by Mukundi Mutasa – SANF 07 No 42
Institutions of higher education around the world are embracing the concept of online education as technological developments continue to cement their role in global development.
The United Nations University has also embraced the idea of providing online education through the Global Virtual University (GVU), currently headquartered at GRID-Arendal in Norway.
Launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002, the UNU-GVU offers short and masters-level online courses in environment and development issues.
It is an online network of universities particularly designed to meet the educational needs of the developing world, and presently partners 15 educational institutions in Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Somalia, South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, as well as other countries in Asia and Europe.
The UNU-GVU can also be seen as complimenting the efforts by the African Virtual University (AVU), a World Bank project launched in 1997.
The AVU seeks to facilitate the use of Open Distance and eLearning (ODeL) methodologies in African tertiary institutions.
Universities in the African countries also form part of the Association of African Universities (AAU) that was founded in 1967, this year marking its 40 years of operation.
The AAU provides the forum for consultation, exchange of information and co-operation among institutions of higher education on the continent. The association has it headquarters in Accra, Ghana.
The AAU’s Research and Education Networking unit is also mandated by UNU-GVU to pursue the objectives of the African University Network (AFUNET), a practical response to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) plan of action.
The AFUNET was designed to enhance the capabilities of African universities to take advantage of the opportunities associated with the emergence of the global information society.
Wherever there is an educational initiative, there is always a need for easy and quick access to relevant information.
There are several efforts at national and institutional levels aiming at facilitating the access to knowledge on the continent via the Internet so that it is easily accessible.
This has been mainly through the creation of virtual libraries for easy access by off-site users.
A virtual library is an organised collection of electronic information resources and services that are searchable and accessible in full text. It is sometimes referred to as a digital library or a “library without walls”.
The Southern African Research and Documentation Centre (SARDC) has developed its Virtual Library for Southern Africa that provides free full-text online access to publications covering topical developmental issues in the region (www.sardc.net Knowledge for Development)
In West Africa, the Nigerian Universities Commission has a virtual library that can be accessed only by members of universities in that country.
The African Digital Library (ADL) also has a collection of electronic books that are accessible free of charge by registered users from anywhere in Africa.
As a requirement for registration to access ADL collections, the prospective users have to be resident in Africa.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United States-based Yale University jointly coordinate the Online Access to Research in the Environment (OARE) that was established to provide online access to environmental research.
OARE, launched in 2006, enables developing countries to gain free or low cost access to a large collection of proprietary environmental science literature. However, institutions have to register to access full-text articles.
Mindful of all the benefits that online education and access to online information bring, there are also some challenges faced by people in the developing world.
The main drawback in ensuring hassle-free online education and access to electronic information materials in developing countries is the challenge related to the cost of technological access.
Equipment is usually very expensive in growing economies and Internet access limited mainly to urban centres. In areas where Internet access is available, it is often relatively slow as a result of limited bandwidth.
The UNU-GVU argues that institutions in the South face overwhelming challenges such that “the reality is that the use of information technologies in education is often not a priority.”
In addition to this, countries in southern Africa have also been experiencing power shortages that might be detrimental to the smooth access of Internet and other online education facilities.
With some of Africa’s fastest expanding economies, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region has been projected to run out of surplus generation capacity this year.
This critical situation has not spared the education sector either. With most of the online students having to study after working hours, they face challenges in accessing their modules when there are power cuts.
The frequent power cuts also give the institutions hosting virtual libraries a challenge of ensuring that their servers are always online so as not to deprive the online information resources users the opportunity to access the materials.
A possible solution to meet this challenge would be to partner other institutions in the developed world that would mirror their websites so that there will not be a time when the collection is not accessible.
