Third African Knowledge Exchange Workshop Held In Accra

The third African Knowledge Exchange (AKE) workshop on 21st century skills, ICTS, Curriculum and Assessment has ended in Accra. The three-day workshop was held under the theme: 'Setting the scene for 21st century learning: ICT, Curriculum & Assessment.

Realising that ICT has the potential to transform education, Education Ministries in most developing countries have embarked on reforms to more closely relate and relink their systems  with innovation, knowledge creation, development of creative capacities and the ability to exploit and absorb progressive technologies like ICT that in turn spur economic development.

The workshop was, therefore, aimed at exploring what 21st centenary learning is, how different it is from current practice and models in African schools and what its requirements are.

It also had the objective of critically examining what designs for learning and assessment, communities for learning experiences and resources would optimally support 21st century learning; identifying and reflecting on models to build the necessary ICT for Education capacities in curriculum and assessment units for the integration and optimum use of ICT in learning.

Other objectives of the workshop were to examine how ICT can help schools to enhance and enrich learning, motivation and the acquisition of higher order thinking skills, using a wide range of readily available resources and software; and to discuss and reflect on how curriculum and assessment systems should be aligned and/or transformed to create the learning environment for the acquisition of 21st century skills.

In attendance at the workshop were participants from 14 African countries, including Rwanda, Ghana, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Senegal.   The others were Burkina Faso, Mali, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Cameroon.

In an address to open the workshop, a deputy minister of  Education responsible for ICT and Tertiary Education, Dr, Joseph Annan, disclosed that a recent survey of all Senior High Schools jointly conducted by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI) to assess their e-readiness had highlighted a number of issues and challenges that should be addressed if ICTs were to be successfully integrated into teaching and learning, with the aim of producing a 21st century worker.

Dr  Annan said it was the government's desire that through the deployment of ICT in education, the culture and practice of traditional memory-based learning would be transformed into education that stimulated thinking and the creativity necessary to meet the challenges.

Dr  Annan, therefore, expressed government's commitment to a comprehensive programme of rapid development and utilization of ICT within the education sector so as to transform the education system and, thereby, improve the lives of the people.