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Collaboration with Intel: Training of trainers from NEPAD E-schools countries | 11 August 2009 |

From the 22^nd to the 26^th June 2009, The NEPAD e-Africa Commission partnered with Intel to hold a teacher training workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The training addressed the objective of the NEPAD e-Schools to ensure that African teachers are professionally developed with 21^st Century Skills for teaching and learning in NEPAD e-Schools.

Participants to the 5 day training came mainly from 13 of the 16 countries involved in the demo phase of NEPAD e-Schools Initiative: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda. 25 participants were awarded certificates for Senior Trainers of the Intel Teach Getting Started Programme.

The NEPAD e-Schools Initiative is guided by the provisions of the NEPAD e-Schools Business Plan and a Teacher Development Strategy Report that was funded by the International Telecommunications Union in 2006. Intel and the NEPAD e-Africa Commission signed a MoU on 5^th December 2008. They have been collaborating to use the Intel Teach Programme which promotes learner-focused approaches and helps teachers to use ICTs for teaching and learning.

Mr. André Christian, Intel Education manager, Dr Katherine Getao and Mr. Papa Youga Dieng, Project Managers of the NEPAD e-Schools Initiative, conducted the training in English and French.

The participants expressed appreciation for the training which it is hoped will have a multiplier effect as the senior trainers return to their respective countries and train master trainers who will be involved in developing teachers in NEPAD e-Schools. In his speech to the graduating participants, Dr. Henry Chasia, the Executive Deputy Chairperson of the NEPAD e-Africa Commission said, "The training which you, the participants have received this week will enable you to train teachers in NEPAD e-Schools, as well as other appropriate schools in your countries, to use 21^st Century Skills for teaching and learning. As the teachers acquire and use these skills, they will enhance themselves professionally and they will do a better job as teachers in preparing our youth for the world that they must live in today. The world of today is a digital world in which successful citizens are those who have acquired ICT skills for learning and for work and indeed, for leisure,"

The NEPAD e-Africa Commission was established in 2001, with the mandate to manage the structured development of the ICT sector on the African continent in the context of NEPAD.  The NEPAD e-Schools Initiative is one of the six (6) high priority projects endorsed by the NEPAD Head of State and Government Implementation Committee (HSGIC) in 2003.