Gaborone Botswana: 20-22 August 2019: “It is education and by extension, ICT innovations in education, their adoption and scale up that will be a game changer in positioning youth for jobs which the world is already increasingly demanding” said the African Union, Commissioner for Human Recourses, Science and Technology (HRST), H.E Prof Sarah Anyang Agbor at the second edition of the Innovating Education in Africa Expo under the theme “Harnessing the Capacity of ICT to ensure Inclusion, Quality and Impact in Education and Training in Africa”.
The African Union Commissioner called on all the stakeholders to build education, training and innovative ecosystems that have local relevance, global competitiveness and mutual recognition to enable us to equip the African citizenry with the necessary knowledge and skills needed to build the Africa we want as identified in Africa’s blue print for development Agenda 2063.
“Quality education is imperative if Africa has to attain this vision, generate home-grown solutions to African challenges and participate fully in, and influence the global knowledge economy” she said.
In conclusion, Prof Sarah in her speech on the first day of the event mentioned the 1 million by 2021, an initiative launched by the AU chairperson aimed at promoting solutions and innovations that are co-created and driven for African Youth. She also spoke of the Pan African Institute for Education, a technical officer under the HRST department working to improve access to education data management aimed to improve policy making in Africa.
The Vice President of the Republic of Botswana, Hon. Mr Slumber Tsogwane in his Key note address, emphasized the need to invest heavily in education innovation as it is paramount to our continent’s future to ensure we are not left behind in the fourth industrial revolution. He further noted that Botswana through its national ICT policy have mapped out a clear path to harnessing the power of ICT to drive employment creation and economic growth.
Hon Tsogwane, took this opportunity to announce the establishment of the Botswana innovation Hub (BIH) with a goal to assist home grown innovations with targeted interventions to achieve scalable operations.