Nyasha Mutsekwa, a project manager for Oracle, explains how ICT is boosting e-Learning in Africa...
In reply to your article Internet - a rival to Africa's mobile phone success? I would like to make readers of Developing Telecoms aware of some of the projects that are going on in Africa to improve the situation.
The NEPAD e-Africa commission has embarked on a continent-wide implementation of ICT in High Schools, called the NEPAD e-Schools Initiative. This initiative plans to equip the approximately 600,000 high schools in Africa with ICT equipment -including Internet connectivity.
As Oracle we are a proud participant in this public-private partnership to bring this dream closer to Africa's youth, through the NEPAD e-Schools Demonstration Project. This phase within the wider roll-out is meant to form a database of information that will ensure that we as the private sector and NEPAD have the real experience to implement the full initiative.
As of now Oracle and its partners (Sentech, Mecer, Fujitsu-Siemens Computers, Xerox, Multichoice Africa, Ses-Astra, DHL, Learnthings Africa, Evalunet, Markbook, Intel and Cambridge-Hitachi) have kitted up schools in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Gabon and South Africa. There are other consortia of this nature also implementing the same project, reaffirming our belief that ICT with the Internet will definitely lead to increased development in Africa and will shorten the digital divide.
So when your article asks is there hope, Oracle and its partners answer with a resounding YES!!!
Kind Regards
Nyasha Mutsekwa, Project Manager, Oracle Consortium e-Schools
