The Association of African Universities (AAU) has started a three day workshop on National Research and Education Networking (NREN.

The AAU hopes the networking would help ensure the integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) into the African educational system.

The workshop, sponsored by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the International Development Research Centre would come up with ideas that would help Africans to access the vast store of knowledge on the internet but only available to those who could access and process it.

Papa Owusu-Ankomah, Minister of Education, Sports and Science, said in a speech read for him that the integration of ICT into learning, research and information dissemination should be the concern of African governments due to the negative effects the inadequate human and financial resources had on education, a key element in national development.

He said the AAU’s initiative would help to curb the silo-model working of researchers and by establishing low cost connectivity, a platform of generative discourse would be created leading to improved policy advice.

“It will also act as a focal point in relation to the many initiatives on ICT currently underway in Africa, raise awareness to institutional leaders, network members and policy-makers and donors to promote exchange of knowledge and experience.”

The Minister lauded the organizers for their efforts since the development of all nations depended on technological change for economic growth and higher standards of living.

Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr, General Secretary of the AAU, said African universities and research centres had a crucial role to play as nodes of knowledge production and dissemination but could only achieve this if they were sufficiently integrated into the digital world.

He said the challenge of internet access to Africans due to scarcity and high cost constituted a major constraint on knowledge acquisition and networking.

Key contributory factors to this included poverty and limited resources, poor quality of existing infrastructure, inadequate regulatory policies leading to monopolistic pricing structures and high connectivity costs among other things, he said.

Professor Sawyerr, however, noted that some progress had been made in those areas due to the several activities that had taken place over the past two years to bring the various stakeholders together to coordinate and facilitate their actions.

Ms Asenath Mpatwa, Coordinator for Africa Unit Telecommunication Development Bureau of the ITU, said as a United Nations specialised Agency, the ITU promoted telecommunication development in developing countries and had 183 member states, 53 of which were in Africa.

She said it was supporting the workshop due to a request made in March 2006 by African countries at the Telecommunications Development Conference in Doha for funds to establish the NREN.

She said by adopting Resolution 17 of the Doha Conference, the Bureau would support the NREN programmes from 2007 to 2010.

Source: GNA