His Excellency Honourable Dr Sintayehu Woldemichael, Minister of Education, Ethiopia

His Excellency Honourable Dr Noah M. Wekesa, Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Kenya

Partners in Promoting ICT for Education in Africa,

Ladies and Gentlemen

It is my great honour and pleasure to warmly welcome you all to the first international conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Development and Education entitled, “e-Learning Africa”. Let me also welcome you to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the headquarters of ECA, as well as many other UN agencies.

I am particularly pleased to note that this conference is bringing together a unique mix of ICT experts, representatives of Ministries of Education, private sector, Civil Society Organisations, publishers as well as representatives of the international community to deliberate on a fundamental Millennium Development Goal – which is EDUCATION and how ICT can assist in its delivery.

Let me at this junction, recognize the presence of Pr. Cheikh Modibo Diarra who has honored Africa through his various activities related to technology development and distance learning. Pr Cheikh Modibo Diarra, the NASA interplanetary navigator, the UNESCO good will ambassador for sciences and technology, the former Head of African virtual university, the founder of the world francophone e-university is indeed a real source of pride for the whole African continent. I would like to take this opportunity to salute his commitment to participating concretely in the implementation of the Digital Solidarity Fund’s projects on the ground.

ICTs have already begun to exert massive transformation of education systems worldwide. Distance education universities are now quoted on the stock exchange. The best teachers in the world are becoming available anywhere at the click of a mouse while ‘Lifelong Learning’ has become the order of the day.

Providing connectivity through the use of the Internet and computers to schools and public centers is one of the priorities for governments. They serve as a basis to build necessary capacity of its citizens and facilitate their empowerment. This is because education is the prerequisite in creating an Information Society and ultimately a Knowledge Economy.

ICT offers opportunities for distance education to people living in rural areas, as well as provides support to learning, teaching and management processes within the education system. It can also be used to support teachers who lack adequate skills and knowledge. Therefore the continent needs to strive to ensure that the literacy and e-literacy of its population can create a skilled workforce to support the emerging Knowledge Economy.

Unfortunately, the particular opportunities presented by ICT as a means for transforming the path of development through education remain largely untapped in Africa. The key challenges facing Africa’s quest for an e-learning environment are among others: limited infrastructure, lack of experts and expertise to develop and support applications and systems within this new environment. These challenges, if unchecked can create greater digital gaps between countries and within countries – exacerbating the rural –urban dichotomy. As a result, the skills gap will be between a student able to access the web for research and one who cannot access the basic traditional library facilities, for instance.
Moreover, the education systems are often stretched with limited financial resources.

These barriers are a real source of concern in Africa. But the challenge facing this continent today is how to adapt information and communication technologies as well as their content to the needs of populations and avail them to the majority. Education in Africa is required to address new challenges in preparing learners, both young and old on how to build bridges between local economies and the global system for their mutual benefits. Therefore, learning and teaching systems need to be put in place to foster aggressive responses to the challenges of globalisation.

In this regard, African countries need to consider how their education and learning systems can be transformed to produce well-informed citizens capable of creating sustainable incomes and livelihoods, and contribute to the global knowledge economy.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

In acknowledging the potential of ICT in socio-economic development, ECA is implementing the African Information Society Initiative (AISI), which was adopted by the Conference of Ministers of Finance, Economic Affairs, and Planning in 1996 as the guiding principle for developing Africa’s Information Society. AISI stresses the need to, “Foster a new generation of men and women in Africa who are able to use Information and Communication Technologies to leverage the development of their nations”.

E-learning should gain a wider role in the education sector in Africa. To this end ECA took several initiatives including:

Special attention should particularly be focused on the issue of gender. Statistics indicate that women’s access to technology is lower and more skewed than that of men. Any e-learning action plan should take the gender factor into consideration, targeting women from both the formal and non-formal sectors.

Furthermore, governments and their partners should ensure that legal and regulatory policies in Africa promote private sector investments in telecommunications infrastructure, as well as other support services to ensure an indigenous e-learning environment.

Consequently, I urge this gathering to consider all aspects of e-learning, with respect to policies, content, applications and systems. Can African countries build the adequate framework of expertise to sustain e-learning? What will it take and what steps need to be taken? How can countries create an e-learning environment to address its other development challenges such as the fight against HIV-AIDs?