook users in Africa,the vast majority of whom access thesite from their mobile devices. The RIAstudy also found that in most of theeleven African countries which theyanalysed, using the mobile phone forsocial networking applications (such asFacebook) is more common than usingit for reading and writing emails, indi-cating a potential substitution effectof the email with social networkingplatforms.

Among comments on the prospect ofincreased bandwidth over the next fiveyears, respondents identified the influ-ence of fibre-optic cables and nationalprogrammes on expanding bandwidthaccess. One respondent from Coted'Ivoire said that the country ‘is cur-rently undertaking a large project

"Given the rapid evolution of diverse forms of assistive

technologies, and concomitantdevolution of unit cost, the onlysignificant change required is

the provision of universal accessto free, high-speed broadband

Internet, with the inherent implication that all educational

centres will have the infrastructure and electrificationto do so. What is a reasonable

bandwidth benchmark forAfrican schools? Most ICT4Especialists believe that the definition of 'high-speed'

broadband for schools shouldbe at least 10 Mbps, with many

countries having already setgoals of at least 100 Mbps,

even 10 Gbps, in the foreseeable future."

Photo: Yves Cedric Ntsama, Cameroon, “Having fun with eLearning and multimedia educational games”

There has been a growing buzz about the concepts of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses(MOOCs) and how they will transform education around theworld. OER has been the subject of increased attention globally,with many donor-funded projects (most often led by universi-ties) providing space to experiment with different models ofopenness and research the educational effect that these mighthave. More recently, governments and inter-governmental organisations around the world have begun to examine the educational potential of OER and open licensing more closely.Likewise, MOOCs have mushroomed, often implemented withor by some of the world’s leading universities. Accompanyingthese has been a plethora of analyses of the MOOC model andits likely effect on education in the long term.1

Coined at a UNESCO Conference in 2002, OER is a simple legalconcept: it describes any educational resources that are openlyavailable for use by anyone, without an accompanying need topay royalties or licence fees. Different options are emergingthat can be used to define how OER are licensed for use, someof which simply allow copying and others that make provisionsfor users to adapt the resources that they use. The best knownof these are the Creative Commons licences (creativecom-mons.org). Unlike OER, the concept of the MOOC does not, bydefinition, imply open licensing; indeed, many MOOCs are notopenly licensed.

Two studies in which I participated in 2012 provided clear evi-dence of the growing interest in MOOCs and OER. First, a surveyon OER Policies conducted by the Commonwealth of Learning(COL) collected several examples of government policies onOER and open licensing. More importantly, research that we didfor COL on the business case for OER provided clear evidence ofgrowth in OER activities extending beyond the realm of fundedprojects, with governments particularly showing an interest inthe economic potential of using open textbooks to reduce thecost of procuring materials for schooling. Likewise, universitiesare showing growing interest in harnessing OER for differentpurposes, not least of which has been to explore alternativemodels of accreditation in the face of growing pressure to ex-pand access to higher education (a similar driver behind manyMOOC initiatives). In the business case research, we found fourareas in which emerging data demonstrates actual or potentialeconomic gains to be had from harnessing OER.

1. Harnessing OER in the creation of new, contextually relevantcourses. A case study from Guyana demonstrates power-fully, if only anecdotally, the significant cost reductions thatthis approach can yield.

2. Applying open licences in the textbook market. The economics of the textbook market, especially in places

where economies of scale are readily applied, indicateclearly that significant efficiency gains can be attained byshifting to open licences. This approach is accompanied byclear evidence from around the world that governments areincreasingly understanding its potential and starting to shift decisively towards such models.

3. Releasing research under open licences. Although not OERper se, research is a critical resource requirement for effec-tive education, particularly at the higher education level.Harnessing OER to create alternative accreditation pricingmodels [which includes the MOOC experiments]. This workis still in its infancy and thus there is no concrete data todemonstrate actual economic gains, but it will be interest-ing to monitor progress in this area over the next few years.

On the face of it, these trends hold great potential in Africancountries, where finances are generally scarce and openly licensed resources offer the possibility of providing cheaper access to high quality educational and research materials foruse in both schools and universities.

However, these developments leave me feeling uneasy. I see inthe growth of open textbooks and MOOCs a replication of mod-els of education that are no longer meeting the needs of our so-cieties. It is true that open textbooks may help to drive downthe cost of delivering textbooks to schools, but they are stilllargely driven by an assumption that the underlying curriculumand classroom-based organisational models, with defined rolesand responsibilities for teachers to ‘teach the content’, arewhat will best prepare young people for their subsequent entryinto society and further education. Likewise, the vast majorityof MOOCs seem to emulate the logic and structure of tradi-tional university courses. Sadly, many MOOCs also appear notto be open at all, despite their marketing claims to the con-trary. These new models are now predominantly old educa-tional ideas, repackaged: old wine in new skins.

At the moment, we are primarily harnessing the innovation ofOER to reproduce content-heavy, top-down models of educationthat were developed hundreds of years ago to meet the needsof societies in the aftermath of the industrial revolution, mod-els in which the student is still primarily a passive ‘consumer’of educational content whose main task is to complete stan-dardised assessment tasks in order to receive accreditation.Open textbooks tend to reinforce these models rather than allowing a fundamental reconfiguration of the interaction between educators and students.

Thus, the urgent imperative – and the real transformative potential of OER and MOOCs – is to evolve new systems of edu-cation that can help our societies, and especially our youth, to

OERs and MOOCs: Old Wine in New Skins?

Neil Butcher


CONSTRAINTS, FAILURE AND CHANGE NEIL BUTCHER



An interview respondent from Namibiaalso articulated a host of changes thatcombine to enable an emerging tech-nology and learning architecture:

It is of particular interest to note thenumber of respondents who considernational policy implementation andchanging attitudes and awareness assignificant changes that will emerge inthe next five years. This reflects a clearexpectation that government will play

Africa working in the private sectorsaid that: ‘The development of appro-priate national policy will provide theframework to drive ICT transformationand its use for sustainable develop-ment’. Another respondent from Zim-babwe working in higher educationclearly expresses frustration with thecurrent situation and their hope that anational policy will be adopted and implemented: ‘Current efforts and initiatives on the use of learning tech-nologies in Zimbabwe are haphazardand uncoordinated. A national policythat is carefully drafted and properlyimplemented can help coordinate allthese efforts’. Another respondentworking in higher education, this timein Nigeria, expressed a similar hope inthe consequences of policy formation:‘The ICT policy will make it compulsoryfor everyone to be computer literate -now national examinations, such asthe joint admission matriculationboard, will be conducted through theuse of computer-based training’.

a central role in promoting large scaleaccess to digital technologies in supportof learning. Many of these respondentsexpressed their hope that if national

government adopts a national policythen implementation of digital tech-nologies in learning on a large scalewill follow naturally. When asked toprovide reasons for believing these tobe significant changes in the comingyears, one respondent from South

navigate their way through a world in which the disruptionwreaked by information and communication technologies requires a completely new approach to knowledge, skills andcompetence. Continuous and ever-present access to open content and open courses offers us the opportunity to rethinkthe basis on which we organise the educational experiences ofboth school and university students.

In doing this, we have the opportunity to overhaul resource use(especially the use of our human resources) and the nature ofteacher-student interaction so that students can develop keyattributes required for success in the knowledge society, includ-ing higher order thinking skills, lifelong learning habits and theability to think critically, communicate and collaborate, as wellas to access, evaluate and synthesise information. To do this,we should be harnessing OER and MOOCs to liberate the timeof educators so that they can focus on providing more meaning-ful support to students.

If OER and MOOCs simply replicate the models and curricula ofthe past, we will have lost a great opportunity to usher in thesecritically needed systemic changes. Thus, although we cannotknow for sure what these new models and curricula might looklike, it is a significant opportunity lost if we do not engageproactively and rapidly in working out what they might be, instead just using new technology to recreate the models wegrew up with and that are most familiar to us.

Neil Butcher is Director at Neil Butcher and Associates and OER Strategist at OER Africa, an Initiative of the Southern African Institute

for Distance Education (SAIDE)

"Even more expansion and cost-reduction of fibre-based Internetbandwidth / connectivity to and in Africa. Even more reduction in

unit-cost and energy demands of innovative, plug-and-play assistivetechnologies, with even more locally-relevant educational resourcesin the cloud. Combined with a new wave of highly mobile teachersand learners, capable of using contemporary (often bring your own)assistive technologies, comfortable with rapidly evolving social media,

news, crowdsourcing and viral marketing apps, so much better informed to make educated demands of their political leadership

for meaningful change."

1Two examples of reviews of MOOCs are referenced below, but a simple websearch yields extraordinary volume of writing on MOOCs:

• ‘Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a Maze of Myth, Paradox and Possibility‘,Sir John Daniel. Academic Partnerships. 2012. http://bit.ly/17Hnq10

• ‘MOOCs Will Come and Mostly Go Like Other Edutech Fads’, Kentaro Toyama.Educational Technology Debate. April 2013. http://bit.ly/XHsj8d


CONSTRAINTS, FAILURE AND CHANGE MOBILES ARE THE TOP CHANGE DRIVER

Respondents were asked what theyconsider to be the top drivers of changein the use of the learning technologiesin the African countries where theywork. The increased access to mobiletechnologies, the rise of social media,changing attitudes and awareness, increased bandwidth and the imple-mentation of national policy were iden-tified as the most significant issues.

When asked for the reasons behind theirchoice of significant drivers, seven coreresponses emerged from respondents:

• The rise of social media constitutesa major source of influence on education

• Increasing ownership of mobile devices and availability of mobileservices have facilitated access todigital content

• Learning practices have been greatlyinfluenced by emerging forms ofcontent delivery such as distance education, open education resourcesand MOOCs

• Increasing affordability and availabilityof bandwidth (especially mobile)have improved access

• Improvement in educational prac-tices requires proactive policy prac-tice, positive leadership and exten-sive efforts

significance of this was emphasised bya respondent from Zimbabwe workingin higher education who stated: ‘Mobile technologies, specifically mobiletelephony, due to their relatively lowcost and wider reach have enabledmany in Zimbabwe to communicateand connect to the Internet easily andcheaply’. This was echoed by a Nigerianrespondent, also working in higher education: ‘Liberalisation of telecomshas provided an opportunity for a dra-matic change in the rate of diffusionof the Internet and most people todayuse the mobile platform to get con-nected to the Internet’.

A Namibian practitioner also high-lighted the growth of mobile Free andOpen Source Software: ‘FOSS has become pervasive in ICT4D, given thedominating volume of FOSS-based mobile technologies being consumedglobally.’

These views are consistent with find-ings from popular literature whichhighlight the exponential rise of mobiletechnology access in Africa, particularlyof mobile phone subscription (GSMA2012, World Wide Worx, 2012). Research from the World Bank (2013)indicates that at present, 53% of the874 million inhabitants of sub-SaharanAfrica have a mobile phone subscription.

Despite all the optimism and energy,increased access to mobile technolo-gies, especially Internet-enabled mobilephones, does not translate into theirsystem-wide integration in formallearning and teaching in African edu-cation institutions. This is a key findingin a study by UNESCO (2011) whichargues that mobiles are currently onlybeing fully integrated with learning andteaching in a few pilot projects, someof which are showing positive learningoutcomes.

Alongside mobiles, there appears tobe rising interest from education

• Youths are an important driver ofchange: when their awareness oftechnology-mediated learning in-creases, attitudinal changes occur

• The cost of implementing policiesand deploying technology specificallyfor education and learning could undermine the growth that has beenenjoyed in the past few years.

Among these seven reasons there wasa particular emphasis on the place ofmobile technologies and social media.

Mobile Technologies

Many respondents are clear in the belief that the lower cost of handsetsenables wider reach of mobile tech-nologies which in turn is catalysingchange in learning and teaching. Thiswas expressed by respondents workingin the public sector in Kenya and Zam-bia, who stated: ’most individuals haveaccess to mobile phones and with thereduction in handset prices, most indi-viduals can access the Internet andthereby more resources from the palmof their hands’ and ‘most mobile tech-nologies are cheap and therefore read-ily available almost to all’, respectively.

