Connecting Africa’s Universities to Affordable High-Speed Broadband Internet : What Will it Take?
Connecting African universities to affordable, high speed broadband internet is essential for attaining the goals of the digital economy for Africa moonshot, which aims to ensure that all African individuals, businesses, and governments are digital...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/337151607685646967/Connecting-Africa-s-Universities-to-Affordable-High-Speed-Broadband-Internet-What-Will-it-Take http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34955 |
| Summary: | Connecting African universities to
affordable, high speed broadband internet is essential for
attaining the goals of the digital economy for Africa
moonshot, which aims to ensure that all African individuals,
businesses, and governments are digitally enabled by 2030.
Access to the Internet promotes economic growth,
improvements to education and knowledge dissemination, and
overall human development. The advanced digital skills of
high quality, that are needed to adapt and exploit digital
technologies, will need to be produced through reformed
university programs and rapid skills development programs.
Intermediate level digital skills that are needed on a broad
scale for the diffusion of technologies will be produced on
a large scale when all African tertiary level students (not
just those in science and engineering courses) acquire
adequate levels of digital competence. African universities
need broadband in order to expand coverage, through blended
and online learning; improve the quality of higher
education; encourage the use of technology in higher
education; and provide access to the enormous wealth of
digital education resources available in the world and
enable Africans to contribute their own digital content.
Connecting Africa’s universities will also have spillover
effects on the broader education system, especially
secondary schools and technical-vocational institutions,
where teachers and students need to acquire intermediate and
basic digital skills. |
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