Themes – eLearning Africa 2011

All practical initiatives, projects and programmes are underpinned by conceptual frameworks, which guide collective thinking and inform both policy and practice. What are the key concepts that should concern us, as we produce policy or plan implementation in diverse settings on a range of issues?

What is our understanding of existing theories? Do we agree with them? What new thinking is emerging in the key areas listed below?

What are the dominant discourses that guide our understanding of so-called traditional pedagogy versus 21st century pedagogy and the transition from the one to the other? What is the nature of this transition in African learning environments and how is it transformational? How do these changes in pedagogy enhance the development of the skills and competencies demanded by changing labour markets?

Is there a shared understanding of the meaning of lifelong learning, skill and competency development and employability in 21st century labour markets? What are the conceptual approaches that inform strategies and practice on lifelong learning and skill development in various contexts? How do experiences in high income economies compare with lower income economies?

How do institutions learn and what are the conceptual frameworks that guide the way institutional learning happens in corporations, small businesses, governments at all levels, NGOs and CBOs? How are individuals in institutions learning and developing the necessary competencies under conditions of uncertainty and constant change? How do technologies enable the development of these competencies?

Learning how to learn is considered a crucial competency of the 21st century because, through it, one learns how to manage conditions of rapid change and uncertainty. What are the conceptual approaches that assist practitioners, policy makers and stakeholders to make decisions in ways that foster individual and collective learning in education environments?

eLearning research, knowledge sharing, learning through practice and continuous monitoring and evaluation have increased in recent years and are beginning to show signs of improving practice. How are these integrated in ways that improve practice and deepen our conceptual understanding on a continuous basis?

How do eLearning policy makers and practitioners understand the skills, skill development and employability requirements of labour markets in the 21st century and why are our education systems not producing employable learners for changing labour markets?

Policies matter. They provide the guiding frameworks and enabling environments for the implementation of eLearning projects and programmes. What is the nature of national, regional and local institutional policy frameworks that enable eLearning initiatives? How do they guide the relationships between partners in multi-stakeholder partnerships? How do they create the conditions for the mobilisation and sustainability of the requisite resources to enable the implementation of policies?

Many countries in Africa have policies on ICTs in Education in place, many are revising their policies and a few are still formulating policy. In all these experiences, policy formulation has been challenged by the need to be flexible and accommodate rapid change. How are policies currently formulated, implemented and monitored over time at regional, national and institutional levels?

Almost all ICTs in Education initiatives are characterised invariably by multi-stakeholder partnerships. Are all relevant stakeholders involved in these partnerships and how are relationships managed within them, especially when they involve conflicting perspectives? When have partnerships broken down or fizzled out and how, if at all, were they re-established and maintained?

Various financing and resourcing tools have been applied in a range of eLearning initiatives. How have these been developed and how effective have they been? How have they guided planning and the mobilisation of resources?

A host of new innovations in the use of technologies in education have sprung up. What are the latest trends in these new solutions? What is the nature of their uptake in African contexts? How are decision-makers making technological choices? What informs their choices and why?

What is the nature of the new innovations in technologies that have emerged in recent years? How are social networking sites enabling learning and teaching in African education institutions and learning environments? To what extent have we made progress in applying various technology access models to promote ubiquity, equity and quality in education and the development of appropriate skills?

Mobile learning has offered significant opportunities for advancing education access, equity and quality, provided it is used alongside other technology access models. It is also believed that learning with mobile technologies enables the development of particular skills and competencies that prepare young people for a changing labour market. What would these skills and competencies be? How is mobile learning being integrated within national ICT in Education systems and system-wide approaches to skill and competency development? Are mobile learning initiatives still taking place in isolation from other eLearning initiatives in Africa and elsewhere?

Decision makers in governments, NGOs, corporations and small businesses are confronted with an increasing array of new and upgraded technologies. How do they choose which one is appropriate for their context and why do they make these technology choices?

New innovations in open source solutions have emerged in recent years. What are these, how are they applied and with what degree of success?

There has been host of initiatives in Africa to enable access to Internet connectivity. How have these progressed and with what degree of success in promoting affordable bandwidth?

Much has been said and written about the need to integrate eWaste strategies within eLearning policy and planning processes. Similarly, producers of technologies are increasingly compelled to produce technologies that are more environmentally friendly and include plans for managing electronic waste production. To what extent have these been tried, are they enough to stem the tide of rapid eWaste production and have these attempts failed or made progress?

The schools sector has historically led the way in eLearning in Africa. Most national policies focus on this sector in Africa, many companies have piloted their solutions in this sector, many in-service teachers have been ‘trained’ in the schools sector and increasing numbers of learners are learning with technologies both within and beyond the classroom. Planners and teachers in this sector have also explored how ICTs can improve learning and teaching and create better systems of management, administration and governance at school, district, provincial and national levels. In Africa though, we often hear the perspective of teachers, principals, researchers, policy-makers and eLearning practitioners. Whilst these viewpoints are very important, we should hear other voices too. We need to learn about the experience of parents, youth and children. How do African learners find learning with technologies? What do they use it for and why? How do parents respond to the various eLearning initiatives in schools?