A few emphasise the positive influenceof the liberalisation of telecommuni-cations and the shift towards accessingthe Internet via mobile platforms. The

3.4 Mobiles are the Top Change Driver

Increased access to mobile technologies

The rise of social media

Changing attitudes and awareness

Increased bandwidth

Implementation of national policy

What have been the top drivers of change in the use of learningtechnologies over the past five years?

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

27%

16%

10%

10%

12%


CONSTRAINTS, FAILURE AND CHANGE AN INTERVIEW WITH MARKOS LEMMA

authorities about the potential thatcomputer tablets may hold for access-ing educational resources and enhanc-ing learning and teaching in and outof the classroom, both formally and informally. Four 'African' educationtablets have reportedly already madetheir way on the education market (Coetzee, 2012). The uptake appearsto be more prevalent in private schools,with a limited number of public edu-cation institutions also exploring theiruse. In response to this current atten-tion, two dedicated sessions at theeLearning Africa 2013 conference willdiscuss experiences with tablets inclassroom practice in schools.

shows their interest and the impor-tance in using what interests them toimprove our future leaders’.

Social media is also having increasedinfluence on the way that governmentsand citizens relate to one another. Social media has been used to ‘revo-lutionise political and economic devel-opment in Africa’ (Deloitte and GSMA,2012, p.7) and as a tool for industryto engage with customers across theContinent. New social and mobilelearning initiatives such as m-profesa(www.mprofesa.com) and Mxit haveemerged as Africa’s response to 'sociallearning', and through this it has cre-ated an opportunity for platforms thatare locally relevant, large-scale and en-able learners to direct and pace theirown learning.

Social Media

Respondents highlighted the rise of social media and the potential this hasfor improving learning and growingleaders in the coming years. This wasillustrated clearly by a male respondentfrom Sudan working in TVET for a gov-ernment organisation who noted, ‘therise of social media in the last years en-abled both teachers and students toimprove their use of computers as wellas the foreign language, although at alimited level, but it was better than before’. A female respondent workingfor an NGO in Nigeria went further, ar-guing that it is important to proactivelyshape education in light of the interestthat young people have in social media:‘The ease with which African youthhave adapted to the use of social media

A number of African pioneers and entrepreneurs have ventured towards establishing technology start-up companiesand innovation hubs. The eLearning Africa Report 2013interviews Markos Lemma co-founder of iceaddis, an innovation hub based in Ethiopia

Please tell us about your personal journey: what was yourmost influential formative educational experience as youwere growing up? I never went to any particularly exceptional schools in mychildhood. I attended public schools both at primary and sec-ondary level. But the most influential formative educational experience I had was when I joined a university. I obtained aBachelor’s degree from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technol-ogy (RMIT University) through a programme of the African Virtual University (AVU), which I attended in Addis Ababa witha mixed-mode education system.

The programme incorporated standard lectures (from AddisAbaba university facilitators), VSAT live lectures from Mel-bourne, via the WebCT eLearning platform (undoubtedly the firsteLearning programme in the whole country) and different virtual

platforms. I believe this method of mixed-mode learning andteaching is very effective: it gives students unlimited possibili-ties of getting their questions answered from different places.

What was it that inspired you to start iceaddis? I am one of the co-founders of iceaddis. In the beginning, wewere asking ourselves very basic questions. “Where can theEthiopian creative youth go when they have great ideas?”,“How do people start a business with zero experience?”, “Whatcan link universities with industries?” The answers weren’t aseasy as the questions.

Previously, I was involved in private sector development projectsat the German Association for International Co-operation (GIZ),back then GTZ. We already noticed many gaps, even with export-orientated companies, in the country. Undoubtedly, the biggest inspiration came when one of the co-founders visited iHub Nairobi.We felt the dots were connected, and the answer was of course aseasy as the question. We needed open spaces, collaborative physi-cal platforms, and we need some energised people who are able todrag hands and tap backs to create something great in a coun-try where innovation and co-working are least endorsed.

"Entrepreneurship Isn't About Easy Money"

An Interview with Markos Lemma

Please tell us how you have influenced iceaddis since itwas startedCommunity management is in the foundation of the iceaddisstructure. We believe establishing new vibrant communitiesand supporting the existing tech communities are key precur-sors for start-ups to emerge. The encouragement of these com-munities creates its own competition and the desire to do andmake big things. I have been involved in tech community man-agement at iceaddis since the beginning. Tech communities inEthiopia are very vulnerable. Communities need constant follow-up, workshops, events and communications.

Can you give us an example of the challenges you havefaced whilst working at iceaddis, and how did you overcome them?One of the biggest challenges we have is the lack of real cooper-ation from the private sector, government institutes or interna-tional organisations. There is always verbal appreciation andwillingness to participate but this isn’t always done visibly.

Furthermore, recruiting creative, innovative, fast-paced andself-motivated individuals into the communities is very hard.The mindset is not there yet. There are more talkers than doers.Entrepreneurship isn’t about quick money. It is about changingthe course of services and products. This needs dedication andconsistency. We faced a lot of challenges finding such commit-ted people. This is an ongoing challenge.

Another challenge we face is the Internet infrastructure. Wedon’t want our entrepreneurs to waste one minute of their pre-cious time, but the sole Internet service provider, Ethio-tele-com, is still struggling to find its position in the Ethiopian techscene. Only one per cent of the general population is connectedto the Internet; this is very small market share for the entrepre-

neurs who are working solely in the ICT sector. Products are notconsumed, so the profits are minimal.

As a hub we can’t even afford an Internet connection of morethan 4MBps. This slows down our activities at every level. Inaddition, other infrastructures related to the Internet are stillin the infant stage. East Africa is well known for its mobilebanking, however, this has not taken hold in Ethiopia yet. Developers don’t have infrastructure to sell their product tocustomers. They cannot upload their product to either GooglePlay or the Apple Store. There are no credit card systems and no international banking services.

However, we have been developing a local app store to tacklethis problem. Once this platform is up, developers will be ableto start to sell their products to customers in Ethiopia usingSMS balance transfer. We take these challenges positively. Thereason we are up here and working is to make sure that innova-tive ideas come out of the hub to tackle such issues. We are innovation hub, not an ICU unit!

How do you think technologies can best help build sustainable human development across Africa?The answers for most of the questions we have in Africa arecritical thinking and access to technology. Usually, people thinkabout high-techs whenever they think of technology. The truthis we need to get access to technology at every level. Promotingand using technology should be widely practiced. As the famoussaying goes: “it is easier to have old problems than new solu-tions”. We need to accept new solutions. There is no magictechnology which solves all the problems we have. In reality,only few technologies work in specific situations out of thou-sands of technologies available. We need to try out, test andkeep on promoting and using these solutions.



Photo: Gereon Koch Kapuire, Namibia, “Tablet-enhanced storytelling and recording in Namibia”

Africa is famous for mobile technology and social media. If thenext big thing doesn’t come out of Africa, there will be no nextbig thing. Africa is big. My knowledge is very much limited tomy surroundings, but I believe that in every village everyoneshould work to enable access to technology and encourage people to think critically.

What do you think is the most significant change thatneeds to happen in order to tackle the education andtraining challenges that Africa faces?The first and basic change that should occur is that Africansneed to believe that if we don’t solve our problems, no one will.But I think I am too late to state this. Most Africans are alreadyaware of that. The basic change is done. Education is the keyand it all starts at the family level. Families have the highestresponsibility in raising the next generation. I believe thebiggest change should happen to tackle education and thechallenge we face in Africa is to have a tight relationship between communities and educational institutions.

The Internet infrastructure should be improved. Schools need to bemore equipped and open. I have noticed in the schools in Ethiopiathat schools are only for the students. This attitude should bechanged. Higher education should work closely with the pri-vate sector; students need to get their hands dirty. If educationis all about theories, we only need to teach people to read. Weneed to learn but also practice what we learn. I know these arebasic and elementary statements. But these are the essentials.

Education reforms and curriculum revision should be carriedout at every level. We should stop teaching, we should start educating.

What do you consider to be the most transformative, innovative and exciting initiative currently taking place in technologies and education, skills development, lifelong learning and training in Africa?I’m really excited to be part of the reading research project cur-rently running in two Ethiopian villages. This project aims totackle low literacy levels – a serious problem in Africa. The research is carried out in collaboration with OLPC, MIT and TuftsUniversity. Basically, we give tablets to the kids and check if theycan learn how to read just through using apps. The programmehas been running for one year, and the children in the project areon the cusp of being able to read. This is a very innovative andtransformative initiative going on in Africa right now.

mLearning is very transformative. There is high penetration ofmobile phones on the Continent. This is something growing atan interesting rate. There are more mobile phones in Ugandathan light bulbs and 91 per cent of South Africans own at leastone mobile phone. In Gabon, there are more mobile subscrip-tions than inhabitants.

Using mobile phones for education is not only innovative; it isalso far cheaper than traditional models. Schools don’t need toprovide mobiles as students already own them. This is a greatadvantage over organising a computer lab. The culture of mobile communication is also mature - people in Africa knowvery well how to operate a mobile phone. This is especially interesting considering the fact that mobile technology is oneof the fastest growing technologies in the world. Ubuntu al-ready introduced standard Operating Systems for mobiles. I believe the schools should seriously consider how to teach students to get the maximum use out of their mobile phones.

The vibrant spread of innovation and incubation centres is alsoa good example of great African initiatives. These hubs help thestudents learn entrepreneurship, life-skills and business skillsand they have enough facilities to give on-the-job training.

What is the most significant lesson or piece of advice you would share with others seeking to follow in your footsteps?A new mindset is coming to Africa. This generation of Africansis tired of aid. We are sick of listening to the same old singlestory over and over again. I began with understanding our surroundings. I have been giving enough attention to what isgoing on around me before I look to see what’s up thousands ofkilometres away. Our streets are full of opportunities and it isimportant to participate at the community level. I believe weneed to do things on the spot, communicating as far as it is pos-sible and thinking of the long-term and comprehensive benefits.

My advice is that it is all about drawing a small circle aroundus. We need to give extra attention to where we are living. Weneed to influence the people around us and start small. Ofcourse, the more we win over the heart of our community, themore our circle will expand.

Looking forward to the next five years, what do you see onthe horizon in terms of influential changes, transitions,technologies and trends that will affect the integration ofeducational technologies in education, skills developmentand the lifelong learning landscape in Africa? In the near future, the participation of private companies in the education sector will grow. Almost 50 per cent of Ethiopia'spopulation is under the age of 18. With scarce facilities, this is abig threat and traditional educational institutes cannot satisfythis need alone. The Ethiopian Ministry of Education targets tohave at least one school in each “kebele” (about 3 km radius).This means that the numbers of students who are ready to joinuniversity are extremely huge. It requires a lot of private sectorinvolvement.

Internet penetration will also increase in the coming years.This will give a suitable environment for eLearning and mLearn-ing. I also expect that the number of diasporan Africans coming




CONSTRAINTS, FAILURE AND CHANGE GOVERNMENT STILL THE MOST IMPORTANT CHANGE AGENT

There is clearly significant dynamismand optimism about the way that mobile technologies and social mediaare opening up new ways to learn.Within this environment, the surveysought to discover what respondentsconsider to be the most important

agent for accelerating the integrationof learning technologies in the Africancountry where they work. It is particularlynoteworthy that the most common response, as in the 2012 survey, was toidentify national governments as hav-ing the key role as an agent of change.

Respondents were over three timesmore likely to identify the role of national government (29%) in accel-erating the integration of learning tech-nologies than to identify the role ofthe private sector (8%). This reflects astrong sense among respondents ofgovernment responsibility and account-ability with reference to the design anddelivery of education, including the roleof digital technologies in support oflearning, teaching and improved edu-cation management. It may also reflectthe way that, in many African coun-tries, governments continue to play animportant role with reference to national policy development and im-plementation, the allocation of nationalbudget for education and skills devel-opment and the development of part-nerships in support of government national objectives.

