eLearning Africa Comes to a Successful Conclusion
Nairobi (KE)/ Berlin (GER), June 2007 - The second eLearning Africa conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training came to a close on 30 May. Experts from 88 countries spanning all continents gathered during the three conference days in Nairobi, Kenya. The accompanying first African High-Level Policy Maker and Industry Leader Round Table and Retreat also proved to be a resounding success.
"We are very pleased that our ongoing cooperation with a number of African governments resulted in the active participation of several ministers and senior government representatives at this year's conference", comments Rebecca Stromeyer, project manager and managing director of ICWE, "This reflects the strong commitment of African governments towards the deployment of ICTs as a development accelerator in their national educational reform programmes."
Hosted and chaired by the Hon. Prof. George Saitoti, the first African High-Level Policy Maker and Industry Leader Round Table and Retreat on 28 May 2007 became a milestone in inter-African ministerial collaboration related to African technology-enhanced education programmes. The Round Table endorsed a communiqué comprising three recommendations and a work plan.
Approximately 73 percent of the participants came from 43 African countries, making it a truly Pan-African event. Kenya, the hosting country, had the largest participant group, followed by the Nigerian delegation and big groups from South Africa and Uganda. From Europe, the UK sent the largest contingent. Canada and the USA were also well represented.
The programme featured the input of 308 speakers from 55 countries, including presentations from major development organisations such as UNESCO, UNEVOC, the Global Development Learning Network (GDLN), and the World Bank, as well as national and governmental institutions, mainly from Africa but also from Europe, Asia, and North America.
Projects and initiatives from all over Africa were presented, and the agenda featured leading example of how the latest developments in eLearning are being put to work in the service of learners regardless of their location or level of technology. eLearning at school and in medical and public health education featured significantly in this year's agenda, as did free and open content and the provision of open education resources for all types of training.
UNESCO-UNEVOC, in partnership with the Commonwealth of Learning, the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education in Africa, and the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training, organised the first African Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Summit "Access to and Inclusion in TVET in Africa Through New ICT-Based Solutions", which attracted more than 120 participants.
eLearning Africa 2008 will take place in Accra, Ghana from May 28 - 30, 2008.
