In Ethiopia all 500 secondary schools and all twelve universities have been networked. Educational institutions in South Africa have led a pioneering role in eLearning for many years. Countries such as Botswana, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, and Tanzania have introduced a variety of ICTs to their already established distance learning programmes and traditional universities. Multi-purpose community tele-centers, regional study centers, faculties and corporate training centres across the continent are connected with African educational providers such as the “African Virtual University” and international programmes from development cooperation agencies abroad. In many countries schools have been equipped with PCs and are gradually being linked, forming national and cross-border school networks. One prominent example is “SchoolNet Africa“, which provides support to practitioners, education policymakers, teachers and learners in 31 African countries.

Is eLearning in Africa coming of age? Looking at the lack of a robust telecommunications infrastructure, weak regulatory frameworks, the relatively small number of Internet accounts, the few trained IT technicians and poor maintenance services the obstacles and stumbling blocks are obvious. But the efforts aimed at overcoming them are significant and the steps from isolated projects to sustainable services can be observed all over the continent. Most importantly an African community of practitioners in eLearning is emerging and addresses the new issues related to the efficient use of advanced learning technologies, the need for appropriate pedagogy and local content and the requirements demanded by institutional and service development.

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