3.5 Government Still the Most Important Change Agent

National government...........................29%

The private sector ...................................8%

Schools.....................................................7%

Non-governmental organisations .........6%

International donor agencies ................4%

Students ..................................................3%

The community .......................................3%

Regional authorities (such as ECOWAS, SADC, AU) ................2%

Local government...................................2%

Parents.....................................................2%

Provincial government ...........................1%

Other .......................................................4%

N/A.........................................................29%

Who is the most importantchange agent in accelerating the integration of learning

technologies?

Photo: Willemijn Edens, Kenya, “Empowering illiterates with election information via mobile”

back to Africa will increase. This will make the universities better equipped in terms of human resources.

I also believe Open Educational Resources (OER) will be widelyused. More and more schools are integrating mobile phonesinto their classrooms. More content will be generated byAfricans. Investment in affordable tablets and laptops will circumvent the high cost of printing text books.

What will iceaddis contribute to Africa's human development over the next five years?iceaddis is a place for high potentials. Start-ups emerging outof iceaddis will create unique job opportunities. The whole philosophy of open and common knowledge is to influence the

mindset of young Ethiopians. Iceaddis will work on encourag-ing a sharing culture, promoting Ethiopian innovation to theworld. The icehubs network is a growing network: icecairo inEgypt and icebauhaus in Germany are already established entities and I believe the icehubs network will be expanding toother neighbouring countries. There are already initiatives toopen hubs in South Sudan, Kenya and Djibouti. The iceaddisprototyping facilities will also enable our communities to design their products.

We are looking forward to forging new partnerships and con-necting with more supportive organisations: we are open toany kind of cooperation! Our contribution is to be a home for future innovators.

Some months before he was elected President of the Republic ofKenya, Uhuru Kenyatta addressed the Africa Forum on Business,Investment and Security, an annual conference of businessleaders and security experts.

“We are here,” he said, “because the unique conditions of ourtime make the discussion on security ever more important andever more personal for each one of us.” His audience did not,perhaps, need to be reminded of the importance of security;Kenya’s continuing military action in Somalia, ethnic violenceon the Swahili coast and a terrorist attack in the heart ofNairobi were fresh in their minds. Yet his call to his countrymento “unite in a spirit of peace”, combined with a passionate dec-laration of the importance for Africa of overcoming the Conti-nent’s security challenges struck a chord that echoed beyondthe conference centre and may indeed have contributed to hiselection victory.

Now that he has been elected President, however, Kenyattamay need to keep reminding himself and his colleagues in othercountries that the continuation of Africa’s impressive economicboom will depend on tackling a number of security-relatedproblems that threaten to undermine the Continent’s dash for growth.

African countries face an alarming array of complicated secu-rity problems – or, as one think-tank puts it rather more seduc-tively, “Africa’s dynamic security environment is characterisedby great diversity”. It is a security environment defined not onlyby conventional challenges, such as low intensity conflicts andinsurgencies, but also by seemingly smaller but no less eco-nomically damaging problems, such as threats from piracy, corruption, drug trafficking, violent extremism and the growthof organised crime. Whilst many of these problems are inter-connected and have similar origins or consequences, all ofthem have an impact on Africa’s commercial and investmentenvironment.

Although the list of African security problems is long anddaunting, there are a number of important areas in which suc-cess would have a major impact on the investment environ-ment, sending out an important signal that Africa is not onlyopen for business, but safe for it too.

The first of these is in the field of governance. There is now awidespread and growing recognition across Africa that corrup-tion, electoral fraud and a lack of transparency or accountabil-ity are often feeders for bigger security problems, such asterrorism or conflict over resources. At the same time, widespread access to new information and communicationtechnologies (ICTs), combined with growing demands for democratisation in many countries, are beginning to create a

realisation that future security solutions must be based on consent, if they are to be effective.

The second concerns cyber security. Successful moderneconomies are digital and African businesses, along with in-vestors in Africa, need the security of a modern, digital econ-omy, in which Government information infrastructures and thefinancial sector are protected and in which there are no safehavens for fraudsters and organised online criminals. Dealingresolutely with threats to Africa’s cyber security will be vital forinvestor confidence in the future.

A determined effort, with international support, to tackle theContinent’s food security problem is also vital for long-termgrowth. Food shortages in the past have too often been causedby a failure to find effective solutions to security-related prob-lems and thus to ensure security of supply. In a continent asblessed as Africa is with an abundance of natural resources,food insecurity is not only unacceptable but incomprehensibletoo. The end of food insecurity will be a sign that Africa has finally become an economic powerhouse.

The final key area in which success will have a significant impact on investment is logistics. African economies need tobe open to the world with a secure route to and from interna-tional markets. They also need secure internal transport infra-structures for the movement of goods and people. The securityof ports, airports, roads, railways and shipping lanes is vital forany modern economy. Dealing effectively with threats to thiscritical communication infrastructure, such as piracy, is essen-tial for the future of all African economies.

Education, training and the raising of awareness are alreadyplaying an important role across Africa in helping to overcomethese security challenges. Technology, particularly in the formof solutions based on the imaginative use of mobile telephony,is now an essential part of new training solutions that are con-tributing in a multitude of ways, to the development of a new,more secure and more open Africa.

When Blaise Campaore, the President of Burkina Faso, opensthis year’s Africa Forum on Business, Investment and Securityin October in Ouagadougou, Africa will still face many securitychallenges but he, along with other African leaders, will be wellaware of the prize to be won if it can be made safe for business.

Dr Harold Elletson is the Chairman of the New Security Foundation, which isone of the organising partners of this year’s Africa Forum on Business,

Investment and Security, together with the Government of Burkina Faso, ICWE and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Security, Investment and Learning

Harold Elletson


CONSTRAINTS, FAILURE AND CHANGE HAROLD ELLETSON


KEY THEMES PRODUCING LOCAL DIGITAL CONTENT

In recognition of the sea-changesweeping across the content land-scape, The eLearning Africa Report2012 noted that content was becom-ing increasingly social, fluid, mobile, visual, dynamic and distributed. It fur-ther stated that the ability to assessand evaluate content critically is becoming an important 21st Centuryskill (Czernowiecz, 2012). This year,consistent with the 2013 conferencetheme of Tradition, Change and Inno-vation, the survey and report focus onthe experiences of African practitionerswith accessing and producing localcontent, including content in indige-nous African languages.

The survey distinguished between access to and creation of locally-pro-duced digital content as well as theuse and creation of locally-produceddigital content in indigenous Africanlanguages. The findings reveal that47% of respondents have access to locally-produced digital content com-pared to 40% who are involved withcreating local content.

Respondents provided a wealth of information about the locally-produceddigital content that they access. A fewsaid that they access farming informa-

learners. A Cameroonian respondentworking in South Africa noted: ‘weproduce our own local audio and videocontent to help students understandthe concepts in the study material’. Anexecutive manager working for thegovernment in Cameroon explainedtheir local content creation is ’throughthe recording of women's activity andadult literacy programmes in the villages of the northwest region ofCameroon’. Similarly, an informationtechnology manager at a businessschool in South Africa expressed howtheir ‘in-house studio is used to developand publish video content for use oneducational programmes’. Local con-tent is also produced by a respondentworking in healthcare in Tanzania whonoted that ’we have developed tenmodules on maternal and child health- assistant medical officers, school andstudents have access to these contentsfor the programme.’

These quotations illustrate the diverseactivity that respondents are engagedwith in regard to local content use andproduction. Where possible, eLearningAfrica supports conversations and opportunities that promote the cre-ation of locally-produced, culturally-and contextually-relevant digital con-tent. In light of this, the 2013 eLearningAfrica conference pays significant at-tention to the local production of videocontent and its use in education.

tion and information on tourism train-ing, leadership and management andpublic administration. This is exempli-fied through the comment of a pro-gramme manager working in highereducation in Uganda, who noted that’locally-produced digital content includes the problems that affect thefarmers in their specific area. And thiscontent is about pest and diseases, financial literacy...’

Others mentioned their access to locally-produced online trainingcourses, curriculum content for primaryand secondary schooling, e-textbooks,e-books, audio-visual teaching andlearning material, research journals andlocal blogs. A respondent working inhigher education in Cape Verde explained: ‘I have access to digital con-tent shared by other professors in theUniversity of Cape Verde through Moodle, Piazza, intranets.’

When asked to mention the locally-produced content that they create, respondents highlighted a range of dig-ital materials that are produced withintheir institutions and that draw on assignments, videos and programmesproduced by children, youth and adult

4. Key Themes4.1 Producing Local Digital Content

No ..........................................................41%

Yes .........................................................40%

I don’t know............................................9%

N/A.........................................................10%

Are respondents involved in creating locally-produced

digital content?

Yes .........................................................47%

No ..........................................................33%

I don’t know..........................................13%

N/A...........................................................7%

Do respondents have access tolocally-produced digital content?

Photo: Imrana Buba, Nigeria, “Listening to folk tales via mobile phone”

As the world moves gradually into the knowledge-based societypredicted by Peter Drucker in the early 1970s, one of the chal-lenges for developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin Amer-ica is how to create building blocks and vehicles to manage andquicken the transition process. One such building block isNamibia’s Vision 2030, which envisions Namibia becoming aknowledge-based society by 2030. For a country to become aknowledge-based society, organisational learning is of para-mount importance because individuals need to engage in con-tinuous learning to acquire new knowledge, not just to remainrelevant, but also to make their organisation competitive.Human Resources Departments as well as Information Man-agement Departments, where they exist, have a key role toplay. There is little doubt that two pillars which could acceler-ate the birth of the new knowledge-based society are eLearningand Knowledge Management.

eLearning refers to computer-based training and education,and has a history dating back to the 1970s. In its effort to support education, eLearning provides structured educationcontent to enable learners and participants to pursue studiesin the format of distance education. Needless to add, technol-ogy plays a pivotal role in eLearning, including modern tech-nologies such as the Internet, and other forms of computer-based training. Bilinovac (2010:381) notes that the concept ofeLearning has not only been made efficient, but faster by thecoming of age of the Internet. He concludes “the learning materials are available through the Internet, and participants(learners and tutors) communicate between themselves byemail, chat, discussion forums or social networks, and thus theconcept might be used either as the main learning method orcombined approach to classroom-based training”.

The eLearning approach is particularly valuable because it hasflexibility and is cheap. Given these advantages, eLearningcould be used by individuals and organisations that want employees to acquire new skills quickly without departing to a far off educational institution.

In comparison to eLearning, Knowledge Management has ashorter but no less illustrious history, having taken off in themid-1990s. Although knowledge has no single universal defini-tion, it is generally agreed that it involves acquiring, retaining,storing, communicating and sharing knowledge in an organisa-tion using both the latest technologies and traditional meansof communication. The aim is to get the right knowledge to theright people at the right time for the organisations to benefitfrom improved decisions made by the knowledge-enriched indi-viduals (ABC of Knowledge Management, 2004). KnowledgeManagement has many processes which allow employees to integrate their cumulative knowledge content to address theorganisation’s strategic goals. Like eLearning, modern Knowl-

edge Management has benefited tremendously from the Inter-net and associated technologies. The current power of Knowl-edge Management lies in the extensive use of email, chatrooms, blogs, discussion forums, social networks and data-bases to leverage ideas and knowledge to benefit the variousgroups and teams involved in such exchanges. Similar toeLearning, Knowledge Management is now a valuable tool tosupport organisation learning in order to generate new ideas toaddress the complex situations in which organisations findthemselves, as they struggle to achieve their strategic objec-tives and remain competitive at national and global levels.

Our major contention in this article is that both eLearning andKnowledge Management are required for African countries tobecome knowledge-based societies. The similarity and overlapping roles between the two concepts have not escaped the attention of some writers. Aldrich (2005), for example, assertsthat “both sides have a critical piece of the puzzle and the bestof each will form a new paradigm”. Aldrich argues that, giventhese similarities and overlaps, eventually Knowledge Manage-ment and eLearning will converge to form a powerful new en-tity which brings together knowledge, eLearning andorganisational change. We argue that this mixture is requiredto propel Africa to the 21st Century where knowledge and intel-lectual property are key to achieving national development.Supporting the merger of the two concepts, Tom Barron (2000)in his article entitled ‘A Smarter Frankenstein: the Merging ofeLearning and Knowledge Management’ points out that newways to work and learn are just around the corner and webtechnologies will cement the marriage of the two buzz words.

