The Africa Digital Campus (ADC) project is launched on Thursday, March 24, 2022 at the Virtual University of Burkina Faso. Conducted in partnership with the French Development Agency (AFD), the Institute of Research for Development (IRD), the West and Central African Research and Education Network (WACREN), with the support of the European Union, this project will strengthen cooperation in distance education and network infrastructure in Africa.
Many African countries have embraced distance education as a way to address the challenge of educating their citizens, with several distance learning centers and virtual universities established over the past decade. However, a major challenge persists on the continent: the availability of adequate IT infrastructure and advanced services to enable access to resources, facilitate learning processes and assessments. The COVID-19 pandemic was a reminder of this, with millions of African students denied access to campuses. In addition, affordable access to adequate connectivity remains a challenge.
Based on this observation, the European Union has delegated funds to AFD for the implementation of 10 projects affecting thousands of people in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Africa Digital Campus[1], a project focused on distance learning and connectivity, is one of them.
An innovative E-learning project for teachers and students
The two-year Africa Digital Campus project aims to
– Provide access to students of West and Central African universities, including the Virtual University of Burkina Faso, to a quality online training offer;
– Strengthen the use of online training on a local scale.
The project’s mission is to pool resources and promote knowledge exchange between the various stakeholders. Special attention will be given to the inclusion of women.
The Africa Digital Campus project has four main components:
– E-learning: to strengthen the online training offer of the two beneficiary universities;
– Infrastructure: on connectivity and e-learning services;
– Knowledge sharing: to exchange experiences and best practices between higher education and research structures offering distance learning;
– Advocacy: to convince decision-makers to sustainably support the connectivity and distance learning solutions put in place by the project and to move to a national scale.
The Africa Digital Campus project mobilizes several partners:
- The project leaders: IRD (project coordinator and pilot of the Knowledge Sharing axis) and WACREN (leader of the Infrastructure and Advocacy axes).
- The beneficiary university structures
- The Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), main partner (supervision of the E-learning axis). Other institutions (RENATER, CIRAD, ACE PARTNER project) may be mobilized as partners.
- The decision making is ensured by a Steering Committee formed by all the Parties.
A meeting at the Virtual University of Burkina Faso, March 24, 2022
Program :
9h10: Welcome – UBVF (Pr Jean-Marie Dipama – President Virtual University of Burkina Faso)
9h20: Introductory presentation of the project – IRD (Mr. Michel Labadie-Director DDUNI IRD France-Delegation Occitanie (Montpellier)
9h35 : Speech AFD (Mrs. Anne Marie SAWADOGO – Regional gender/education officer – Sahel Regional Directorate AFD (Ouagadougou)
9:50 am: Speech by Mr. Minister – MESRI (Mr. Fréderic Ouattara -MESRI Burkina Faso) 11:15 am – 11:50 am – press conference
Location: Virtual University of Burkina Faso (UVBF), Ouaga 2000, boulevard Mouammar Kadhafi.
Contact: Bérénice Ouattara (com.burkina(a)ird.fr)
For more information on the project : https://direcct.eu/projets/africa-digital-campus/