Kevin Nyango
The current increase in the technological investment in Africa is calling for the need to improve the education sector. Asians’ low skilled manufacturing industries are currently making their way into African market due to the rising wages in the continent. Apparently, the low level of skilled personnel is perceived to be a stumbling block to the development of such industries.
Only high skilled people are likely to be offered more employment opportunities hence call for quality education. The government alone is not in a position to provide the needed education. Therefore, it creates an opportunity for private sectors to come in and fill the gap. Currently, there is ADvTECH which is a Johannesburg Stock Company built a company that offers basic and tertiary education. Mount Kenya University which has its campuses in Kenya is expanding to Rwanda, and Ghana international school attracted investments from private company AfricInvest for financial support.
Africa’s classes are becoming more digital for instance in the recently held Innovation Africa Summit. Technology companies like Microsoft, IBM, HP, and Intel had a chance to showcase their digital classroom solutions in Maputo Mozambique which was attended by African education and technology stakeholders.
Microsoft is collaborating with education ministries in countries like Cape Verde, Cote d’Ivoire, Rwanda and Kenya to provide technology in teaching and learning process. It recently added Mozambique to its list to modernize the learning process in the country. At the summit, the company used the opportunity to launch its African Microsoft 365 education Solution. The Microsoft will be in a position to improve creativity, enhance teamwork, and provide the simple and safe user experience.
Microsoft is facing some challenges in initiating its plans and one of them is to convince its customers that their services are not as expensive as perceived. People believe that the software is costly not keeping in mind that they are buying commercially-priced software. Policies in many African countries that force the companies to work with the government pose another barrier in the company’s way of operations since it can be slow to initiate the projects.
The education promoting companies which want to have their way to Africa should partner with bigger technology companies that are already actively involved in those countries. The companies should also plan to operate in line with the countries governments’ digital plans.