The merger of the two buzz words, however, leaves severalquestions begging for answers. Although internationally bothconcepts are relatively well known, in Africa they have not fullytaken root and are still a novelty. Is there sufficient experienceto adapt eLearning and Knowledge Management to African realities? Is there sufficient local content to form the bedrock ofbuilding the new paradigm? Do training opportunities exist tospeed up the fusion of eLearning and Knowledge Management?Can training institutions rise to the occasion to offer the type oftraining required by a new breed of knowledge managers cumeLearning practitioners?

These questions matter to us in African universities. Many uni-versities teach some form of Knowledge Management but fewteach eLearning. A range of regional organisations in Africa arewilling to support the spread of Knowledge Management andeLearning, as separate entities. A few such organisations includethe Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) based inSouth Africa, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) based in Addis Ababa. Others are the local offices of United Nations Development Programmes (UNDP),

eLearning and Knowledge Management in an African University Context

Kingo Mchombu


KEY THEMES KINGO MCHOMBU

World Health Organisation (WHO), and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Given that most of the above-mentionedorganisations, and many others with local presence in Africa,would see Knowledge Management and eLearning as separateentities, universities have a unique role to play in providingbridging programmes which provide training in both eLearningand Knowledge Management as a single programme.

There is a fair amount of literature which addresses the possi-bility of training to bring to reality the fusion of eLearning andKnowledge Management. Patrick Dunn and Mark Iliff (2005)have written a paper subtitled ‘Why eLearning and knowledgemanagement don’t get along’ noting that they have too manysimilarities which may generate some form of cannibalismrather than a blissful marriage. Donald Clark (2003), on theother hand, has written a white paper on Knowledge Manage-ment and eLearning while Ras, Memmel and Weibelzahl (2005)have also given their thoughts on the integration of eLearningand Knowledge Management. A brilliant paper written byThomas Kelly and Diana Bauer (n.d) elaborates on how Ciscocreated a worldwide eLearning platform for its own staff whichmerges both eLearning and Knowledge Management. They notethat “Knowledge Management initiatives at Cisco are not exclusive to eLearning, nor are they explicitly defined as Knowl-edge Management. At Cisco, eLearning is the preferred term de-scribing the Internet-enabling of information, training,communication and collaboration. The end goal of Cisco'seLearning initiative is measurable business impact...” What thevarious works cited above illustrate is that the merger of thetwo concepts is not only feasible but desirable to achieve thebest returns for any organisation.

At this juncture, perhaps we should ask which Knowledge Man-agement tools, among the multitude of available options, canenhance eLearning. Essentially one may note that the sametools which allow organisations to capture, store, share and

enhance organisational knowledge, can be used for creating,enhancing and delivering learning and training to students.

• Shared spaces offered by a Knowledge Management Systemfor collaboration and teamwork, can become the ‘virtualclassroom’ for teachers and students to interact, share ideasand learn collaboratively.

• Content Management Systems (CMS) and, more specifically,Learning Content Management Systems can provide thecontent repository for learning materials or, more specifi-cally, Learning Objects.

• Learning Portals will provide the customised interface for a student’s personalised learning experience, where the student will be able to choose the learning that he/she re-quires, by selecting the “chunks” of learning needed, andlinking to the teacher(s) who can facilitate this learning.

In conclusion, we quote the writer of the article titled ‘Asmarter Frankenstein’ who has talked enthusiastically about anew paradigm shift. He calls it a “a beast (which) combinesformal training as represented by eLearning, and the free-float-ing knowledge swirling through organisations that KnowledgeManagement practices seek to snare and share” (Barron 2000).So the big question is: can the beast be snared and domesti-cated to serve Africa’s transition to a knowledge-based societythrough combining the powers which these two innovative dis-ciplines bring? The answer will depend on African organisationsand tertiary institutions that have the courage to walk uncharted terrain, creating a hybrid profession: an area weshall hear more about in future.

Professor Kingo Mchombu - Professor of Information and Communication Studies and Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences,

University of Namibia.


KEY THEMES MOTHER TONGUE MATTERS

Another important topic for discussionat the 2013 eLearning Africa confer-ence is the value of indigenous Africanlanguages. The survey asked respon-dents whether they used local digitalcontent in indigenous African lan-guages and whether they were

involved in creating digital content inindigenous African languages (16%).

Several respondents detailed the waysin which they are using or creating dig-ital content in indigenous African lan-guages. An IT network specialist from

involved with creating local content inany of these languages.

A significant minority who answeredthese questions indicated that they uselocal content in indigenous African lan-guages (17%) and that they are

4.2 Mother Tongue Matters


KEY THEMES MOTHER TONGUE MATTERS

Ethiopia noted that ’we have local dig-ital contents produced in Amharic, likebasic computer training, e-books,videos and interactives’. A managerworking in Zambia explained: ‘all theiSchool online content is being pro-

worker in Cameroon indicated thatthey produce content targeted at adultwomen in the Lamso, Kom and Nkwenlanguages. The theme of local contentbased on agriculture was emphasisedagain by a government worker in Zam-bia who explained that they produce‘agricultural information products …in areas of crop and livestock produc-tion, processing, storage and market-ing’ in the Luvale language.

Those who responded that they arenot involved in the creation of digitalcontent in indigenous African lan-guages emphasised reasons includinga belief that content in indigenous lan-guages is not necessary, a recognitionthat their official language is not an indigenous African language, the factthat they do not have the internal capacity to develop content in indige-nous languages and that policy dictatesthat they teach in English.

duced in the seven main Zambian locallanguages [Silozi, Nyanja, Bemba,Citonga, Lunda, Luvale and Kikaonde].I create lesson plans in all the seven local languages as well as content forthe lessons.’ Similarly, a government

Yes .........................................................63%

No ..........................................................17%

I don’t know............................................7%

N/A.........................................................13%

Are respondents involved in using content in indigenous

African languages?

No ..........................................................68%

Yes .........................................................16%

I don’t know............................................6%

N/A.........................................................10%

Are respondents involved in creating content in indigenous

African languages?

Photo: Rudi Dundas, Tanzania, “Singisi coffee farmers use iPads in their export business”

On March 4, 2013, Kenya successfully and peacefully held a his-toric election, the first one after the inauguration of the ambi-tious democracy-protecting Constitution of Kenya 2010.

In the run up to the elections, multi-media communicationscompany, Well Told Story [WTS], was approached by the Inde-pendent Elections & Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and theKenyan Ministry of Education to create a campaign that wouldengage school children in the election process.

Well Told Story is the social enterprise behind the award winning multi-platform production Shujaaz.FM. Shujaaz.FMtells educational, change-focused stories on multiple platforms(comic books, syndicated FM radio, SMS, social media, web andvideo animation) to youth across Kenya.

It was the immensely popular Shujaaz characters and brandthat the IEBC wanted to use to speak directly to Kenyan youthabout the elections. WTS created a special campaign called'Apisha Paro' [meaning 'Parents’ Pledge'] to empower children


KEY THEMES SHUJAAZ AND THE KENYAN ELECTIONS

Comics for Peace – Shujaaz and the Kenyan Elections

to assist in the peace process. The idea behind the campaignwas that the elections matter to children, even if they cannotvote. They are the ones who suffered in the post-election vio-lence of 2008 and, as a result, they want to be able to do some-thing to prevent it happening again. They too needed to beempowered to ensure the outcome of the elections is peacefuland successful.

In 'Apisha Paro', Shujaaz.FM hero DJ B challenged every schoolchild to get five adults in their home to pledge that they will to

turn up and vote in the elections (if registered) and to acceptthe results peacefully. Once they had all five signatures, theyreturned their forms to school where they have the chance towin prizes.

The campaign was launched on various platforms:

• 9.5 million special comics that were given to every primaryschool child in Kenya. An additional 850,000 Shujaaz.FMcomics also featured the pledge.



• A facebook page that would to appeal more directly to secondary school students(www.facebook.com/ApishaMabeste). Fans of the page were invited to send photos of themselves pledging.

• An animation was broadcast every day for a week on threenational television stations.

• The animation was circulated on You Tube(http://youtu.be/BNQJlcp0dFs)



Young Kenyans participating in the Shujaaz campaign: pledging to vote and accept the results peacefully.

• The call to action was broadcast every day for a week on 26 FM radio stations.

‘Apisha Paro’ was received with enthusiasm as it provided chil-dren with an opportunity to directly participate in preservingpeace and the rule of law. Speaking during the launch of thecampaign, IEBC Commissioner Yusuf Nzibo said the purpose ofthe Sh14.2 million (US$ 170,00) campaign was ‘to turn schoolchildren into peace ambassadors in the communities they liveas they encourage their parents to commit to the promotion ofa peaceful and participatory electoral process’.

This was not the first education-focused campaign for Shujaaz.FM. Previously, the comic has addressed issues such asteacher absenteeism, how to avoid and report sexual abusefrom teachers, how to improve safety in your school and how toaddress tribalism in schools. All Shujaaz.FM campaigns are runon multiple platforms to ensure the target audience in reached.Rob Burnet, director of Well Told Story says: ‘It is the combina-tion of the Shujaaz.FM comic books, syndicated FM radio, SMS,social media, web and video animation in engaging five millionyouth every month in a huge public conversation that is helpingto change the way people live, think, act and govern in Kenya.'



Professor Kwesi Kwaa Prah is the founder of the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS), a civil society,Pan-African organisation which focuses on African develop-ment through the lens of cultural, social, historical, politicaland economic research. Currently, through the CASAS Harmo-nization and Standardization of African Languages Project, Professor Prah and CASAS are working towards improvingAfrican literacy rates. By forming standardised groupings ofmutually intelligible African dialects, Prah hopes to overcomenot only the local linguistic barriers created by the diversity ofAfrican dialects, but also to finally break down the far more divisive boarders that are maintained by the pervasive grip ofpost-colonial languages across the Continent.

Speaking to me about his work with language and educationfrom Cape Town, Prah asserts that questions of relevance whenspeaking about the local languages of Africa are themselves irrelevant. “Every language is important. Icelandic is impor-tant. Italian is important. Greek is important. Could you everask someone from one of these countries whether the languagethey speak is important? In the same token, African languagesshould be allowed to flourish. We do not talk about the ‘indige-nous languages’ of France, Slovakia or the Czech Republic, so whydo we insist on speaking in these terms when it comes to Africa?”

Despite both national and international focus on literacy and

education in Africa, in part driven by the soon-to-expire Millen-nium Development Goals, the resulting programmes and poli-cies are all too often delivered in the languages of formercolonial powers – particularly English, French and Portuguese –at the cost of excluding the majority and those most in need.“No country can make progress on the basis of a borrowed language, understood only by a minority,” says Prah, “Only tenper cent of African people can speak French, Portuguese or English fluently. These languages cannot be the only languagesof African development.”

The problem is not merely one of shaking off the remnants ofthe past, but of convincing those within every level of Africansociety that undermining the status of African languagesserves the interests of no one. “It’s not just a question of West-ern arrogance,” explains Prah, “but also of African complicity.The cultural power of the African elite is based on the fact thatthey are proficient users of post-colonial languages. They instila new colonial order which excludes the majority from thestructures of power.” Prah has found some governments to besupportive of his work with CASAS, but overall there has beenlittle official recognition.

However, he suggests that even those in positions of power areallowing themselves to be limited by the same colonial hierar-chies of the past. “They are second-hand users of these cultures.

“No country can make progress on the basis of a borrowed language”

Professor Kwesi Prah, interviewed by Alicia Mitchell


KEY THEMES PROFESSOR KWESI PRAH, INTERVIEWED BY ALICIA MITCHELL

Photo: Vera Obiakor, Nigeria,”Under the tree we work”

Therefore, they are actually positioning themselves as inferiors.This can lead to a bottle-neck of tension that can explode.”

As an inspirational example for African countries to follow, Prahpoints to Vietnam and their Southeast Asian neighbours Malaysiaand Indonesia. “Vietnam is one of the fastest growingeconomies in the world. They stopped using the language of theirFrench colonisers: this is precisely why they are succeeding.”

