The
Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) will host the first
International Conference on ICT for Development, Education
and Training from May 24-26 2006 in the UN Conference Centre.
The Conference is being organized in partnership with the
Government of Ethiopia’s Capacity Building Ministry,
the Canadian ePolicy Resource Centre (Epol-Net) and the
European Commission under the theme “Empowering Africa
through Learning.”
ECA’s support
for this conference is in the framework of the Africa Learning
Network (ALN), to reaffirm the role of educational institutions,
including academia, universities and research institutions
in the Information Society within the framework of the ECA
work programme, the African Information Society Initiative
(AISI), which aims 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”.
“We launched
ALN in 1999 on the premise that transformation in education
and learning require a shift from traditional methods and
that new technologies can create the opportunity for the
best minds to exchange information across vast distances,
both at the national level and throughout the Diaspora".
"More than
that ALN offers a flexible and cost-effective way to take
education to Africa’s rural and urban poor and provide
alternatives to regular classroom settings available through
technologies such as satellite downlinks, interactive radio
and television, videoconferencing and virtual educational
networks,” says Ms. Aida Opoku-Mensah, Officer-in-Charge,
ECA’s Development Information Services Division (DISD).
ALN’s 3 main pillars, Schoolnet Africa, VarsityNet
and Out-of-School Youth Network (OOSYNET) focus on e-learning
at various levels and addresses curriculum development,
new learning approaches and outcomes, knowledge sharing
and building intellectual capital and sustainability through
revenue creation.
“Our main
role during this conference is to show-case the collaborative
initiatives we have embarked on with the ALN during the
ICT and Education Policies session, including the creation
and launch of SchoolNet Africa, which is now an independent
and viable African institution operating in more than 30
countries. ”
“With the
Inter-University Council for East Africa, we are supporting
an Information System for East African Universities that
will manage student records using Open Source Software.”
She adds that ECA is also embarking on e-learning for policy
makers in a number of key economic areas, including debt
management in Africa.
“Here
in Ethiopia, we are working in collaboration with Addis
Ababa University on a number of Open Source Software applications,
such as a medical information system accessible on mobile
devices, use of Ethiopic script in hand held devices and
setting up a pilot e-payment system,” says Ms. Opoku-Mensah.
The
conference is aimed at offering a uniue opportunity to gain
invaluable insights into the latest e-learning world. Key
to this will be the exhibition and demo area for service
providers.
This
event will attract universities and the higher education
sector, school services, senior staff from government departments,
the international community and the private sector such
as, the IT/Software industry and publishers.
For
more on ECA’s work with the Africa Learning Network
(ALN), visit www.uneca.org/disd
For the conference programme, highlights and updates, visit
www.elearning-africa.com
