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November 13, 2006
Association of African Universities
networks to enhance ICT
Accra, Nov. 14, GNA – The Association of African
Universities (AAU) on Tuesday started a three day workshop
on National Research and Education Networking (NREN) that
would ensure the integration of Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) into the African educational
system.
The workshop, sponsored by the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the International
Development Research Centre would come up with ideas that
would help Africans to access the vast store of knowledge on
the internet but only available to those who could access
and process it.
Papa Owusu-Ankomah, Minister of Education, Sports and
Science, said in a speech read for him that the integration
of ICT into learning, research and information dissemination
should be the concern of African governments due to the
negative effects the inadequate human and financial
resources had on education, a key element in national
development.
He said the AAU’s initiative would help to curb the
silo-model working of researchers and by establishing low
cost connectivity, a platform of generative discourse would
be created leading to improved policy advice.
“It will also act as a focal point in relation to the many
initiatives on ICT currently underway in Africa, raise
awareness to institutional leaders, network members and
policy-makers and donors to promote exchange of knowledge
and experience.”
The Minister lauded the organizers for their efforts since
the development of all nations depended on technological
change for economic growth and higher standards of living.
Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr, General Secretary of the AAU,
said African universities and research centres had a crucial
role to play as nodes of knowledge production and
dissemination but could only achieve this if they were
sufficiently integrated into the digital world.
He said the challenge of internet access to Africans due to
scarcity and high cost constituted a major constraint on
knowledge acquisition and networking.
Key contributory factors to this included poverty and
limited resources, poor quality of existing infrastructure,
inadequate regulatory policies leading to monopolistic
pricing structures and high connectivity costs among other
things, he said.
Professor Sawyerr, however, noted that some progress had
been made in those areas due to the several activities that
had taken place over the past two years to bring the various
stakeholders together to coordinate and facilitate their
actions.
Ms Asenath Mpatwa, Coordinator for Africa Unit
Telecommunication Development Bureau of the ITU, said as a
United Nations specialised Agency, the ITU promoted
telecommunication development in developing countries and
had 183 member states, 53 of which were in Africa.
She said it was supporting the workshop due to a request
made in March 2006 by African countries at the
Telecommunications Development Conference in Doha for funds
to establish the NREN.
She said by adopting Resolution 17 of the Doha Conference,
the Bureau would support the NREN programmes from 2007 to
2010.
GNA
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