Language, education and, with the ongoing growth in ICT-sup-ported learning, technology are co-agents of change with hugepotential. However, Professor Prah notes that with the currentdefault to post-colonial languages in the majority of education‘solutions’ brought to the Continent, ICT and education remaininaccessible to the overwhelming majority: “Education is still aprivilege of the westernised elite. We talk about developmentthrough education and training, but in whose language?”

The knee-jerk response to arguments like these is often thatthe investment and technology for these ICT products comesfrom abroad – from the United States, from Europe or Asia –and using ‘international’ languages such as English or Frenchare the only economically viable options, but Prah disagrees.“Some African languages are spoken by fifty or sixty millionpeople. It makes economic sense to develop products for thismarket, by this market.” If we continue to pretend that Africanlanguages are unimportant in the drive to achieve ‘educationfor all’, says Prah, “we will forever be waiting for 90% of Africansto become English!”

Despite the enthusiastic work of organisations such as CASAS,

Prah admits that the movement to champion African languagesas a path towards progress is still in the “very initial, half-hearted stages; it is not happening yet”. However, he confi-dently points to the historical precedent that proves that thedemocratisation of language is a necessary precursor for thedemocratisation of society. “For as long as Europe used Latin asthe language of authority and academia, knowledge was in thehands of monks, aristocrats and scholars. It is only the com-mon languages – the languages of the street – that can lead to democratic progress. Similarly, for as long as ICTs in Africaare based solely around English, French and Portuguese, we will not get anywhere.” Knowledge is power, and language isthe fundamental component of knowledge acquisition and dissemination.

The key message that Professor Prah is determined to sharewith governments, investors, development organisations andthe world at large is a simple one: for as long as Africans aresupposed to use languages that are not their own, no progresswill ever be made. “ICT is enormously important – it is movingthe world forward and of great intellectual interest – but with-out African languages, we cannot make a difference to Africans.You cannot lift Africa without African languages.”

Professor Kwesi Kwaa Prah founded The Centre for Advanced Studies of AfricanSociety (CASAS, casas.co.za) in 1997. CASAS acts as a research network within

Africa and amongst the African diaspora. The organisation focuses on “culturalissues and their relationship to development, and selected basic research on

the structure of African society”. In recent years, the focus of CASAS on Africanlanguages has led to the production of various publications, including

dictionaries and research papers focusing on diverse African languages.

Alicia Mitchell is a writer and editor for the eLearning Africa News Portal.


KEY THEMES PROFESSOR KWESI PRAH, INTERVIEWED BY ALICIA MITCHELL

Photo: Fasil Damte, Ethiopia, “Child parliament member taking photos”


THE FUTURE OF DEVELOPMENT MAUREEN AGENA

The eight Millennium DevelopmentGoals have formed the overarchingframework for international develop-ment since the year 2000. The goalsare focused on 2015 and, as this yearapproaches, debate is intensifying regarding what constitutes the mostappropriate ‘post-2015’ priorities. Theconversation is engaging governments,policy makers, academics and activists- and everyone can contribute by tellingthe UN their personal priorities atwww.myworld2015.org (United Na-tions, 2013). eLearning Africa supportsthe inclusion of the voices and perspec-tives of the African eLearning networkas future priorities are being shaped. Inlight of this, respondents were askedwhat they consider to be the three top-priority issues regarding human devel-opment in Africa that the global de-velopment community should committo after 2015. Building on this generalquestion, the survey asked specificallywhat respondents consider to be thethree priority issues related to the useof learning technologies in Africa.

Future Priorities in International Development

Respondents to the survey consider thetop three priorities for international development to be education (27%),followed by ICT (22%) and health(14%). Within the 9% section of thepie chart labelled as ‘other’ are envi-ronment, water and sanitation, youth(each c.2%) and agriculture, food se-curity, gender, peace and security (eachc.1%). An additional set of responses,constituting 6% of the original total,were removed from this analysis as theyreferred to multiple issues or werethings that could not be categorised.Within education, the same prioritieswere regularly repeated: universal ac-cess to good quality education, provi-sion of effective training, and ensuringattention is given to all levels and topromoting lifelong learning.

5. The Future of Development

Education ..............................................27%

ICTs.........................................................22%

Health....................................................14%

Poverty reduction .................................12%

Training and capacity development ......5%

Governance .............................................4%

Cross cutting issues .................................4%

Employment............................................3%

Other .......................................................9%

What are the most importantoverall priorities for the post-2015 international development agenda?

Because of the many educational barriers faced by a typical girl child in Africa, it seems that promoting girl child educationusing technology in Africa is currently more of a fantasy than aday-to-day reality. Over the past few years, it has become evi-dent to many governments that while it is important to edu-cate boys, it is equally vital to invest in the education of younggirls and as such, there has been a rise in the number of girlchildren at primary, secondary and tertiary levels.

“The state of girls' education has improved significantly overthe past decade. However, girls continue to lag behind theirmale counterparts in many areas of the world, in terms of access to education, completion of schooling, and acquisitionof basic skills such as literacy” (World Bank, 2011). According

to research undertaken by the World Bank, around 106 millionchildren were out of primary school in 1999. Almost 61 million(58%) were girls compared to 45 million (42%) boys. By 2009,around 35 million girls were still out of school compared to 31million boys. Although the gap in gender parity has decreasedsubstantially, there are still many more girls out of primaryschool than boys (World Bank, 2011).

Gender equality is a basic human right enshrined in the UnitedNations Charter. In the year 2000, at the United Nations Millen-nium Summit, the Millennium Development Goals were estab-lished and signed by 189 heads of state around the world: a listof eight overarching goals for developing countries to achieveby 2015 was outlined. Within this list, Goal 3a sought to ‘elimi-

How Technologies Can Help with Investing in Girls Education

Maureen Agena


THE FUTURE OF DEVELOPMENT MAUREEN AGENA

Those who identified ICT as the toppriority gave reasons similar to thoseexplored below in relation to the tech-nology-specific priorities. The promi-nent issues were ensuring that tech-nology is increasingly affordable andaccessible to all, that sufficient invest-ment is given to the infrastructure sup-porting technology, that training is pro-vided in how to make effective use oftechnology and that sustainability isprioritised throughout. The thirdgroup, identifying health as the toppriority, gave reasons focussed on gen-eral improvements, fighting major dis-eases, improving nutrition and ensur-ing progress in maternal and childhealthcare.

explored in more detail in the followingsection of analysis.

It is not surprising that respondents tothe survey consider education to bethe top priority for international devel-opment. However, it is noteworthy thatthis perspective reflects the same toppriority for international developmentas the global community (as definedby the ongoing survey www.myworld2015.org) which places edu-cation as the top priority, followed byhealthcare, and good governance (‘anhonest and responsive government’).Regardless of other outcomes, we canbe hopeful that such a powerful endorsement of the importance of

The reasons respondents gave for thesefor three priorities were interlinked anddiverse. Within the minor categoriesof responses there was a particularlystrong linkage between the issues ofyouth and employment, with the oftrepeated priority of creating jobs andproviding employment. As noted by amale respondent working for the government in TVET in Liberia, it is thenature of the available jobs that con-stitutes the key fact, with entrepre-neurialism needing to play a significantrole in the future: ‘Africans should betaught how to create jobs and not torely on others to make jobs for them’.There was also a strong and anticipatedlink to the current MDGs, and this is

nate gender disparity in primary and secondary education,preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015’. Indicator 9 of thisgoal was to measure the promotion of gender equality and em-powerment of women, in the ratio of girls to boys in primary,secondary and tertiary education. However, the targets set byMDGs and other global forums have largely been missed on theAfrican continent, partly because in sub-Saharan Africa thenumber of out-of-school girls has decreased more slowly, from25 million in 1999 to 17 million in 2008, according to the WorldBank (2011).

For many years, the education of the girl child has not been apriority in many parts of the developing world because of anumber of reasons, including cultural, biological and social.This disparity has been reflected in areas of politics, leadershipand business which have for many years, with some recentchanges, been dominated by men.

The birth and rise of new media is, however, changing the storyfor many girls in Africa who have been given an opportunity tocompete with their male counterparts. A new generation ofgirls using technology to change their story is being born. Anexample from Uganda is the GirlGeekKampala (girlgeekkam-pala.com), a group of young enthusiastic girls who have cometogether to encourage the culture of programming among female university students all over Uganda. Their goal is to facilitate favourable competition in developing applications forsale, to match their male counterparts.

Similarly, in South Africa, ShetheGeek (shesthegeek.co.za) is ona mission to empower women globally through training withtechnology and innovation. In Kenya, a fast growing technology

base within East Africa, the school of Open Kenya initiative iscreating positive impact and changing mind-sets (CreativeCommons Blog, 2013). The initiative provides girls with peermentorship, learning through the use of open educational resources, and using the Internet to objectively achieve theirgoals and actualise their ideas, while actively solving issues intheir communities. Beyond individual efforts of girls trying tohelp fellow girls, institutions such as the InternationalTelecommunications Union (ITU) strive to improve access toICTs to underserved communities worldwide. Access to ICTs,the United Nations says, empowers women and girls to taketheir rightful place as equals in the world.

It is evident that investing in a girl child’s education is empow-ering a girl to make informed decisions about her life, to aspirefor greater goals in life beyond marriage and to competefavourably with her male counterparts in politics, business,leadership and other fields, with one main goal of creating positive social change and contributing to the development ofher society or nation. It is therefore important for leaders to encourage the culture of tolerance and acceptance in men, ofwomen who break even in politics and other male dominatedprofessions, and cease to look at them as competitors orthreats, but rather as companions and team players in achieving a better good for society.

Maureen Agena is a Ugandan blogger, a trained citizen journalist and currentlya trainee at CTA in the Netherlands in the "policies, markets and ICT

programme". She has been working in ICT4D fields for the last 5 years andspecifically on the socio-economic empowerment of women and girls.


THE FUTURE OF DEVELOPMENT

education will attract the attention ofboth national and international donorfinancers.

Technology-Specific Priorities in InternationalDevelopment

As demonstrated in the pie chartabove, the most popular three groupsof responses regarding the most important technology-specific prioritiesfor the post-2015 international devel-opment agenda are the use of ICTs ineducation (16%), training in the useof ICTs (15%) and bandwidth. The 8%in the ‘other’ category represents: useof mobiles (c.2%), security (c.2%), ICTand health (c.2%), provision of soft-ware (c.1%) and sustainability in use

in education, such as one female respondent working in higher educa-tion in Swaziland, who stated: ‘… ifpeople are able to access resources andlearning strategies and learn independ-ently, many of the other resources willnot be needed in the form they existtoday – such as classrooms and thephysical presence of teachers’. Othersadvocated a more integrated response,noting the need for focusing on themarginalised. This was exemplified bya male respondent working in Zambiafor a private TVET organisation. He argued: ‘Rather than concentrating onproviding cutting edge technologies on

of ICT (c.1%). An additional set of responses, constituting 21% of theoriginal total, were not relevant answers as they were non-technologybased. These responses have been excluded from the analysis.

Within the largest group, focusing onthe use of ICTs in education, respon-dents identified diverse priority issuessuch as ‘MOOCs and Open EducationalResources’, one-to-one computing’,‘widespread access to learning tech-nologies’ and ‘enhancing digital litera-cies’. Some suggested that the priorityis to use ICTs to catalyse radical changes

The use of ICTs in education ................16%

Training in the use of ICTs....................15%

Bandwidth.............................................10%

Provision of hardware............................7%

Access ......................................................7%

Electricity.................................................6%

Infrastructure ..........................................6%

Content development ............................5%

Government and policies .......................4%

Funding and finance ..............................4%

General responses.................................12%

Other .......................................................8%

What are the most importanttechnology-specific priorities forthe post-2015 international development agenda?

Photo: Marko Hingi, Tanzania, “Global health club outreach”


THE FUTURE OF DEVELOPMENT

selected projects and initiatives thatbenefit a few, we should first considerthe many who do not even have accessto intermediate technology in the class-rooms. Let us strive to provide morewidespread and easily accessible learn-ing technologies to benefit the manylearners who do not have such accessat present ... there needs to be a con-centrated effort to … produce a clearanalysis of practical learning technologyneeds, however basic’.

