Gaborone Botswana: 20-22 August 2019: “It is education and by extension, ICT innovations in education, their adoption and scale up that will be a game changer in positioning youth for jobs which the world is already increasingly demanding” said the African Union, Commissioner for Human Recourses, Science and Technology (HRST), H.E Prof Sarah Anyang Agbor at the second edition of the Innovating Education in Africa Expo under the theme “Harnessing the Capacity of ICT to ensure Inclusion, Quality and Impact in Education and Training in Africa”.
The African Union Commissioner called on all the stakeholders to build education, training and innovative ecosystems that have local relevance, global competitiveness and mutual recognition to enable us to equip the African citizenry with the necessary knowledge and skills needed to build the Africa we want as identified in Africa’s blue print for development Agenda 2063.
“Quality education is imperative if Africa has to attain this vision, generate home-grown solutions to African challenges and participate fully in, and influence the global knowledge economy” she said.
In conclusion, Prof Sarah in her speech on the first day of the event mentioned the 1 million by 2021, an initiative launched by the AU chairperson aimed at promoting solutions and innovations that are co-created and driven for African Youth. She also spoke of the Pan African Institute for Education, a technical officer under the HRST department working to improve access to education data management aimed to improve policy making in Africa.
The Vice President of the Republic of Botswana, Hon. Mr Slumber Tsogwane in his Key note address, emphasized the need to invest heavily in education innovation as it is paramount to our continent’s future to ensure we are not left behind in the fourth industrial revolution. He further noted that Botswana through its national ICT policy have mapped out a clear path to harnessing the power of ICT to drive employment creation and economic growth.
Hon Tsogwane, took this opportunity to announce the establishment of the Botswana innovation Hub (BIH) with a goal to assist home grown innovations with targeted interventions to achieve scalable operations.
“The Hub aims to boost national competitiveness through technology incubation targeted to entrepreneurs and capacity building in new and emerging technologies relevant for the country” the vice president said in conclusion.
The Innovating Education in Africa Expo is a flagship event of the African Union Commission intended to showcase practical social and technological innovations aimed at enhancing access, quality, relevance and inclusion in education in order to release the potential for empowerment, employability and inventiveness.
The three-day education innovation Expo brought together innovators and educators across the continent with the goal to showcasing concrete innovations that are geared towards enhancing access, quality, relevance and inclusion in the education sector. This year, 380 innovators submitted application to exhibit and present papers at the event, out of which 50 were selected from 26 AU Member States to attend the event. The top eleven innovators had the opportunity to pitch to an expert jury during the event for a chance to win prizes ranging from $50,000–$5,000 to scale up their projects under the AU Education Innovation Prize.
The selected innovators will be connected through an online platform (Africa Education Innovators Network) which will encourage experience sharing and stakeholder engagement for purpose of strengthening their innovations and enhancing their sustainability. Furthermore, the Innovations will be published in the Africa Education Innovations Handbook to serve as a reference manual for policy makers to adopt and scale the innovations at National and Regional levels.
In a joint Communique, participants urged AU Member States to Harness the capacity of ICT innovations in education for effective teaching and learning process to ensure inclusion, quality and impact in education and training in Africa. The Communique also called for strengthened strategic partnerships to support development of transformative policies and practices at national and continental levels; strengthened innovative digital technologies for empowering teachers with the necessary digital literacy and ICT skills; improved ICT Infrastructure and internet connectivity to enhance access in primary schools and secondary schools; development of good data management and information system for the collection, storage and analysis of data to increase the effectiveness of policy interventions; encourage African Education Innovators and support them to give visibility to their innovations for further development and up-scaling.
The Communique further called on the African Union and Stakeholders to build on the successes of this Expo to organise an even more impactful edition of the Expo in 2020, and appreciated the offer of hosting which was received from Rwanda.
Note to Editor
Agenda 2063 is a strategic framework for the socio-economic transformation of the continent for next 50 years. It’s builds on, and seeks to accelerate the implementation of past and existing continental initiatives for growth and sustainable development. https://au.int/en/documents/20141012/key-documents-agenda2063
Continental Education Strategy for Africa 2016-2025 (CESA 16-25) is strategy driven by the desire to set up a “qualitative system of education and training to provide the African continent with efficient human resources adapted to African core values as enshrined in agenda 2063 and therefore capable of achieving the vision and ambitions of the African Union. https://edu-au.org/cesa/about
Media Contact:
Janet Faith Adhiambo Ochieng / Communications Officer- Agenda 2063 / E-mail: ochiengj@africa-union.org
