- The Republic of Korea joined ADEA and we are thrilled by the prospect of enhancing our collaboration.
- The Sub-Saharan Conference on Education Post 2015, which took place last February produced a statement as a prelude to the upcoming meetings in Incheon and New York;
- ADEA and other organizations supported Trust Africa to organize the African Summit on Higher Education, which identified the challenges facing the sub-sector and explored how to revitalize it.
- ADEA facilitated the launching of an Inter-Country Quality Node (ICQN) on Early Childhood Development (ECD) which will be led by Mauritius.
- The ICQN on Mathematics and Science Education (MSE) took steps to be firmly anchored in the Center for Mathematics, Science and Technology (CEMASTEA) based in Nairobi, Kenya.
News Briefs
2015 is on the doorstep. Looking back, while ADEA had its share of challenges in 2014, we were blessed at the end of the year. First reward: Norway, a member of ADEA between 1997 to 2009 is back! We thank Norway warmly for its support and look forward to its return and participation in the ADEA Steering Committee. We are also pleased that ADEA and the African Union Commission (AUC) developed a Road Map of joint activities for 2015 because this will no doubt have a positive impact on human capital development in Africa. In this bulletin, we also thank and congratulate Kenya for a beautiful gift: its first just published Education for Peace policy. We are confident that Kenya will be followed by other countries of the Inter-Country Quality Node on Peace Education (ICQN-PE). On this note on peace, we wish our members and readers happy holidays and a wonderful New Year. We also address our deepest thanks to our members for their continued support. May 2015 bring to you all and to your families peace, love and prosperity!
Scientific and technological skills are critical for building globally competitive African societies driven by knowledge and innovation. Accordingly, STI features as a high priority in most continental programs and frameworks addressing human capital development – e.g. AU’s 2024 Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation for Africa, the Pan-African University, the AfDB’s Human Capital Development Strategy, the Common African Position (CAP) on the Post 2015 Development Agenda, UNESCO’s Priority Africa 2014-2021 program and ADEA’s Strategic Policy Framework adopted by African Heads of State at AU’s 10th Summit held in Addis Ababa in 2013. In this Bulletin, we are pleased to report how ADEA is pushing the science, technology and innovation (STI) agenda forward – this year through its active engagement in the 2nd Ministerial Forum on Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) held in Rabat, Morocco – and soon through a revived Working Group on Higher Education putting emphasis on STI. In this issue, we also introduce ADEA's Working Group on Education Management and Policy Support (WGEMPS) and the role WGEMPS is playing in the Data Revolution. Other Working Groups and ongoing programs will be presented in future issues.
In this Bulletin, ADEA is pleased to report the successful outcome of the Ministerial Conference on “How to Provide Youth with the Skills and Training for Jobs” organized by the ICQN on Technical and Vocational Skills Development (ICQN-TVSD). Twenty-five Ministers for Employment and Vocational Training made it to the conference, shared strategies and experiences and developed and endorsed a Plan of Action for Inter-Country Cooperation to strengthen training and youth employment in Africa. The conference – which follows up on ADEA’s Triennale on Critical Knowledge, Skills and Qualifications for Africa’s Sustainable Development (Ouagadougou, February 2012) – was also an opportunity to assess to what extent countries are implementing the paradigm shift from TVET to TVSD. The bulletin also highlights ADEA’s ongoing contribution to education policy and system analysis and assessment through Peer Reviews conducted throughout the continent (currently in Burkina Faso, Congo, Ghana and Mozambique). ADEA also assists the development of national policies and regional frameworks: here we highlight the first African education sector peace education policy just finalized in Kenya with the participation of ADEA and the support provided to develop action and monitoring plans for the AU's African Youth Decade. Finally, we draw your attention to the Education Research in Africa Award. The 2014/2015 competition is open. Please help spread the word!
This month, ADEA is particularly pleased to announce the arrival of Oley Dibba-Wadda, ADEA’s new Executive Secretary. Mrs. Dibba-Wadda took up her post on July 1st. ADEA also welcomes and congratulates Nigeria who has become a permanent member of ADEA’s Steering Committee and thanks Finland, a long-standing member, for the renewal of its support to ADEA. Activities and areas we bring more particularly to your attention are: - The upcoming Ministerial Conference on “Providing Africa's Youth with Skills and Training for Jobs”, that will take place in Abidjan, July 21-23; - The launching of ADEA’s first mobile application on Triennale Follow-Up programs and activities; - The leading role ADEA’s WG on Education Management and Policy Support (WGEMPS) is assuming and which it has pledged to continue to play in the data revolution, an important priority in the nascent post-2015 development agenda.
This month, we draw your attention to the following: - The Ministerial Conference on Youth Employment, the first major regional event organized by ADEA’s Inter-Country Quality Node on Technical and Vocational Skills Development (ICQN -TVSD), will take place in Abidjan, July 21 to 23, 2014. - ADEA’s Working Group on Mathematics and Science Education is being transformed into an Inter-Country Quality Node (ICQN). The ICQN-MSE will be led by Kenya’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology and will continue to be supported by JICA. It will also involve other key partners such as the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in order to enhance its impact on the development of high level scientific and technological skills in Africa. You will find country studies published by ADEA’s Task Force in ICT. Also featured are the recently launched Common African Position (CAP) on the Post 2015 Development Agenda and AfDB’s Human Capital Development Strategy, two strategy documents which ADEA will have a close look at as it deploys its own activities. You will also notice several news briefs related to girls’ education. There is still some way to go before girls are on an equal footing with boys, as the recent abduction of school girls in Nigeria shows. With this in mind, ADEA wishes all the best to Hendrina Dorova, recently nominated Executive Director of FAWE.