The second group, which identified‘training in the use of ICTs’ as the toppriority, provided relatively consistentresponses. Within this group the maintheme was the need for widespreadand targeted training in order to buildcapacity to make effective use of thetechnologies that are available. Themain threads were the need for ‘easyaccess to training on new ICTs’, asnoted by a female respondent workingfor an NGO in informal education inthe DRC, and the need to train andequip a range of stakeholders includingteachers, administrators and society atlarge. One female respondent working

structure for effective access to anduse of technology.

A final group of respondents identifiedthe top priority for post-2015 as learn-ing from the Millennium DevelopmentGoals and calling for a change in approach regarding the way in whichtechnology is used within internationaldevelopment. This is exemplified byone respondent who asserted: ‘The firstpriority is to not toss out the 2015MDGs, but to look at what has beenlearned about the adequacy of thegoals, as they influenced action, andthe lessons to be learned from thoseactions in terms of their support forMDG outcomes’. This respondent,working for an NGO in South Africa,continued by articulating the need fora shift in approach: ‘Look at people,especially the poor and the rural, andunderstand what can be done withthem within the context in which theyactually live. Too much of the timethere is high level buy-in to schemesthat look good on the surface but areassured to fail. An example is how the__________ project started with a plau-sible idea (computer assisted learning)and executed it in a way that was vir-tually assured to fail. This was knownin advance, but Ministries allowedthemselves to be seduced by the prom-ises of the providers, and never listenedto the wants and needs of teachersand students.’

This analysis provides unique insightinto the technological development pri-orities of a growing eLearning networkin Africa. Here there are three overar-ching priority areas that combine education, training and infrastruc-ture (bandwidth and electricity).This provides valuable insight, for stake-holders involved in decision making,about the future use of digital tech-nologies in development. It suggeststhat investment should be focused pri-marily on securing the infrastructureand training to support the delivery ofeducation.

in TVET in Namibia noted specificallythe need to ‘train teachers to be ableto manage and offer trainings’. Someidentified ‘training at the grassroots’ andothers emphasised ‘training for experts’.

The third group identified ‘bandwidth’as the top technology-related priority.Few respondents offered a lengthy explanation for their selection, but therecurring themes were the need for Internet access to be faster, cheaper,more widespread and more reliable. Arecent publication by a Swedish agencynoted that ‘affordable broadband forall’ must be a key component of thepost-2015 agenda and that ‘there isno point in talking about ICT4D unlessthe basic infrastructure is in place.Broadband is the only democratic option for digital inclusion’ (Spider,2013:2). This third group can be extended to also include the 6% of respondents who identified provisionof electricity as the top priority. Thisoverarching group with 16% of re-sponses (bandwidth and electricitycombined) can be understood as pri-orities related to the supporting infra-

Photo: Uche Uwadinachi, Nigeria, “Girl makes online enquiries about products in a street shop”


CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The eLearning landscape is experienc-ing tectonic shifts that are catalysed byfast-changing digital technologies. In anattempt to illuminate the way in whichthese changes are influencing learningand teaching in African classrooms,workplaces and communities, TheeLearning Africa Report has tapped intothe views of those who are at the fore-front of these changes. This helps withunderstanding, from the perspectiveof practitioners, how traditional edu-cational practice is changing, how thesechanges are perceived and managedand how future changes may unfold.

In this sense, The eLearning Africa Report hopes to offer one mechanismthrough which the 'wisdom' of theeLearning 'crowd' in Africa is beingsourced. Evidently, the findings fromthis report stem from a 'crowd' that ishighly educated relative to the broaderAfrican population; that is active in theeducation and skills development sec-tor; and one that is very active in theirexploration of digital learning technolo-gies. The views expressed are those ofpeople who are indeed active partici-pants, front runners, champions andpioneers in the African eLearning space.

Despite their position as front runners,not all respondents engage with themost advanced learning technologies,a fact that is evident from the surveyresults revealing the limited use of PCtablets in learning at the time of thesurvey, compared to laptops and mobilephones. This may indicate that the integration of digital technologies inAfrican learning environments is still anemerging process. Perhaps we will seedifferent emphases emerging in 2014?

The dominant views held by respon-dents are unsurprisingly positive andoptimistic. The collective expression isone of growth and progress in the dif-fusion of digital technologies for learn-ing in Africa. Many respondents expresspositive learning experiences and an

assistive technologies and their poten-tial to support special needs educationdid not feature at all except for a ref-erence by one of the report intervie-wees. Furthermore, other than wide-spread anticipation of the potential ofMOOCs to bring about a significantchange over the next five years, thelimited references to actual experiencesof MOOCs by respondents perhapsshows that the phenomenon is still inits infancy in Africa. Similarly, whilstreference is made to the ubiquitoususe of mobile technologies and socialmedia by respondents, less is knownabout how these are integrated inclassroom practice, how they facilitatethe learning experience and how theyare enabling the emergence of newways of learning.

Furthermore, the predominance ofthose who are active in eLearning inAfrica overshadows potential voicesthat are more conservative, less engagedand less experienced with digital tech-nologies. The latter may well constitutea conservative majority among whomthe eLearning conversations are notyet mainstreamed. Many such conser-vative voices may well reside in the decision-making echelons of educationand training institutions in Africa.

It is therefore recommended that futureeLearning Africa surveys consider tri-angulating the survey data with moreinterviews and opinion pieces not onlyof experts and pioneers in ICT for development or eLearning, but alsoamong those who may not yet be con-vinced. Here the views of the less tech-nologically-savvy such as parents,teachers and government officials,may be worth considering. In this way,the survey and report will continue toprovide thought leadership in the education and skills development sec-tor, by engaging with a wider breadthof public opinion.

enthusiastic optimism towards the pos-sibilities and new prospects that digitaltechnologies open up. However, theconversations regarding the benefitsof mobile technologies and social media could benefit from more soberreflection on the risks for learning thatthese new possibilities pose.

The dominant views also reflect a pos-itive shift towards a stronger 'Africacan' attitude, along with a strongersense of local ownership and entitle-ment. This is evident from the viewsand attitudes expressed with referenceto creating locally-produced digital con-tent and in the expression of one ofthe interviewees who encapsulated thesentiment with one statement: 'we aretired of aid'.

It is encouraging to note the opennesswith which the conversation on failurein eLearning has been embraced by re-spondents. This highlights the prospectof deepening this conversation, as partof the endeavour to become a morereflective, open-minded and learningnetwork of practitioners who are com-mitted to improving practice. Such anapproach is more likely to have a pos-itive impact on the design and practiceof eLearning in Africa.

The clear priorities for a post-2015 development agenda focus on educa-tion and ICT, with an emphasis on thetechnology-specific priorities of ICT ineducation, training and infrastructure.This reflects the continuing reality thatAfrica still needs to focus on improvingthe basics: developing enabling infra-structure, growing skills and capacity,and improving education through theintegration of digital technologies.

A number of issues did not feature asstrongly this year as they did in 2012.For instance, in 2013 there has beenless of a focus on Early Childhood Careand Education (ECCE) and rural edu-cation. However, similarly to last year,

6. Conclusions and Recommendations


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BIBLIOGRAPHY


APPENDICES APPENDIX 1. METHODOLOGY

The conceptual framework for theeLearning Africa Report 2013 and associated survey is grounded in a crit-ical, realist approach which recognisesthat realities are complex – that wehave partial perspectives on these realities – and that a better understand-ing of these realities emerges if research, experiences and practices areshared. To improve our understanding,we consider the contexts, views andexperiences of a range of stakeholderswho experience eLearning from differ-ent, albeit limited, vantage points. Thissurvey and report seek to uncover theexperiences and insights of Africanpractitioners by contributing towardsan emerging understanding of the relationship between technologies, socio-economic and cultural changeand the effects on learning, teachingand skills development.

In light of this, the primary purpose ofThe eLearning Africa Report 2013 is toproduce actionable knowledge that canservice a wide range of actors in theAfrican eLearning system. Actionableknowledge is context-specific andpremised on problem-solving withingiven social realities. Whilst recognisingthe value of developing abstract theory,the focus of the report is on producingknowledge in order to improve practice,reflecting the priorities of the practi-tioners, investors and policy makerswho are major stakeholders in a grow-ing eLearning Africa network. The qual-itative analysis of the survey findingsthat inform the report is influenced bya grounded theory of methodology,which is focused on producing knowl-edge that is situated in specific contextsand premised on a range of stakeholderinterpretations of their circumstances.

Whilst a large-scale survey is our dom-inant data-gathering instrument, themethodology also includes interviewswith innovators and champions and

pretations that emerge will contributeto improved learning, understandingand practice within the eLearning community in Africa.

The eLearning Africa Survey 2013

The core analysis of The eLearningAfrica Report 2013 is based on thefindings of The eLearning Africa Survey2013. This survey was distributed byeLearning Africa and was open to respondents between 28 January and20 February 2013. The survey was dis-tributed by email to 81,000 participantson the eLearning Africa mailing list.The mailing list includes a wide rangeof stakeholder groups including teach-ers, lecturers, post graduate students,researchers, scholars, government officials, managers, senior executivesof big and small companies and CEOsof NGOs who are invariably engagedin the eLearning space.

The survey was also promoted throughFacebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, andcould be filled in with an online surveyform or an offline PDF. A total of 826survey responses were received, ofwhich 413 were fully or near-fully com-pleted responses. The survey asked 60questions, of which 30 were closedquestions and 30 were open questions.A detailed summary of the survey canbe viewed in Appendix 1. The overallstatistics and qualitative analysis isbased on the data from these 413 survey responses.

Survey responses came from 69 different nationalities, with respon-dents working in 42 different Africancountries. 80% of the responses werefrom people with an African nationality.An analysis of the profile of respon-dents is provided below. The closed

opinion pieces by experts who are involved in the eLearning terrain. Theseopinion pieces are intended to provokefurther conversation and debate as wellas add qualitative insights to the dataprovided by the survey. Similarly, thecomic strip produced by Shujaaz high-lights the innovative ways in which newmedia is being used for communicationin African indigenous languages. Thereport also includes a range of photo-graphs from the eLearning Africa PhotoCompetitions (which can be viewed atwww.elearning-africa.com/photo_competition_home.php), illustrating arange of personal perspectives on howdigital technologies are integrated intothe learning lives of African communi-ties. Using mixed methods in this wayallows us further diversity of insightand serves to verify, reinforce, challengeor potentially refute the findings of thesurvey.

It can be expected, given the profile ofthe survey respondents and their activeinvolvement in the use of learning tech-nologies, that the majority will be pos-itive about their effects on learningoutcomes. It remains important to beconscious when interpreting the find-ings that they are not necessarily reflective of the generalised views heldby those involved in education andlearning across Africa.

eLearning Africa is committed to invest-ing in developing our collective under-standing over time. Core to this endeavour is building a cumulativebody of knowledge through this report,the conversations before, at and afterthe eLearning Africa conference andon the eLearning Africa News Portal.The Survey 2013 and report build onthe experience of 2012 by repeatingselected survey questions to enablecomparison of findings between thetwo years. It is anticipated that, overtime, the patterns of views and inter-

Appendices Appendix 1. Methodology


APPENDICES APPENDIX 1. METHODOLOGY

questions were processed throughquantitative analysis and are presentedas percentages.

The majority of respondents were con-tacted through the eLearning Africamailing list where respondents had theoption to click on a URL which leadsto an online survey questionnaire. Con-ducting a pan-African survey onlinelimits the potential respondents tothose who already have access to theInternet. Allowing respondents the option of responding to a questionnairewhich could be sent to them in PDFformat was one attempt at addressingthe challenges of limited bandwidth.

This sampling strategy should be remembered when reading the reportand reflecting on the implications ofthe findings. It is important to highlightthe fact that the demographic of therespondents is not in any way repre-sentative of the African population ingeneral, nor necessarily of all role play-ers in the education and learning sectorin Africa.

Processing the Survey'sQualitative Data

The qualitative data is characterised byresponses to open questions, as opposed to multiple-choice closedquestions contained in the survey. Theopen questions focus on respondent

imise such biases the researchers con-sulted popular and academic literature,assigned opinion pieces to a range ofeLearning experts and established anEditorial Board of ten representativesfrom diverse linguistic and culturalbackgrounds, mainly from Africa.

