The GTZ/Crystal workshop on Open Source based content management and eLearning at the University of Addis Ababa in October 2003.
Autor: Leopold Reif, Hoffmann & Reif
International Learntec Forum, Baden-Baden/Germany, 9 February 2004
Advanced learning technologies for educational systems are high on the agenda in Africa. Governments and donor agencies look at them as the only option to achieve one very important Millenium goal which is primary education for all children by 2015. Although it remains to be seen whether this ambitious goal is realistic considered the little time available, all actors believe that only through modern information and telecommunication technologies (ICT) the efforts undertaken will have an impact.
Sir John Daniels, Assistant General Manager for Education of UNESCO asked about two years ago, how the 15 million teachers necessary to provide primary education for every child by 2015 will become a reality? His answer: "You're not going to train 15 million just by adding a few seats in traditional teacher training establishments."
The GTZ/Crystal workshop on Open Source based content management and eLearning at the University of Addis Ababa in October 2003.
Today many African countries have embarked on large scale eLearning infrastructure programmes in order to address their urgent need for access to and outreach of education.
In 2004 the Ethiopian government is launching the US$ 40 Million "Ethiopia-ICT- Assisted Development Programme" which has a focus on building a national eLearning infrastructure and is financed by the World Bank.
In this paper strategies for an organisational framework to become integrated in an eLearning infrastructure programme are described. These strategies are currently under discussion between the World Bank, donor agencies and the Ethiopian government. The suggestions in this paper are based on experiences from a number of recent projects of GTZ[1] in Africa and Asia, namely those of the BMZ[2] sector project CRYSTAL[3].