News

Microfinance is recognised as an effective development intervention in improving the livelihoods of poor and low-income people. In order to help disseminators and to improve essential qualification, in 2005 the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), the Tokyo Development Learning Center (TDLC) of the World Bank and the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) jointly established a blended-learning programme called Microfinance Training of Trainers (MFTOT).

At eLearning Africa 2008, Dr Jiping Zhang from TDLC will show how the MFTOT courses are designed and delivered, as well as what development impacts have been observed so far.
More

Teacher in primary
school in northern
Laos,© Wikimedia
Commons

Wikiversity is organising an online course “Composing free and open online educational resources”. Starting on March 3, 2008, the course is designed for teachers and teacher-students who do not have prior knowledge or skills related to free and open education resources.
More

More than 380 high-quality proposals have been received for the upcoming eLearning Africa conference. Amongst the applicants are universities and education institutions, renowned development organisations, grass-roots project leaders and corporations from 61 countries worldwide. This edition of the newsletter offers a sneak preview of some of the seminars and events that precede this year’s conference.
More

eLearning in Zambia has taken awhile to get off the ground, but progress has been made and the future certainly holds promise. Two recent developments, an eLearning cooperation pact with India and the convening of eLearning Zambia, the first major conference of its type to be held in the country, appear to augur well for the country’s eLearning community and prospects. Brenda Zulu reports from Lusaka...
More

© UNESCO/
A. Wheeler

Building upon two preceding discussion groups from 2003 and 2005, a ministerial round table on education and economic development was held at UNESCO headquarters during a two-day meeting at the 34th Session of the General Conference. Along with key issues at the interface between education and economic development, the round table focussed specifically on the equity and ethical dimension of economic growth.
More

The Republic of Ghana, celebrating its fiftieth birthday this year, is known as one of the most stable countries on the African continent. Not least because of international investors’ trust in its democracy, Ghana has a flourishing economy. According to World Bank numbers, Ghana’s Information Communications Technology (ICT) sector has registered one of the most significant growth rates in Africa.

Ghana also has made good progress in preparing the ground for further proceedings in eLearning, and eLearning Africa takes great pride in the country’s willingness to host the next edition of the Conference in 2008. Delighted with the result of eLearning Africa 2007, Ghanaian presenters like Daniel Nettey, International Institute for Information Technology (INIIT), have already signalled their enthusiasm in contributing to the upcoming event: “eLearning Africa 2007 has been a step in the right direction for Africa. Keep up the good work, and you can count on my team anytime to assist in any way to bring ICT to a complete realization in the African continent.”

In the following, eLA provides a general introduction into the country’s educational successes and future challenges.
More

In Kiswahili, Harambee means “Let’s all pull together!” It was Kenya’s first President, Jomo Kenyatta, who introduced an informal self-help movement based on this concept. His shouts of “haaa-ramm-bee” motivated many people to undertake community action. eLearning Africa 2007 wanted to continue with the original idea – to provide conference attendants with a flexible, interesting, and fuss-free platform to get things started.
More

The Midlands State University Zimbabwe is looking for academics who can review articles on technology in education in a university publication…
More

Reliable data on eLearning in African organisations are rather rare. ICWE, in cooperation with the Swedish Programme for ICT in developing regions (SPIDER) and the ICT4D Collective/UNESCO Centre for ICT4D at Royal Holloway, University of London are conducting an international survey on the take-up of eLearning in African organisations and educational institutions.
More

Although Rwanda has only 8.6 million inhabitants and an area of 26 338 km², most of which is devoted to agriculture, the country can nonetheless be regarded as a little giant in terms of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT): On the basis of its farsighted strategy, Rwanda has already managed to establish itself among the leading e-countries on the African continent. eLearning Africa 2007 is going to highlight some of the country’s lighthouse projects in the fields of education and medical training.
More

The objective of this open platform is to provide users with training and capacity-building resources on literacy and other subjects. It will also provide a space to share training material.

Developed by a variety of stakeholders worldwide in co-operation with UNESCO, the platform advocates open content in non-formal education. Most of the training programmes have open licenses which make them accessible to all for teaching and learning. Besides literacy, the subjects covered include computers, business, environment and community development.
More