Definitions

Much of the conversation about theintegration of digital technologies inlearning has tended to focus too nar-rowly on the nature of the digital devices that are used for learning, howthey are used in classroom settings, theextent to which they are used outsideof the classroom and the extent towhich they help or hinder learning andlearning outcomes. In the design ofthe survey, the team recognises thatthe concept of technologies and tech-nological change, their integration insocio-economic and cultural life andtheir contribution to the advancementof the human condition, is unresolvedamong philosophers, scholars, researchers and practitioners.

Definitions of digital technologies,learning, eLearning and developmentare constantly changing and will remaina contested terrain among scholars,policy makers and practitioners. For thepurposes of this report, we provideworking definitions where possible, tohelp navigate our analysis of the surveydata. For the purposes of the surveyand report, digital technologies havebeen defined in various ways in an attempt to understand how survey respondents view them, use them forlearning, the motivation for their useand their effects on learning outcomes.Whilst we focus deliberately on tradi-tional and new devices (from radios totablets), we also take account of theshifts that give rise to a combinationof mobility, openness, social media andconnectivity.

perspectives regarding the most signif-icant eLearning developments in Africaover the past five years and looking towards the future, key challenges andconstraints, drivers of change, experi-ences with failure and the reasons forchoosing certain priorities for the post-2015 development agenda. These responses were consolidated in aspreadsheet and were systematicallycoded in accordance with the country,type of organisation and level of edu-cation where respondents' work is focused. Where responses were supplied in French or Portuguese, thesewere translated into English and thencoded accordingly. The codes wereclustered based on the similarity ofideas and themes. In this way, betweensix and seven overarching and inter-related core categories emerged withineach section of qualitative analysis. Theanalysis provided in the report addressesthe inter-relationship between thesecore categories.

In order to maintain the integrity ofthe qualitative data, the report's analy-sis is illustrated with verbatim quotesfrom respondents.

Research Limitations

The coding methods used to processthe qualitative data are subject to theresearchers' interpretation of the dataand the inherent biases therein. To m

Photo: Stephen Oluoch, Kenya, “Members of the ‘Tiwi Massive’ youth group using a laptop to access information”


APPENDICES APPENDIX 2: SUMMARY OF THE ELEARNING AFRICA SURVEY 2013

This is a summarised version of TheeLearning Africa Survey 2013. It liststhe main questions that are of rele-vance to the development of TheeLearning Africa Report 2013 but doesnot list each of the options given inanswering the questions. All questionswere optional. At the end of the surveyrespondents were asked questionsabout their previous participation ineLearning Africa and given an oppor-tunity to offer any further information.

Section 1 – Background

• What is your name? • Are you male or female?• What is the name of your organisation / employer?

• What is your country of origin /birth?

• In which country within Africa doyou currently work in educationand skills development?

• Which one of these categoriesbest describes your job function?

• Which type of organisation do you work for?

• What level of education is yourwork most focused on?

• What is your highest formal educational qualification?

• In which region of the world are you based?

• In which sector(s) do you work?

Section 2 - Current use oflearning technologies

• Are you currently using technologiesto support learning in your organi-sational context in Africa? (Yes, No,Don’t know)

• [If answered ‘Yes’ to the first ques-tion in the section] which of the fol-lowing technology devices are youcurrently using to support learningin your organisational context inAfrica? (Respondents were given a

Don’t know). (Respondents werethen asked explain their answer.)

• Are you involved in the creation oflocally-produced digital content inyour organisational context inAfrica? (Yes, No, Don’t know). (Respondents were then asked explain their answer.)

• Are you involved in the creation ofdigital content in indigenous Africanlanguages in your organisationalcontext in Africa? (Yes, No, Don’tknow). (If respondents answered‘Yes’ they were asked to specify theAfrican languages in which they create digital education content.)

• Do you use digital content in indige-nous African languages in your organisational context in Africa?(Yes, No, Don’t know). (Respondentswere then asked to specify and explain their answer.)

Section 3 - Challenges, failures and lessons

• In the African country where youcurrently work, what are the threemost significant challenges con-straining the use of technologiesthat can support learning? (Respon-dents were asked to select three answers and provide reasons fortheir answers.)

list of 12 devices, including ‘other’,and asked how often they are usingthem).

• [If answered ‘Yes’ to the first ques-tion in the section] which of the fol-lowing social media are you cur-rently using to support learning inyour organisational context inAfrica? (Respondents were given alist of nine forms of social media,including ‘other’, and asked howoften they are using them).

• How are you currently using thelearning technologies in your organ-isational context in Africa which youselected in the questions above?(Respondents were given a list of 14options and asked to tick all thatapplied).

• What is the biggest motivation forusing learning technologies in yourorganisational context in Africa?(Respondents were given a list of sixoptions, including ‘other’ and askedto select only one answer).

• What effects has the use of tech-nologies had on learning outcomesin your organisational context inAfrica? (Respondents were given alist of four options, asked to selectonly one answer and to explain thereason for their answer).

• Do you have access to locally-pro-duced digital content in your organ-isational context in Africa? (Yes, No,

Appendix 2: Summary of the eLearning Africa Survey 2013

Photo: Hary Yohane Kachipanda, Malawi, “ICT training for pastors”


APPENDICES APPENDIX 3: BIOGRAPHIES OF EDITORIAL BOARD, EDITOR AND SUB-EDITORS

• Have you experienced any failureswhen using technologies to supportlearning in the African country inwhich you work? (Yes, No, Don’tknow). If respondents answered‘Yes’ they were then asked to spec-ify: the nature of the failures expe-rienced, the reasons for the failuresexperienced, what could be donedifferently based on the experienceof failures.

Section 4 - Change, drivers,change agents

• Over the last five years, what havebeen the top three drivers of changein the use of learning technologies

country where you work? (Respon-dents were given a list of 12 options,including ‘other’ and asked to selectone answer.)

Section 5 - The post-2015development agenda

• What do you think are the three priority human development issuesin Africa that the global develop-ment community should commit toafter 2015?

• What do you think are the three priority issues related to the use oflearning technologies in Africa thatthe global development communityshould commit to after 2015?

in the African country where youwork? (Respondents were given alist of 14 options, including ‘other’and asked to select their top threeand explain the reasons for their answer.)

• What do you think will be the topthree most significant changes inthe use of learning technologies inthe African country in which youwork over the next five years? (Respondents were given a list of 13changes, including ‘other’ and askedto select their top three and explainthe reasons for their answer.)

• Who is the most important agentfor accelerating the integration oflearning technologies in the African

Appendix 3: Biographies of Editorial Board, Editor and Sub-Editors

Ben AkohBen Akoh is an expert on media andtechnology policy, Internet governanceprocesses, research and capacity build-ing on the development and deploy-ment of ICTs and the Internet, in Africaand globally. Mr Akoh is a facilitatorand sessional instructor for the Extended Education faculty of the Uni-versity of Manitoba, delivering distanceeducation, blended, face to face andfully online learning courses on emerg-ing Internet technologies, Open Edu-cation Resources and digital literacy.He is also a graduate student at theUniversity. Alongside this he works forthe International Institute for Sustain-able Development, a policy think tankbased in Canada and has worked withthe Open Society Initiative for WestAfrica, UNECA and in the private sector.Ben Akoh served as sub-editor to TheeLearning Africa Report 2013.

Maggy Beukes-AmissDr Maggy Beukes-Amiss is a Namibianwith over 17 years of experience inteaching ICT related subjects at the University of Namibia, within the Department of Information and Com-munication Studies. She has a PhD inComputer-integrated Education (CiE)through the University of Pretoria, SouthAfrica. She served as Head of Depart-ment (2005-2007), and now again foranother four year term (2012-2015).

She is particularly passionate abouteLearning capacity-building activitiesthrough the use of open source soft-ware packages and research focusingon eLearning technologies and activi-ties. She is a member of the eLearningCommittee of the University of Namibiaand used to serve on the NamibianOpen Learning Network Trust (NOLNet)eLearning Committee as Coordinator

Boubacar Balde Boubacar Balde is an expert on tech-nology integration in education, cybersecurity, education project manage-ment, deployment of ICT Solutions andCloud in Africa. He is the EducationLead for Net Performance. Under hissupervision, education programmes aredeployed currently in Senegal, IvoryCoast, DRC and Guinea, bringing affordable ICT solutions to schools anduniversities.

Boubacar graduated from UniversiteLibre de Tunis in Computer Science andholds a Master in Economics from theUniversity Libre de Bruxelles. Boubacaris also a co-founder of a consultingagency specialised in Portfolio Man-agement, advising clients across theglobe on equities, forex and commodi-ties. Boubacar served on The eLearningAfrica Report 2013’s Editorial Board.



of eLearning activities within the entirecountry for over seven years, until 2011.She has been involved in a number ofeLearning capacity-building activities inNamibia and various countries in Africaon behalf of NOLNet, GIZ and GESCI.

She is also a reviewer of conferencepapers for eLearning Africa, on behalfof ICWE GmbH, Germany, 2011-2013.She is a certified ICDL trainer (2007)and an Expert of New Learning Tech-nologies (2005) through TeleAkademiaof Furtwagen, Germany.

She has served as an ICT Steering Com-mittee member of the ICT SteeringCommittee of the Ministry of Educationin Namibia since 2005 and, in addition,has been the Deputy Chairperson ofthe ICT Steering Committee since2012. She was a contributor of the national ICT Policy and implementationplan, Tech NA!. She was a Commis-sioner and then Chairperson of theBoard, of the regulator Namibian Com-munications Commission (NCC), 2006-2011. She was also appointed as thecountry’s eminent e-Content expertthrough the World Summit Award(WSA), 2006 -2013. She served as aTechnical Quality Assurance Committee(TeQAC) member for the African lead-ers in ICT (ALICT) blended learning pro-gramme of GESCI, as well as the tutor-coordinator (training and coach-ing) e-tutors of the ALICT programme,2011-2013. Maggy Beukes-Amissserved on the Editorial Board of TheeLearning Africa Report 2013.

Mawaki ChangoBlending scholarship with practice,Mawaki Chango is a researcher and aconsultant in the areas of Internet gov-ernance and public policy, ICT4D (Information and Communication Tech-nologies for Development) as well asinformation technology and the humanities. Recent research includesa socio-historical inquiry into individualidentification systems, from medieval

Harold ElletsonDr Harold Elletson is the Director ofThe New Security Foundation, whichconducts research into the implicationsof the new security environment forcivil society. The New Security Founda-tion provides an international forumfor dialogue between the public andprivate sectors and offers analytical in-sight and information about new se-curity conditions. The Foundation hostsregular events and conferences, includ-ing an annual 'International Forum oneLearning for Defence and Security.'He is also a founding director of theAfrica Forum on Business, Investmentand Security, a member of the steeringcommittee of ONLINE EDUCA BERLINand a member of the Organising Com-mittee of eLearning Africa.

Dr Elletson was previously Director of theNATO Forum on Business and Security,which he created with support from theNATO Science Programme. The Forum,which brought academics, businessmenand political leaders together to discussthe implications of the new security en-vironment, was attended by delegatesfrom over 60 different countries.

A former Member of the United King-dom Parliament (from 1992-1997), heserved as Parliamentary Private Secre-tary to the Secretary of State for North-ern Ireland in the early stages of thepeace process and was also a memberof the Select Committee on Environ-ment. Harold Elletson has a goodknowledge of education at a local levelboth in Britain and overseas. He servedas a member of the Lancashire Educa-tion Authority (the Education Commit-tee of Lancashire County Council) be-fore being elected to Parliament wherehe represented the interests of schoolsand colleges in his constituency in dis-cussions with Ministers and on the floorof the House of Commons.

An international public affairs consult-ant and a fluent Russian speaker, hehas advised many leading companieson aspects of their business in the for-

seals to passports to emerging Inter-net-based digital identity credentials.

