Tunisia hosts digital learning conference
29/08/2008
The Tunisian city of Hammamet hosted more than 200 teachers and education professionals this week for a conference designed to bolster African educators' IT knowledge.
By Jamel Arfaoui for Magharebia in Tunis – 29/08/08
 [dsf-fsn.org] The Global Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF) helped to organise a four-day international conference in Tunis this week under the slogan "Digital Education for All". |
An international summer conference for teachers under the slogan "Digital Education for All" wrapped up on Thursday (August 28th) in Tunisia. Some 200 primary and secondary education teachers from 20 African countries attended the four-day event in the tourist city of Hammamet.
Jointly organised by the Tunisian Internet and Multimedia Association and the Global Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF), the conference gathered specialists in digital pedagogy and software development to work with the teachers to improve their effectiveness using digital tools in the classroom.
Tunisian Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research Lazhar Bououni, who launched the conference, noted the importance played by the DSF in bridging the digital divide between developed countries and their developing counterparts.
"This fund, which was created under an African initiative, and which was approved in Tunisia on the occasion of the World Summit on the Information Society, plays an important role in promoting solidarity for establishing the information society," Bououni said.
DSF Chairman Alain Madelain said this week's event represented a contribution to the launch of the ambitious "Digital Education for All" program and was a step on the road toward making 2010 the year of education in Africa.
He also told conference attendees that the increasing use of the interactive whiteboard, or "magic board", would help Tunisia realise its goal of "Digital Education for All". The digital capabilities of this new technology help teachers do their best by using educational software prepared jointly by specialists and teachers. Already widely used in Europe, the magic board is an effective means of spreading a digital culture among students.
Madelain said that the ability to "create mobile digital departments with less than $1,000 would provide a major opportunity to integrate into the digital, educational revolution without any digital divide between countries".
A 2005 report issued by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) on the technology divide among developed and developing countries described Tunisia as "one of the most dynamic countries in the use of modern technology in the developing world, alongside China, India, Brazil and South Africa".
Building upon its reputation as an internet leader in Africa and the Arab world, Tunisian officials also announced in 2005 that within five years, the country would open an internet cafe in every village and provide young people with grants to launch projects in communications technology.
Some of the excitement over those pledges has waned, particularly among youths who continue to be frustrated with government censorship of the internet. Commenting on authorities' blocking of the Facebook website last week, Ziad el Heni, member of the executive board of the National Union of Tunisian Journalists (SNJT), said, "Following Mellouli's gold medal and Tunisia's remarkable achievement, the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI) defeats Facebook with a knock-out!"
In its annual report issued last May, SNJT said that a number of websites were still "unavailable...for political, moral or security reasons".
The report urged Tunisian authorities to remove the blocks on those websites "which don't incite violence, terrorism or sex", such as the websites of certain national organisations, those of opposition newspapers such as al-Mawkif, and the website of Reporters without Borders.
On August 19th, the government released statistics showing that the number of internet users in Tunisia has risen from fewer than 500,000 subscribers in 2003 to nearly 2.1 million in June 2008.