ICT standards for African teachers needs assessment : teacher training institutes in focus

Abstract

A study entitled “ICT Standards for African Teachers” was commissioned by the UNESCO Institute for Capacity-Building (UNESCO-IICBA) on behalf of UNECA, in the context of the Commission’s ePol-NET for Africa , which was set up with support from the Government of Canada to provide expertise, guidance and advice to African countries implementing national e-strategies. The overarching goal of the study was to develop a set of guidelines and standards for enabling the African education system to deal with and benefit from the change that new technologies were promoting on the continent. The objective of the needs assessment was to identify, analyze and collect existing policies and guidelines related to the introduction of ICTs in teacher training at country level and to report on perceived needs and benefits of continental guidelines for ICTs in teacher training. The study also sought to capture the ICT needs of teachers in sub-Saharan Africa and to demonstrate how different countries on the continent could benefit from a common framework for the implementation of ICTs in the education sector, with particular emphasis on teacher training.