Chango has also served within Internetgovernance bodies, including as policycouncillor for Internet domain namespolicy at ICANN and as a consultanton projects to numerous organisations,including UNESCO, International Development Research Centre, OSIWA(Open Society Initiative for West Africa)and EvalNet. He has authored or co-authored a number of scholarly articles and a book chapter on Internetgovernance, eGovernment and broad-band civic networks. Chango hasearned a graduate degree at Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris and a PhDdegree at Syracuse University in NewYork State. He speaks French, Englishand Portuguese. Mawaki Changoserved on the Editorial Board of TheeLearning Africa Report 2013.

Pierre DandjinouPierre Dandjinou currently holds theposition of Vice President (VP), Stake-holder Engagement for Africa, of theICANN. Prior to this, Pierre was policyAdvisor for information and commu-nication technology (ICT) for develop-ment at the United Nations DevelopmentProgramme (UNDP). He previously wasthe director of Infocom Services, a con-sultancy firm operating from Cotonou,Benin and Dakar, Senegal. He has beeninvolved in many IT-related initiativeson the continent, including AfriNIC, In-ternet initiative for Africa, AfricaCERTand the Africa Internet Summit (AIS).

Pierre Dandjinou graduated from theUniversity of Paris III, Sorbonne and theCNAM (Conservatoire National des Artset Métiers), Paris, France. His currentfields of interest are eGovernment asa means for fostering public adminis-tration reform, cyber security and e-platforms for online education. PierreDandjinou serves on the Editorial Boardof The elearning Africa Report 2013.



mer Soviet Union, including BP in Azer-baijan and Alstom in Siberia. He haswritten widely on political and historicalsubjects and his first book, The GeneralAgainst the Kremlin, was published byLittle Brown. His journalism has beenpublished in a variety of newspapersand magazines. Dr Elletson holds aPhD in Social Sciences from the Uni-versity of Bradford. Harold Elletsonserved on the Editorial Board of TheeLearning Africa Report

He has a longstanding interest in foodproduction, owns a small agriculturalestate in the north of England and hostsa monthly farmers' market at his home.

Ahmed M. El-Sobky Mr. El-Sobky is the Head of the Tech-nical Division at Information Technol-ogy Industry Development Agency(ITIDA). He has been working in thefields related to Information Technologysince 1985.

He worked as the Director of StrategicProjects at the Ministry of Investmentand participated in managing a num-ber of eGovernment projects imple-mented under the umbrella of the Ministry of State for Administrative Development (MSAD).

On the African level, he participated inthe development of eLearning strategyfor both Nile Basin and COMESA Coun-tries as an Egyptian expert who partic-ipated in implementing the first eLearn-ing Master degree in the Middle Eastin collaboration with Middlesex Univer-sity in UK and in establishing the Egypt-ian node for the Global Distance Learn-ing Network of the World Bank (GDLN).

On the regional level, and as a memberof the Arab Workforce Group prepar-ing the WSIS 1st phase, he has partic-ipated in formulating the draft docu-ment Towards a Pan Arab InformationSociety - A Joint Action Plan. In addi-tion, he participated in the drafting

David HollowDavid Hollow works for Jigsaw Consult(www.jigsawconsult.com), a social enter-prise based in London that works with awide range of international developmentorganisations. He has been a keen par-ticipant in eLearning Africa since 2007.

David works with a variety of donors,governments, private sector and civilsociety organisations on issues of education, technology, partnership andimpact assessment. He holds a PhD inevaluating the impact of ICT on education in Africa and also lectureson the MSc course in ICT4D at RoyalHolloway, University of London. He isChair of Trustees for Refugee SupportNetwork (www.refugeesupportnet-work.org), a London-based charity pro-viding educational support to youngpeople affected by displacement andcrisis. David Hollow served as sub-editorto The eLearning Africa Report.

Shafika IsaacsShafika Isaacs is an independent consultantwho specialises in the role of digital tech-nologies in improving education access,quality and equity. She has worked withUNESCO, eLearning Africa, the Bill andMelinda Gates Foundation, UNICEF, theCommonwealth of Learning (COL), theWorld Bank, Cisco, Intel and Microsoft.

She was formerly the founding Execu-tive Director of SchoolNet Africa, Education Director at Mindset Network,Partner Development Lead for Mi-crosoft’s Unlimited Potential Group inthe Middle East and Africa and SeniorProgramme Officer for the InternationalDevelopment Research Centre (IDRC).

Currently, she serves as the ProgrammeDirector of eLearning Africa and Editorof The eLearning Africa Report. Shafikaalso serves on the Global Compact forLearning Research Task Team, UN-ESCO's Mobile Learning Policy AdvisoryGroup, The Lewis Foundation Board ofTrustees, NMC Horizon K-12 Report Ad-

committee of the High Level Arab Con-ference to prepare for the first phaseof the WSIS, which was held in Cairoin June 2003.

As a national IT expert, he contributedto the implementation of the NationalContest of the e-Content under theumbrella of – ITIDA, through his mem-bership of the competition executivecommittee. He also participated as juryin the second round of the competitionin 2007 in the field of eLearning. He wasalso a jury member in the MotamizonCompetition, organised by National Institute of the Department under theumbrella of the Ministry of State forAdministrative Development. In addi-tion, he led a national workgroup –under the umbrella of the Ministry ofCommunications and InformationTechnology – to issue the Egypt ICTGolden Book, which presented the proj-ects undertaken by Egypt in the field ofICT4D as one of Egypt's efforts in theimplementation and follow-up of thetwo WSIS phases, Geneva and Tunis.

Mr. El-Sobky is an author for a numberof papers submitted in international,regional, and local conferences in theareas of eLearning, eContent, eGov-ernment and the Knowledge Society.In addition, he has authored a bookcalled A Guide for Information Tech-nology and Systems Security.

He is a member of the Board of Infor-mation Technology and Communica-tion – Internet Security Workgroup,Academy of Scientific Research andTechnology, Egypt. Ahmed El-Sobkyserved on the Editorial Board of TheeLearning Africa Report 2013.

Toby HarperToby Harper is an expert in social andorganisational development, based inCanada. More information can befound at www.thll.ca. Toby Harperwrote sections of The eLearning AfricaReport 2013.



visory Board, Intel's Policy AdvisoryGroup, ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN SteeringCommittee and is the Chair of School-Net South Africa. She has authored anumber of research reports and papersrelated to ICT in Education in Africa.

As a recipient of the Nelson MandelaScholarship Award, she obtained aMaster of Science degree in Scienceand Technology Policy at the Universityof Sussex and an Executive MBA cumlaude at the Graduate School of Busi-ness at the University of Cape Town.Shafika Isaacs served as editor of TheeLearning Africa Report 2013.

Lee MuzalaLee Muzala is an ICT Consultant withTrio Consult Limited (www.trio-con-sult.com), an ICT consultancy firmbased in Zambia, which he co-foundedin 2004. Trio Consult specialises in de-sign of websites, databases, interactivelearning resources and animations foruse in education. Lee started his careerin IT in 1997, as a software developerworking with programming tools likeCOBOL and dBase 3 and 4. Lee has ex-tensive experience in the ICT sector inZambia, and his work has seen him risefrom a programmer and trainer to beingand IT Manager and eventually as Man-aging Director of an ICT consultancyfirm. Over the last few years, Lee hasinitiated several online ventures likeMpoto (www.mpoto.info) – an onlinetender advertising platform; TiyendeZambia (www.tiyende-zambia.com) – aniche event directory of all events hap-pening in Zambia, specifically aimed ataiding travellers (visitors and locals) toknow places they can visit and have fun;StudyMate (www.studymate.info) – aneducational platform that is aimed atgiving Zambian learners an opportunityto use digital and interactive learningresources, as they prepare for exams.

Muzala’s passion for technology andcreativity has been the driving force

leading international conference on ICTfor Development, Education and Train-ing, held in a different African countryeach year. She is also the Executive Director and founder of ICWE GmbH,an international conference and mediacompany based in Berlin and Chairmanof the Board of the award-winning webportal Internet Course Finders, whichoffers information on all types of edu-cational institutions worldwide.

Rebecca is a co-founder and share-holder of ICEF GmbH, the recognisedglobal leader in international studentrecruitment and a founding director ofE-Cubed Communications, an agencyfor international communications, mar-keting and public affairs. She is an advisor to the European Learning Industry Group (ELIG) and a boardmember of the Global DevelopmentLearning Network (GDLN), a globalboard overseeing the 120 GDLN affil-iates in 80 countries.

Rebecca serves as the Chairperson ofthe East Trust, a not-for-profit organi-sation that aims to make a lasting pos-itive impact on education in Africa. Sheis also a member of board of theDrucker Society, a practitioner led,multi-stakeholder group that builds onPeter Drucker’s fundamental ideas andideals with the aim of contributing tothe evolution of management as a vitalpiece of a functioning modern society,and a member of the board of directorsof the Global Business School Network.

Rebecca grew up in an internationaland multilingual environment. She wasborn in Kuwait and spent most of herformative years in different countriesin the Middle East. She studied SlavonicStudies, Comparative Literature & Media Studies in Berlin and Moscowand Business Administration in the UK.She speaks English, German, Frenchand Russian. Rebecca Stromeyer provides strategic direction to theeLearning Africa Report and serves onits Editorial Board.

behind the several initiatives he hasworked on, including the ones that arestill work in progress. Lee Muzalaserved on the Editorial Board of TheeLearning Africa Report 2013.

Evelyn Namara Evelyn Namara is a technologist andsocial entrepreneur with a passion forworking with women and girls in tech-nology and entrepreneurship. Evelynstarted her career as the IT technicalsupport engineer for a small firm calledLinux Solutions; she later joined HITSTELECOM (now Orange Uganda Lim-ited) as the IT Unix Administrator. Shewas part of the team that set up mostof the core systems at Orange, includ-ing the company proxy. She managedmost of the IT company’s UNIX basedsystems and maintained them.

After working in the telecoms sectorfor over four years, Evelyn moved onto work with a grassroots organisationcalled Solar Sister, Inc., a social enter-prise that uses the breakthrough potential of Solar energy to empowerwomen in rural Uganda. She is theCountry Manager of Solar Sister inUganda and has led the organisationfrom its core start with about 10 entrepreneurs to growing it to about300 entrepreneurs to date.

Her passion is to see how simple tech-nological tools can be used to bringabout social change in society and hergoal is to use such technologies to empower women to do their own busi-nesses. She is a Bsc. Computer Sciencegraduate and also holds a Diploma inInformation Technology. Evelyn Namaraserved on the Editorial Board of TheeLearning Africa Report 2013.

Rebecca StromeyerRebecca Stromeyer founded eLearningAfrica in 2005. eLearning Africa is the

• The key networking event for ICT-enhanced learning and training in Africa

• The place where the high-level decision makers and practitioners who are shaping Africa’s ICT-enhanced learning industry come together once a year

• The largest and most comprehensive capacity development event for ICT-enhanced learning and training in Africa, with over 1,500 education practitioners, experts and academics

• A rich conference programme with over 300 speakers and chairpersons from 50 countries examining the major issues, latest developments and trends in eLearning

• The latest eLearning products and services on show in the extensive exhibition area

To fi nd out more, visit www.elearning-africa.com

MAY 28 – 30, 2014KAMPALA, UGANDA

Organisers

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Which digital devices are morepopular for learning? Why andhow are technologies used forlearning? What eLearning failureshave been experienced? What arethe top post-2015 developmentpriorities? By addressing thesecritical questions, and many others, The eLearning Africa Report 2013 takes the pulse ofthose at the forefront of changeand innovation in African educa-tion. It features current thinkingand experience with digital tech-nologies in a wide range of indi-vidual and institutional contexts.

Opinion pieces by experts, inter-views with African innovators,photos from The eLearning AfricaPhoto Competitions and comicsadd color to the rich stories andinsights of education investors,lecturers, government officialsand entrepreneurs from 42African countries.

The eLearning Africa Report 2013seeks to inform and inspire theeducation and skills developmentconversations in Africa, with thehope of improving practice, policyand impact in line with the Millennium Development Goals.

elearning africa report 2013

Documents

elearning africa survey

digital learning technologies

international development

future of development

mobile technologies

use of digital technologies

classroom learning

survey respondents