Opinions

Opinions

Information is the major driver in development

The Yazmi story starts with two satellites, in orbit above Africa and Asia, originally used to broadcast radio across the Eastern hemisphere. It is in these two satellites that company Chairman and CEO Noah Samara has found a solution to one of education’s major global problems: that of delivering quality content and information where it is most needed. “The problem is not the organisation […]

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“It’s not possible to leapfrog building learning cultures”

African economies are starting to face a common problem: while investment, resources and labour are plentiful, the skills necessary to reap the full rewards of this richness are often lacking. 2012 research in South Africa, for example, found over 800,000 unfilled positions in high-skilled jobs across all sectors. As industry grows, there is clearly a pressing need to make sure the wealth it generates […]

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Sun, sand and sea-learning

According to the World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa’s tourism industry could create 6.7 million jobs by 2021. The report, titled “Tourism in Africa: Harnessing Tourism for Growth and Improved Livelihoods”, says that tourism already accounted for one out of every 20 jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2011. With further growth expected, a training shortfall has become an imminent threat: a shortfall to which eLearning could […]

Opinions

Intra-African cooperation: landlocked?

We’ve heard the clichés: we live in an interconnected global village in which is it just as easy to interact with a stranger on the other side of the planet as it is to talk to your next-door-neighbour. In fact, in some instances it may even be easier to reach that stranger living thousands of miles away; for the ever-optimistic borderless outlook of our […]

Opinions

Intra-African cooperation: landlocked?

We’ve heard the clichés: we live in an interconnected global village in which is it just as easy to interact with a stranger on the other side of the planet as it is to talk to your next-door-neighbour. In fact, in some instances it may even be easier to reach that stranger living thousands of miles away; for the ever-optimistic borderless outlook of our […]

Opinions

The underlying inequality of MOOCs

Anybody who has been paying any small amount of attention to educational headlines in the past few years will be well rehearsed in the proposed benefits of MOOCs. A cursory online search will provide you with endless news articles, blog posts, TED talks and accompanying comments that cite the reasons why MOOCs, enabling global access to Ivy League-standard education, are the biggest thing to shake up […]

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“Don’t Be Afraid to Fail”

 An Interview with Darlyne Komukama, Founder of Shakai Media eLearning Africa: Please tell us about your personal journey: what was your most influential formative educational experience as you were growing up? Darlyne Komukama: I have always loved to read, as far back as I can remember, I have had some sort of literary fiction in my hands and this all started with the very first […]

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eLearning and Knowledge Management in an African University Context

By Professor Kingo Mchombu, As the world moves gradually into the knowledge-based society predicted by Peter Drucker in the early 1970s, one of the challenges for developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America is how to create building blocks and vehicles to manage and quicken the transition process. One such building block is Namibia’s Vision 2030, which envisions Namibia becoming a knowledge-based society by […]

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OERs and MOOCs: Old Wine in New Skins?

There has been a growing buzz about the concepts of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and how they will transform education around the world. OER has been the subject of increased attention globally, with many donor-funded projects (most often led by universities) providing space to experiment with different models of openness and research the educational effect that these might […]

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“No country can make progress on the basis of a borrowed language”

Professor Kwesi Kwaa Prah is the founder of the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society (CASAS), a civil society, Pan-African organisation which focuses on African development through the lens of cultural, social, historical, political and economic research. Currently, through the CASAS Harmonization and Standardization of African Languages Project, Professor Prah and CASAS are working towards improving African literacy rates. By forming standardised groupings […]