Universities and HEIs are increasingly adopting institutional policies on eLearning, many of which also involve active collaboration with universities in Africa and across the world. What is the nature of these eLearning policies and how do they enable technology choices, learning management, knowledge production, partnerships and, importantly, the mobilisation and management of resources?

Governments in Africa face some of the toughest challenges in reforming technical and vocational education (TVET). Much has also been written about the mismatch in skill development between TVET programs and the skills demanded in a changing labour market. Are there programs which are using ICTs and eLearning to address this challenge? How is ICT integration enabling the development of labour market skills? And if it is not doing so, what are the reasons?

Youth and adult illiteracy often means a lifetime of disadvantage because it damages self-esteem and diminishes social and economic prospects. When people are illiterate, society as a whole suffers. However, rapid advances in ICTs offer opportunities for the improvement of literacy rates among youth and adults through literacy and ABET programmes. To what extent do these programs incorporate eLearning? What has been the nature of this experience in Africa? How are national governments promoting the use of ICTs to help reach the UN’s ‘Education for All’ goal of achieving a 50% improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015?
 
ICTs are widely believed to improve access to quality learning opportunities, equity and empowerment, particularly in areas of severe disadvantage, such as the informal economic and subsistence sectors and among the rural poor. These are often provided through distance learning programmes. What kinds of programmes have used ICTs to extend access to quality education and learning to these sectors?

Young people make up one quarter of the world’s population, yet almost half of the world’s youth population is unemployed. This problem has become even more acute since the onset of the global economic recession and remains one of the most persistent challenges facing governments across the world. How is the eLearning community tackling youth unemployment? How is youth employability and job creation being addressed at local and national levels and what contribution is eLearning making?

What opportunities does eLearning in the agricultural sector offer youth? How does eLearing in this sector contribute to better farm management and more efficient agricultural production? How do eLearning initiatives contribute towards strategies for food security?

As access to Internet connectivity becomes increasingly widespread, the continent becomes increasingly vulnerable to the risk of sophisticated cyber attacks and other digital risks, which threaten both African nations’ security, infrastructure, economic growth and public services, as well as the digital security of the continent’s children and youth. For this reason, there is an increasing interest in awareness raising, skill development and capacity building to foster cyber-security and safe digital environments. What eLearning programmes have been developed in this sector in Africa? What has been their effect and what remains to be done?

Governments all over the world are embarking on education and training programmes for their employees in an attempt to improve service delivery. What eLearning programmes and systems are being applied in the public sector in Africa?

Both the corporate sector and small, medium and micro enterprises in Africa have developed a range of eLearning initiatives which appear to be effective. How are these eLearning programmes enhancing lifelong learning opportunities for employees and management within these institutions? What role can these institutions play in enhancing employability among young people?

The global crisis in teaching has been referred to as a silent emergency. It is estimated that about 10 million qualified teachers are needed if we are to reach the ‘Education for All’ goals by 2015. What role can technologies play in managing the dire shortage in the number and quality of teachers?

What examples are there of cases where ICTs have enabled the management of teacher shortages?

Are ICTs enabling the development of requisite skills and competencies among teachers in schools, lecturers at universities, facilitators in informal education and adult learning? If not, what are the stumbling blocks to both system-wide and institutional professional development of the teaching community in Africa?

Which life and labour market skills and competencies are most appropriate for Africa’s diverse societal and economic conditions? How does eLearning play a role in this? Much has been written about the need to foster the development of life and labour market skills, particularly among young people, in ways that accommodate the needs of an uncertain, ever-changing economy and society. Concern has also been expressed about the mismatch between the skills and competencies developed by our education systems and those which are needed by society and the labour market. Many skill development systems also focus predominantly on the formal economy and considerably less attention has been given to the role of eLearning in skill development in the informal sectors of the economy, such as those which predominate in Africa. How can eLearning develop a bigger role for itself here?

In sub-Saharan Africa, the average 15-year-old does not attend school. This is one way of demonstrating the extent of social exclusion of African youth. The challenge of reaching ‘Education for All’ by 2015 is to afford these socially excluded young people access to quality learning opportunities. It is widely believed that ICTs can play a significant enabling role in meeting the challenge to reach the socially excluded. Why does it appear as if not much progress is being made in demonstrating the potential of ICTs in this sector? What are the successful cases from which we can learn?

What are the new trends in digital education content globally and in Africa? To what extent do curriculum reform processes in Africa inform the production and availability of digital education content and to what extent does content conform to curriculum requirements? How do these facilitate life and labour market skill development?

The Open Education Resources (OER) movement in Africa has grown in recent years. To what extent has access to OERs grown in Africa and what has beenthe effect of this growth? What has been the quality of African OERs and is there still aneed to monitor their quality?
 

The debate on intellectual property rights in education continues to rage. How can IPR regimes support elearning in ways that enable greater access to education, better skilling and competency development for disadvantaged communities in Africa, especially its youth? What are the policy regimes that are being adopted with reference to IPR in education at a global level and how are these manifested at national and institutional levels in Africa?