This month’s bulletin puts the spotlight on ADEA’s partnership with the African Union and on ADEA activities focused on Africa’s youth. The Memorandum of Understanding with the African Union Commission (AUC), initially signed in 2008, was renewed on March 24, 2014. Since 2008, ADEA’s collaboration with the AUC has become more extensive, and COMEDAF VI provided the occasion to showcase this partnership, namely through the joint launch of two series of publications, to which the press was invited. Several activities were focused on the youth: - The ICQN-TVSD held a workshop on workforce integration strategies developed by 26 African countries; - ADEA also held a Forum on education for youth skills development in Liberia, where more than 85% of young people are unemployed; - ADEA has also joined the OIF and other partners to create an international platform for French-speaking youth. The lessons learned from these activities will be shared at the Forum on Youth and Employment which will be organized by the ICQN-TVSD in Abidjan in September 2014. Lastly, our congratulations to Mauritius, who is taking charge of early childhood development (ECD) and has just set up a Secretariat for the Inter-Country Quality Node on ECD within its Ministry of Education and Human Resources.
This month’s News Briefs feature a number of activities originating from ADEA’s recognized expertise at country, regional and international level. ADEA is happy to announce the launching of a Peer Review Exercise focused on improving the quality of education in Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso’s Ministry of Education and Literacy called on ADEA’s Working Group on Non-Formal Education (WGNFE) after it learned how the findings of the Peer Reviews conducted by ADEA in Gabon, Mauritius and Nigeria have been helpful to inform the design of their education reforms. ADEA’s Working Groups on Education Management and Policy Support (WGEMPS) and on Mathematics and Science (WGMSE) are providing support to the African Union on several fronts: WGEMPS is actively preparing the AU Outlook reports for the upcoming COMEDAF VI meeting; with InfoDev it is also exploring solutions to enable the direct collection of national statistics and the creation of an African continental database; WGMSE is working with pilot countries to implement the PACTED program in Mathematics and Science. ADEA is also happy to report that its Working Group on Early Childhood Development (WGECD) has been given the responsibility of conducting a High Level consultation on ECD in the Africa region. The results will help design the Post 2015 Development Agenda. Also coming from WGECD: the success met in Angola and Nigeria by Bouba and Zaza, now available in Portuguese, Hausa, Fulani and Yoruba, in addition to French and English! Finally, partnerships are nurtured and strengthened: ADEA and the Africa Society Interest Group (ASIG) presented the Education Research Award in Africa at the 2014 Comparative International Education Society (CIES) conference in Toronto. The ADEA/GESCI partnership is also bearing fruit with another activity as ADEA’s Task Force on ICT and GESCI are working to develop and extend the African Leadership in ICT (ALICT) program in francophone African countries.
We are happy to launch a revamped ADEA News Briefs bulletin, which we hope you will enjoy reading every month. The new design comes with the celebration of ADEA’s 25 years of contribution to education in Africa, which will continue throughout 2014. In addition to the news briefs on ADEA activities, the Bulletin now features a calendar of ADEA activities as well as the latest publications and resources produced by ADEA. Other significant knowledge products related to development and education and training issues and published by ADEA’s members and partners are also highlighted. In this issue, ADEA is pleased to make available to you the report of the Ministerial Forum on the Integration of ICTs in Education and Training, which took place in Tunis last December. Articles and films of the most significant panels, debates and interviews can also be viewed via the Forum’s dedicated webzine and on YouTube. Comments on the News Briefs bulletin are welcome, please help us improve it to make it worthwhile for you!
This is the second edition of the revived ADEA News Briefs. We are happy that the first edition published in November was well received and we thank those who have sent their comments and feedback. We trust that you have also received the ADEA Newsletter, Volume 21, Number 1 (January-March 2014), which summarizes lessons learned from ADEA’s Triennale on “Critical knowledge, skills and qualifications for Africa’s sustainable development” and reports on what ADEA has done since the event to implement the Triennale’s recommendations. With these two revived communication tools – The News Briefs and the ADEA Newsletter – ADEA hopes to achieve the following: - Through ADEA’s News Briefs: Keep abreast its members and partners of ADEA’s ongoing activities and programs. The News briefs will be issued on a monthly basis; - Through The ADEA Newsletter: Report on lessons learned in a domain explored by ADEA. The ADEA Newsletter is a quarterly publication. The next issue (April-June 2014) will focus on the Integration of ICTs in Education; - Strengthen our bond with our members and partners, with the aim of increasing our interaction and collaboration with them; - Arouse interest in ADEA from new actors and stakeholders and ADEA’s interaction with them. The present New Briefs carry news and information on activities and developments within ADEA since November 2013. We encourage our readers to communicate their views and provide us with regular feedback on the issues that feature in the News Briefs and in the ADEA Newsletter.
