Human resource development in the ICT sector

The ECA WSIS survey (2010) revealed that there were over 200 tertiary-level institutions offering ICT pro-grammes in 21 African countries (UNECA, 2010).⁵⁰ The number of students benefiting from these campus-based programmes, as well as from online and blended learning programmes, can be counted already in

46 http://repository.uneca.org/codist/sites/default/files/Report per cent20of per cent20the per cent20Third per cent20Meeting per cent20of per cent20the per cent20Committee per cent20on per cent20Development per cent20Information.pdf

47 http://www.idlelo.net

48 http://www.callingallinnovators.com/venture_challenge.aspx 49 http://www.ushahidi.com/about-us/newsroom/in-the-news 50 Note that it was a study sample of 11 selected countries

hundreds of thousands. Moreover, there are major cross-border services like the African Virtual University, which further promote ICT programmes and activities. The upward trend is clear and gaining momentum.

One of the most important factors in building up the ICT base of a country is through training of ICT specialists at different levels of the education system in fields such as engineering, physics, computer sciences, geography and mathematics. In a recent ECA survey⁵¹ of a sample of African universities on student intake and graduation over the period 1999-2010, it was observed that there was rapid growth, especially from 1999 to 2004.

Specifically, the number of new entrants in BSc degree studies in Engineering and ICT rose by slightly over 30 per cent over the period 2005 to 2010 in eight universities surveyed.⁵² By comparison, enrolment figures into Masters programmes (for all science-related disciplines) over the same period practically remained on the same level, while Engineering student enrolment showed a slight growth of about 10 per cent from 2005 to 2011. For PhD programmes, the intake increased by about 50 per cent over the same period.

Teacher education remains a bottleneck when rapid and profound pedagogical paradigm change is required in the emerging knowledge societies. Africa’s teacher education institutions in general, with very few excep-tions, are not providing schools with sufficient numbers of teachers with proper knowledge, society skills and ICT teaching qualifications. Until this situation changes, the responsibility to acquire the necessary skills and competences will remain with national and local education authorities, schools and individual teachers in service (UNECA and IICBA, 2011).

At the secondary school level, Africa has registered marked expansion in recent years according to UNESCO, but is still lagging behind all other regions in the world (UNESCO, 2011). The readiness and capacity of mass secondary education to provide ICT-literate students for tertiary education remains inadequate. This is not only because of the lack of ICT-trained teachers, but because of missing and inadequate infrastructure, digital learning materials and access to networks.

Fortunately, various forms and types of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions have emerged to fill in the gap. The technical skills developed through these institutions enhance youth employment in jobs related to the knowledge economy (Oketch, 2007). These institutions offer basic user skills as well as technical skills to install, repair, manage and upgrade network (UNCTAD, 2011a). However, the quality of the education in the mushrooming technical colleges remains a source of concern.

There is also a concern that as these are mainly commercial educational institutions, they are highly demand driven and tap primarily on more affluent segments of the society for their courses. It is of significance that a substantial number of technology and innovation hubs have been set up primarily to incubate innovations and innovative companies. These offer high-level ICT learning environments for the most technically tal-ented African youths.

2.4.1 Human resource development in Geospatial Information Technology

The field of GIS is growing very fast and African countries have started to put in place various mechanisms to build the necessary infrastructure and human resources. The number of universities offering undergradu-ate and post-graduundergradu-ate degrees in GIS-relundergradu-ated fields is on the rise and this trend is likely to continue as career opportunities continue to rise both in industry and government.

51 See ECA STI sample survey of 2011 published first in this report 2012.

52 Presumably, there are also students studying subjects directly related to the emergence of the knowledge economy, heavily integrated with ICTs in media studies (social media) for instance and in some of science programmes related to computational data analysis (in biomedicine, biotechnology, economics, environmental study programmes, geology, geography, linguistics, astronomy etc.).

However, it has not been possible to quantify this in figures.

Departments of Geomatic Engineering have emerged in universities such as Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (Ghana), Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (Kenya), Mak-erere University (Uganda), University of Cape Town (South Africa) and University of Zambia (Zambia), Ahmadu Bello University (Nigeria) just to mention a few. Other universities such as University of Nairobi (Kenya) and Stellenbosch University (South Africa) have taken a further step to include space and GIs. A good proportion of the departments are located in the schools of engineering and/or technology.

However, with recent progress in geovisualization, there is an increase in customer-focused evolution towards spatially-enabled and locally centered services. Thus, spatial literacy will not only be about learning GIS in schools, but rather, creating spatial awareness, navigational abilities and an understanding that most of today’s issues have a significant spatial aspect.

In this regard, a number of specialized courses are offered by different regional centres such as the Regional Centre for Training in Aerospace Surveys (RECTAS) in Ile-Ife, Nigeria and the Regional Centre for Mapping and Resource Development (RCMRD) in Nairobi, the Centre Régional Africain des Sciences et Technolo-gies de l’Espace (CRASTE-LF) in Rabat, and the African Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in English (ARCSSTE-E) in Ile-Ife, Nigeria as well as the African Organization for Cartography and Remote Sensing in Algeria.

Box 2.1: RECTAS Fellowship programme

RECTAS offers long-term programmes in Geoinformation Production and Management. Student enrolment for 2009-2011 was 133 at the technician, technologist and postgraduate diploma level, and 26 at the Master of Science level. Short-term training programmes, seminars and workshops are provided at the Centre under con-sultancy and advisory services. From 2009 to 2011, 80 trainees from state governments, ministries and mapping agencies attended short courses in Geoinformation and Environmental Management (GEM), Digital Cartogra-phy and Information Extraction, and Remote Sensing and GIS Applications.

Capacity building activities at RCMRD are mainly short courses in resource survey, mapping, remote sensing, GIS and natural resource assessment and management. To date the Centre has trained over 3,000 technical officers from its member States and other African countries. It has also implemented numerous projects on behalf of its member States and development partners.

2.4.2 Concluding remarks

It has been noted that African university education favours non-technical subjects. For example, in the mid-1990s, South Africa produced five to six times more university graduates in humanities and social sciences than in natural sciences and engineering, whereas the ratio in Korea was around 1:1.5. There is a need to invest more in science and technology education, including ICT, and to refocus university education and the education sector in general, to offer more technical courses (Chang, 2002). This includes investment in space and satellite-related training programmes that can help build ICT capacity.

African countries need to give substantial and sustained policy priority to incorporate ICTs throughout their educational systems. There is a need to:

• Set up a systemic ongoing teacher education programme addressing both in-service and initial teacher education at all levels and sectors of education;

• Ensure development and provision of materials that comply, not only with national ICT curricula and the needs of different subjects across the curricula, but also cultural and linguistic needs;

• Continuously monitor and evaluate progress made, taking corrective measures whenever necessary and ensuring that the entire education system in respective countries is technologically enhanced in a balanced and sustainable manner.