Value of the Internet (3)
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Dear Colleagues,
I agree with Davidson to some extent. However, I would like to say
that Africans are not properly organised to take advantage of the
collaboration. There are probably more educators and professionals of
Africa in Diaspora that there are in Africa. In one of the concept
papers for African virtual university, it is stated that there are
over 10,000 Nigerian professionals and educators in the US. You may
find that many Ethiopians, Somalians, Kenyans. I think a proper or-
ganisation for Africa must include this factor.
For example, a group of us are organising to create the proper links
between universities in the north and African universities at the in-
structor level. Start from small projects and slowly build a strong
research. It remains to be seen how far we can go. But, it will not
be a failure, the major driving force in this endeavour is the Afri-
can himself. It is a grassroots approach. This approach has lots of
advantages, on the one hand there is a reasonable level of trust on
the other, the language barrier is gone. That is to say an African
Educator will be able to teach epidemiology, any field of science in
his/her own language.
Having said this, a group us have been playing with the idea of de-
livering educational materials through distance learning. There is a
growing interest for the idea. If you have time, check the following
site for African Distance Learning Association:
http://www.physics.ncat.edu/~michael/adla
If you wish to participate in our discussions, please let me know.
Most of us are faculty members in universities around the US, some
very well established educators.
Sincerely,
Abebe Kebede
mailto:gutaye@ncat.edu
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