Technological Infrastructure and Use of ICT in Education in ... - ADEA

Technological Infrastructure and Use of ICT in Education in Africa: an overview
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• To achieve e-readiness for all countries in Africa
• To develop and produce a pool of ICT-proficient youth and students
from which Africa can draw trainee ICT engineers, programmers,
and software developers
• To develop local-content software, based specifically on Africa’s
cultural legacy
(NEPAD, 2001: 28)
While these objectives represent an important starting point for ICT
and development for Africa, some are rather ambitious targets and
over-simplification of the complexity of widespread ICT use in Africa
needs to be avoided.
To achieve the above objectives, it is noted that action is required with
respect to
• Policy and legislative development
• Regulatory capacity enhancement
• The establishment of a network of training and research institutions
to build high level manpower
• The promotion and acceleration of existing projects to connect
schools and youth centres
• The establishment of financial mechanisms for mitigating and
reducing sector risks
(NEPAD, 2001 – emphasis added).
The two activities emphasized in the above list highlight the role that
education can play, and situate education initiatives as an integral
component of NEPAD. In addition, the NEPAD document recognizes
the importance of ICT in the context of bridging the educational gap
specifically. This includes improving access to ICTs across the education
sector, as well as the need for a task team to accelerate introduction of
ICT in primary schools. Finally, to highlight further the importance being
accorded to ICT for the continent, it should be noted that ICT is included
as one of four programmes proposed for fast-tracked implementation
(the other three being communicable diseases, debt reduction, and
market access).
6. Africa, ICT and Development