Decolonizing EdTech in Africa: picking local EdTech solutions over foreign solutions

Posted on by Björn Haßler in blog, EdTech Revolution
Reading Time: 3 minutes

By Abdul Mohamed . Originally posted on LinkedIn

I recently attended the eLearning Africa conference in Kigali: the largest and longest Africa focused digital learning gathering.

However, within an hour of entering the venue, I was surprised to find that most of the EdTech solutions on display were foreign. This observation was unsettling, a disappointment that many other attendees also commented on. I ran the numbers, nearly 80% of the 51 EdTech solutions on display were foreign.

What stung most, and sparked this piece, was that many of foreign EdTech solutions seemed to show little care for adapting their solutions to the needs of African learners.

  • A digital classroom solution provider demoed their product, which was completely in German
  • Another eLearning product boasted about their 3,000+ courses, of which 60%+ are taught in German

If curious, yes, there are German speaking Africans. 0.001% of Africa’s 1.3B citizens speak German.

Continue reading “Decolonizing EdTech in Africa: picking local EdTech solutions over foreign solutions” →

AFRICA’S COVID-19 OPPORTUNITY

Posted on by EdTech Hub in blog
Reading Time: 2 minutes

This blog post is a cross-post from EdTech Hub‘s blog https://edtechhub.org/2020/09/17/africas-covid-19-opportunity/ (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0). The blog post was written on the 17th of September 2020.

Educators in Africa are optimistic about the opportunities that Covid-19 brings for reform and innovation in education. 

That’s the headline from a survey eLearning Africa recently conducted, in which 1,600 education and technology professionals from 52 countries in Africa were asked for their thoughts on the longer-term effects of the pandemic.

Continue reading “AFRICA’S COVID-19 OPPORTUNITY” →

Building effective COVID-19 education response plans: Insights from Africa and Asia

Posted on by EdTech Hub and Tom Kaye in blog
Reading Time: 4 minutes

This blog post is a cross-post from EdTech Hub‘s blog https://edtechhub.org/2020/06/25/building-effective-covid-19-education-response-plans-insights-from-africa-and-asia/ (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0). The blog post was written by Jenn Cotter Otieno, Erik Kimenyi, and Tom Kaye on the 25th of June 2020.

As countries around the world rapidly respond to the educational challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic many countries have begun to leverage technology to provide educational continuity. We at the EdTech Hub are working with many countries to help them design interventions to support learning during this crisis. The first question we are asked by our counterparts in these countries is: How can we design an effective COVID-19 education sector response plan?

Continue reading “Building effective COVID-19 education response plans: Insights from Africa and Asia” →