In Somalia, a country torn apart after the collapse of the military regime of Syad Barre in 1991, entire generations missed out on an education. Some had their schooling interrupted, while university students saw their careers and dreams destroyed. Worse, most of the professionals who survived the civil war left the country, mainly for Europe and America. So how do you provide education in a country that has neither government nor a functioning civilian infrastructure?
A few universities have been re-established in Somalia since the year 2000 but resources are still scarce. However, experiences from the African Virtual University’s distance learning initiative in Somalia show how ICT-enhanced learning can support long-term development even in the most desolate and abandoned regions of the continent.
Recent advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have produced the ‘Information Age’, characterized by wireless and satellite technologies that can theoretically make information instantaneously available to everyone globally. This new knowledge-based global economy has revolutionized many aspects of people’s lives, including the ways in which they teach and learn. As a part of this new economy, and amid escalating costs of higher education and competing priorities, Africa has started exploring various options to prosper through education. These include the use of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector in education.
ICTs promise to bring quality education to Africa that is widely accessible, across the lines of gender, class and region. However, distance-education programs in Africa are still in their infancy. This makes it necessary to identify the factors that challenge the full realization of their potential, and then to address the problems.
[Reference: Cyberspace, Distance Learning, and Higher Education : Old and Emergent Issues of Access, Pedagogy, and Knowledge Production.
Leiden, NLD: Brill Academic Publishers, 2004]
