E-conference discussing establishment of the East Africa Telecentre Academy: Keynote address

Country: Uganda
Created By: Esther on 21-Apr-2008 6:44 AM

The e-conference that is underway on the UgaBYTES mailing list is discussing the establishment of the East Africa telecentre academy. The first of its kind in Africa. Telecentre.org's Dr. Shadrach Basheerhamad is the lead facilitator. His keynote address is focusing at five key questions.See the details below

 

Initial thoughts towards establishing the East Africa Telecentre Academy -
By Basheerhamad Shadrach, telecentre.org



What is the telecentre.org academy? Telecentre.org academy is a function of telecentre.org that is aimed to support the growing capacity needs of grassroots telecentre workers by establishing national and regional capacity building and learning programs and by coordinating, generating and optimizing resources as well as promoting knowledge sharing on training and
capacity building among telecentre networks. This function is complimented by developing "quality seals" which will promote telecentre.org academy certificates and guarantee that they become a trusted brand; the quality of these certificates will be ensured by membership criteria.

Is there a need? With over a million grassroots telecentre knowledge workers required by 2010 to staff telecentres that proliferate world-over, there is clearly a need for training and continuous learning systems that
the telecentre networks can rely upon. Despite investments made to equip these knowledge workers to meet service level standards, barring a few places, telecentre management training has not been very effective due
mainly to the lack of training material, trained staff, and trained personnel who could peer-assist others. There is a need for learning systems to be put in place - a demand often placed by the networks telecentre.org has been engaged with since its evolution in November 2005. The social investors of telecentre.org have also often endorsed this need.

How do the telecentre academies world over look like? With the Latin American world leading the way, followed by Europe, the capacity building efforts among the telecentre operators are being systematized world-over.
The Brazilian telecentre training system is a well-functioning program for a couple of years now while the Spanish Esplai Foundation has created an
eLearning based set of courseware for telecentre managers. The Esplai's methodology is being tested in Colombia in their run up to establishing an
academy in Colombia. There are interests shown in Chile, Bolivia, Argentina and Peru. The Indian and the Filipino academies in Asia pioneer the telecentre training work in Asia while the need was well expressed by the East African Telecentre Network leaders at a meeting at UgaBYTES, Uganda in
February.

How do these telecentre academies operate? The following six steps involved in developing a telecentre academy at a national level often yield results.
These have been tested and proven successful in Spain, Brazil and Hungary:
a) training needs assessment and training commons survey;
b) Curriculum adaptation, testing and refining process; c) curriculum packaging and administration;
d) mentors network;
e) certification; and,
f) linking certification to employability/
motivation/ incentives


What does this mean for Africa? The vibrant African telecentre community already has an idea of the training needs of the operators who perform reasonably well despite all resource constraints. The skills development
program developed for them will enable these telecentre operators to only excel in their work. With interests expressed by African stakeholders for a national or a regional academy, it is important for telecentre.org to
respond and thus, strengthen the telecentre.org communities in the
continent.

The idea for an African telecentre academy will require some due diligence in the following:

a) The training needs often are the same in all settings, broadly
categories into three areas: a) soft-skills; b) technical skills; c) technological skills. Given this revelation in Latin America and Asia, could the telecentre networks identify training needs through online/offline consultation process within a short period of time? If so, what are the
suggestions to achieve the same? If not, what are the alternative suggestions?

b) What are the training content and resources that are readily accessible in Africa?

c) Curriculum adaptation process often requires an academy partner with experience in handling distance learning at the same time non-formal educational curriculum. Do the telecentre leaders from Africa subscribe to this trend? If yes, who could be classified as academy partners in Africa?
If not, what are the alternative suggestions to curriculum development
process?

d) Do the leaders have any suggestion for piloting the curriculum?
Should it be done at a national level? Or at a national level? What are the
pros and cons?

e) How could the established and well-functioning telecentre networks
play a role in the academy (apart from jointly certifying the award)? Could they identify mentors and counselors who could offer support to the
learners?

 

The econference ends April 28, 2008. To join the UgaBYTES mailing list, go to http://lists.ugabytes.org/mailman/listinfo/ugabytes_lists.ugabytes.org

 

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