Opportunities Slipping Through Africa’s Digital Gender Gap

Findings from the eLearning Africa Report 2015, which is now available free to download, reveal that, despite rapid growth in internet and mobile usage across the region, women are much less likely to get online than men. And they are still largely unrepresented in the technology sector. 

“These two facts could have serious implications for the ability of African economies to use technology to catapult themselves ahead of their competitors,” said Harold Elletson, Co-Editor of the eLearning Africa Report, an annual review of the impact of technology on education and development. “Africa needs to address these issues now or it will miss out.”

Women play a crucial role in many African economies and providing them with modern skills is an essential part of the African Union’s 2063 Vision of a ‘transformed continent.’

“In sectors, such as agriculture, women form the bulk of the workforce,” says Elletson. “It’s already clear that ICTs are having a huge and very beneficial impact on farming- driving up yields and productivity and boosting farm incomes. In order to make the most of its agriculture, Africa has got to bring women into the digital age.”

ICTs Boosting Growth But Teachers Reluctant To Change

eLearning Africa Report:

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is the key to improving education and thus boosting growth across Africa – but there is still widespread reluctance among teachers, trainers and managers to abandon traditional methods in favour of new solutions.That is one of the key findings in this year’s eLearning Africa Report, which will be launched this evening (Wednesday) at the eLearning Africa conference in Addis Ababa by the Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Dr Debretsion Gebremichael. A sneak preview of the report will also be given to African education and information technology ministers at the 8^th eLearning Africa Ministerial Round Table today.

“Worryingly,” say the report’s editors, Harold Elletson and Annika Burgess, “our survey of 1500 African education and ICT professionals shows that, despite the importance of ICT in education, there is insufficient awareness in many schools, colleges, institutions and government departments of the benefits it brings.”

New African Language Helping To Heal Tribal Division

A new African language is helping to reduce tensions and bring young people together in areas previously torn apart by tribal violence. And academics are so impressed by the language’s potential that a social media platform promoting it will form the subject of a major presentation at this year’s eLearning Africa, the continent’s leading conference on technology-assisted learning, training and development.

The language - ‘Sheng’ – combines Kiswahili, English and a number of Kenyan tribal words, along with a smattering of Arabic, Hindu, French, German, Spanish and Italian. It was born on the streets of Nairobi, in some of the areas hardest hit by eruptions of post-election violence in 2007- 2008.

Now a ‘social enterprise initiative’ in Kenya, ‘Go Sheng’, is helping to celebrate and promote the language, which is almost exclusively used by young people – so much so that it has become the first language of many young Kenyans in urban areas.

The initiative provides a platform for social dialogue for the language’s growing numbers of speakers. In so doing, it is giving a voice to a powerful alternative culture in Kenya and celebrating the many tribal languages that contribute to Sheng. In turn, this helps to bring some welcome cultural harmony and mutual understanding to a country, which has too often been divided against itself in the recent past