ILC's African Initiative Underway
« View All ArticlesMafikeng, South Africa, February 20, 2008
After 18 months of numerous 20 hour-plus plane flights, conferences, workshops, school visits, meetings with government and educational leaders, and endless emails back and forth from North America to Africa – and vice versa – ILC is finally poised to launch the African leg of its long-awaited Global Indigenous Learning Network initiative.
Working closely with Dr. Hassan Kaya, founder of North West University (South Africa’s) Indigenous Knowledge Systems Program, ILC can now confirm that it has two outstanding pilot schools in place, one in Tanzania, the other in South Africa.
“Actually, we’ve confirmed with Tanzania’s Commission for Science and Technology that we’ll be working with a primary school in Kijitonyama,” reported Dr. Kaya. “Dr. Matheo Raphael, Director of the Centre for the Development and Transfer of Technology has just contacted us, confirming that the Commission will be providing this school with all necessary ICT infrastructure for the ILC pilot, including 20 computers. We’re now in a position to work out the details of the pilot with the Kijitonyama municipal government and school officials, covering areas ranging from the nature of the online learning programs to be jointly developed, to students and teacher training,” he added.
Meanwhile in South Africa, it looks likely that the pilot school selected will be Sol Plaatje School, in Mafikeng, not far from the Botswana border. Reporting from Mafikeng on February 20th, ILC CEO Randy Morse was enthusiastic about the meeting he and Professor Kaya had just had with Sol Plaatje’s Principal, Leonard Bremner.
“Sol Plaatje’s a great school, bursting at the seams with eager kids and dedicated staff. They only have 20 computers at the moment, and could easily use twice that number [the school’s grades 1-7 enrollment currently tops 1,000 students and continues to grow]. They have a computer lab, and hope to have ADSL connectivity shortly. Principal Bremner made it clear that he wants to move forward with appropriate technologies for his kids and staff. A couple of the school’s biggest challenges at the moment include integrating the new national curriculum, and dealing with the challenge of most incoming students arriving with little or no English skills – the primary language of instruction at Sol Plaatje. When we explained that we’re able to create learning resources in any language – including Afrikaans and any of South Africa’s indigenous languages, as well as English – Leonard was definitely into it,” Morse concluded.
Plans are to include schools in Namibia and Kenya, completing the African portion of ILC’s planned global learning network. These pilot schools will be linked with selected schools in Washington State, British Columbia, Alberta, and Panama in the Western Hemisphere, creating in the process a rich, multinational learning environment for participating students and teachers.