Via: The Foundation For The Development of Africa


 Distance education—the use of communication technologies to connect geographically dispersed teachers and students—is emerging as an efficient way to bring academic courses and training programs. One good model, the World Bank’s African Virtual University (AVU), is up and running and helping to reduce the ‘digital divide’.
AVU enables students, thus far in 17 African countries (34 centers) , to take courses taught by professors from universities around the world. The professors deliver their lectures in front of television cameras in their own classrooms, and video is then beamed via satellite to points in Africa. In addition, the Bank has made a digital library available to students, and it is developing courses for delivery over the Internet.
Although the AVU is fairly new, it is encouraged by the results. About 2,000 hours of instruction in the last 12 months, about 5,000 students have completed at least one semester course, with another 1,000 participating in shorter seminars. The percentage of students earning passing grades is higher than average. It also achieved over 40% participation of women. Read more