From July 30th until August 1st 2013 the fifth ‘Distance Education and Teacher Education in Africa’ (DETA) conference took place in Kenya. VVOB was represented by staff members from six countries. For South Africa, new employee Lindiwe Nzutha gave a presentation. Her story.
“Being only three months old in an organisation, the last thing you would like to hear is to be asked to be a co-author of a paper which you will need to present at a conference with attendance of academics from all over Africa. Everyone around was excited about the news, except me. But with some encouragement from my colleagues, I decided to grab the opportunity with both hands.
DETA 2013
The Distance Education and Teacher Education in Africa (DETA) conference took place from July 30th until August 1st 2013 at the University of Nairobi, Kenya. It was the 5th conference of its kind. The theme of the conference was ’Teacher education and development in Africa: the need for access, equity, sustainability, quality and relevance within the context of globalization’. Its objectives were to contribute to the debate on teacher education in Africa and to build capacity for the delivery of teacher education programmes in Africa. These objectives represent ways in which we can support The New Partnership for Africa’s Development, quality of teaching and learning in Africa and the Millennium Development Goals.
The presenters, mostly from academic institutions, came from around 20 African countries. VVOB was represented by staff members from Brussels, DR Congo, Rwanda, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Meeting everyone made it easier for me as the support became stronger and the team spirit was high. It was also quite helpful to have our team of partners to be part of the conference, officials from the South African Council for Educators (SACE), the University of the Free State and the Department of Basic Education.
What do South Africa and Vietnam have in common?
Our paper was part of the “Equipping African teachers to develop their learners as critical citizens in a digital world” stream and discussed “Motivating features of e-learning for teachers: Relevance of findings from Vietnam for South Africa”.
The paper presented the results of a case study which looked at motivations of teachers in Vietnam and South Africa to choose for e-learning courses in the context of continuing professional development. The paper built on the presumption that ICT development levels might be similar in both countries.
Together with the finding that most stakeholders in Vietnam see ICT skills as the most important constraint to introduce e-learning courses, in South Africa, also access to ICTs, both at home and in the work setting are seen as major constraints, combined with perceived limited ICT skills of teachers.
Not alone
Also colleagues from some other VVOB countries made a presentation. Emile also talked about motivation, but in the context of school leadership training in Rwanda; Bornwell discussed distance programmes at colleges of education in Zambia; and Mqapsi and some of his partners gave some insights in quality and relevance in teacher education and development in Zimbabwe. Participating in the different sessions was very exciting and made me realise that some of the problems that we face in education is cut across the whole Africa and are more or less the same. I was also exposed to the work done by VVOB in other countries.
Before and after the conference sessions, we had the opportunity to visit some partners of previous VVOB projects in Kenya, i.e. the National ICT Innovation and Integration Centre and the Centre for Mathematics, Science and Technology Education in Africa (CEMASTEA).It was surprising to see that some of the projects implemented by CEMASTEA have already been implemented in South Africa, and it was going well. The trips were a motivating factor for me as the centres’ officials were so much driven and thriving to be part of the positive change in the education system, even though it meant more hours of work for them or adding to their already long job description.
It did not end there
On our return to South Africa, we contacted and met with the organisers of the DETA conference at the University of Pretoria, Dr Johan Hendrikz and Dr Ruth Aluko. The meeting, focused on some comments and recommendations that VVOB discussed during our debriefing meeting after the conference.
The organisers consider VVOB as a possible supporter of the DETA conference. This means that they would appreciate that we communicate about the conference in our networks and that we consider supporting some of our partners to participate in the next conferences. They will invite us for some consultation meetings on the themes and programme for the next conference, which will take place in Lagos, Nigeria in 2015. The preparation will start in January 2014. VVOB will also have the chance to suggest keynote speakers and chairs of sessions.
The exposure was great and definitely assisted me to look outside the box: identifying areas that can be part of development for me, like monitoring and evaluation, research and polishing my presentation skills. 15 minutes for a 11 pager presentation, full of information that you want to share, was an exciting challenge. There are definitely more times coming that this newbie will share the wonderful work done by this organisation to the world.”
Lindiwe Nzutha
Deputy Programme Leader, VVOB South Africa
