Anglophone Africa

Contents [hide]

1 Partners and Experts in Region

2 Countries in Region

3 Education in Region

4 Schools in Region

5 Further and Higher education

       5.1 Universities in Region
       5.2 Polytechnics in Region
       5.3 Colleges in Region

6 Education reform

       6.1 Schools
       6.2 Post-secondary

7 Administration and finance

       7.1 Schools
       7.2 Post-secondary

8 Quality assurance, inspection and accreditation

       8.1 Schools
       8.2 Post-secondary

9 Information society

10 ICT in education initiatives

       10.1 Virtual initiatives in schools
       10.2 Virtual initiatives in post-secondary education

11 Lessons learnt

       11.1 General lessons
       11.2 Notable practices

12 References

Anglophone Africa is in theory the supraregion consisting of those countries in Africa that are predominantly English-speaking. All such countries are members of the Commonwealth of Nations - see Category:Commonwealth_countries.

For related concepts see Category:Africa and Category:English-speaking countries.

For background information on ways of categorising Africa see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_of_Africa

VISCED

In VISCED we treat South Africa and Kenya separately. Thus the supraregion might more correctly but less charitably called "Anglophone less-developed Africa". Anglophone Africa is the supraregion consisting of those countries in Africa where English is both a widely-spoken language and an official language, where the country was a former colony of Britain, and where the educational infrastructure is or until recently was organised along "British" lines.

These countries include:

In East Africa - Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

In Southern Africa - Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia

In West Africa - Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Liberia

Report

This is an initial summary by Nick Jeans.

E-learning is fundamentally influenced by students’ preferred platforms. In many parts of Africa, internet access is cheaper and more reliable by phone than by PC/ laptop, so learning materials need to be accessible via mobile devices. Distance learning can increase the number of people in education in Africa. The biggest obstacle to e-learning in Africa is really bandwidth. Undersea cables should provide more bandwidth to Africa soon, but there are still obstacles with unstable electricity supply, lack of computer equipment and internet access at schools. Challenges are: a) High student to computer ratio due to relatively few computer workstations as compared to the high numbers of students; b) Poor internet connectivity; and c) Erratic power supply.

African Teachers are often used to being the omniscient sage on the stage – furthermore pupils and parents expect them to be so. They therefore tend to be pedagogically conservative and unconvinced by approaches such as constructivist, personalised or games-based learning.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the average 15-year-old does not attend school. The challenge of reaching ‘Education for All’ by 2015 is to afford these socially excluded young people access to quality learning opportunities. (e-Learning Africa 2011 conference website under the theme CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT AND eINCLUSION: http://www.elearning-africa.com/programme_themes.php)

Experts situated in Region

Regional overview

High mobile phone penetration relative to fixed line subscriptions make Africa the region with the highest ratio of mobile phone to Internet users in the world. Many applications available over the Internet in other parts of the world are available in Africa via mobile networks. Necessity can become the mother of invention, provoking the development of interesting uses of mobile technology, including the M-pesa payment method from Kenya. Safaricom has seen the market penetration of its money transfer product grow to a total of approximately 15 million subscribers today. Another Kenyan company, Virtual City, won the top prize of USD $1 million at Nokia’s Growth Economy Venture Challenge while MXit, a social network with more users than Facebook in South Africa, is now being used for learning with MXit Reach, using QuizMax, Calcit, Nokia MoMaths or Dr Maths to learn Maths, Physical and Life Sciences (http://www.mxit.com/content/ap/en/MXitReach).

Education in Region

Many of these countries have maintained elements of the British educational system.

The average 15-year-old does not attend school. The challenge of reaching ‘Education for All’ by 2015 is to afford these socially excluded young people access to quality learning opportunities. (e-Learning Africa 2011 conference website under the theme CAPACITY DEVELOPMENT AND eINCLUSION: http://www.elearning-africa.com/programme_themes.php)

Many universities in Africa provide vocational courses that would commonly be delivered by Further Education institutions in the European Union.

Schools in Region

Further and Higher education in Region

Universities in Region

Polytechnics in Region

Colleges in Region

Education reform

Schools

Post-secondary

Administration and finance

Schools

Post-secondary

Quality assurance

Schools

Post-secondary

Information society

ICT in education initiatives

E-learning is fundamentally influenced by students’ preferred platforms. In many parts of Africa, internet access is cheaper and more reliable by phone than by PC/ laptop, so learning materials need to be accessible via mobile devices. Distance learning can increase the number of people in education in Africa. The biggest obstacle to e-learning in Africa is really bandwidth. Undersea cables should provide more bandwidth to Africa this year in 2010, but there are still obstacles with unstable electricity supply, lack of computer equipment and internet access at schools. Challenges are: a) High student to computer ratio due to relatively few computer workstations as compared to the high numbers of students; b) Poor internet connectivity; and c) Erratic power supply. African Teachers are often used to being the omniscient sage on the stage – and pupils’ parents expect them to be so. They therefore tend to be pedagogically conservative and unconvinced by approaches such as personalised learning or games-based learning.

OER Africa (http://www.oerafrica.org/) is an initiative established by the South African Institute for Distance Education (Saide) to play a leading role in driving the development and use of Open Educational Resources (OER) across all education sectors on the African continent.

Virtual initiatives in schools

SchoolNet Africa (http://www.schoolnetafrica.org/) is a non-government organisation (NGO) that operates across the continent to improve education access, quality and efficiency through the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in African schools. SchoolNet Africa works mainly with learners, teachers, policymakers and practitioners through country-based schoolnet organisations across Africa. SchoolNet Africa started in 1999 and is based in Johannesburg, South Africa where it employs staff from different African countries to manage its programs.

ACEMaths was a collaborative project to select, adapt and use a set of materials on the teaching and learning of maths for teacher education. These are now available for downloading for free from http://www.oerafrica.org/acemaths/ACEMathsProjectHome/tabid/132/Default.aspx

Virtual initiatives in post-secondary education

Lessons learnt

General lessons

Notable practices

References

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> Africa
> VISCED supraregions
> Countries

>> VISCED

Farrell, Glen and Shafika Isaacs. 2007. Survey of ICT and Education in Africa: A Summary Report, Based on 53 Country Surveys. Washington, DC: infoDev / World Bank. Available at http://www.infodev.org/en/Publication.353.html

http://www.schoolnetafrica.org/