VISCED on Madagascar fragment

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ICT in education initiatives

Overview

Madagascar has begun to take steps towards promoting ICTs for development with the adoption of two policies: 1) the national ICT policy in 2004 and 2) the economic and social development policy, the Madagascar Action Plan for 2007-2012, which promotes the expansion of ICT infrastructure and access in the country including the establishment of ICT centres in schools. The country does not have a national ICT policy for education, and the level of access to ICTs including connectivity is relatively low. There are a few initiatives in the country that attempt to promote the access and use of ICTs to support learning and teaching, but these largely assume the form of extracurricular projects.

Country Profile Since the mid-1990s Madagascar has followed a World Bank and IMF-led policy of privatisation and liberalisation which has placed the country on a slow and steady growth path. Agriculture, including fishing and forestry, is a mainstay of the economy, accounting for more than one-quarter of the GDP and employing 80% of the population. Exports of apparel have boomed in recent years primarily due to duty-free access to the US. Deforestation and erosion, aggravated by the use of firewood as the primary source of fuel, are serious concerns. Madagascar is plagued by periodic cyclones, floods, drought, and locust infestation. Poverty reduction and combating corruption will be the centrepieces of economic policy for the next few years. Madagascar is a classified as a highly indebted poor country by the World Bank. Children make up more than half of the population, and half of them live on less than USD$1 a day. Source InfoDev

Virtual initiatives in schools

Madagascar Virtual School The Africa Virtual School (AVS) was founded in February of 2008 as the first regional school of the World Virtual School, in order to serve students of all backgrounds with the highest quality online courses, at the lowest cost possible. The goal of AVS is to offer equitable, quality education to all students, regardless of age, race, gender, ethnic, religious, or cultural background, via the internet so that they may join the global social, cultural and economic environment. The World Virtual School is a subsidiary of the Hawking Institute, Inc., a non-profit NGO of Atlanta, GA, USA. It is also a partnership project with The Personal Learning Center, International, LLC (dba PLC/i EDU) which is incorporated as a Limited Liability Corporation within the State of Illinois in the United States and has official offices in Cordova, Illinois, USA.

No evidences, though, from the website, of what has been actually being run in the country.

Madagascar School Project One Laptop Per Child Initiative As with organizations such as the United Nations Commission for Africa, the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund, and Develop Africa to name a few, the Madagascar School Project views technology as a tool to help the Malagasy improve the quality of their lives and fight against poverty. See Factsheet

The SchoolNet Association of Madagascar was launched in 2005. Since then it has mainly been involved in activities supported by the International Institute for Communications and Development (IICD) Global Teenager Project which encourages on-line collaborative learning programmes with young learners from all over the world. SchoolNet Madagascar has also trained 220 learners and teachers to participate in the Mtandao Afrika programme supported by Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential Program, which assumes the form of a contest to encourage learners and teachers across Africa to form teams to develop educational Web sites.

References

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