“The future development of Africa and its participation in the knowledge society will be greatly influenced by how Africa manages to deliver quality education to its citizens.” That’s the message from a new report, published jointly by the African Development Bank and the World Bank entitled “eTransform Africa: The Transformational Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Africa”.

The chapter in the report on Education, prepared by ICT Development Associates, is one of eight sectoral studies on how information and communication technologies (ICTs) are transforming society and the economy in Africa. It was written, in part, by crowdsourcing ideas from contributors to the infoDev/UNESCO blog on educational technology. In particular, three factors drive change in Africa’s education sector:

The wide availability of devices can be used to access the internet such as smartphones, most of which are in the hands of young people. There were some 650 million active mobile subscriptions in Africa at the start of 2012, which means that more than 60% of Africans have access to a device. Smartphone sales already outnumber PCs in Africa. Innovative programs, such as the Dr. Math project for developing mathematical games in South Africa, use mobile devices to encourage after-school learning. Elsewhere, mobile tablets are being used in classrooms to report school attendance.

Freely available educational content online: Although global initiatives such as those launched by MIT or the Khan Academy tend to grab the headlines, there is also an increasing range of locally-developed educational resources being made available in Africa, such as the eLimu project in Kenya or the Thutong Portal, Mindset Network or the Siyavula project in South Africa. So called Open Educational Resources (OERs) are primarily intended as a resource for teachers but can just as easily be accessed by individual students.

An increasing volume of affordable bandwidth, which up to now has been the missing link between devices and resources. In Africa as a whole, the availability of international internet connectivity increased 20-fold between 2008 and 2012. That more ubiquitous and broader (faster/wider) bandwidth is now coming into schools and universities. Kenet (Kenya Educational Network) has increased bandwidth from 50 megabits per second to 2.5 gigabits per second in two years while reducing the unit price to almost one tenth of what it was. It’s now extending its reach to schools as well as universities and research centers. Ultimately, though, technology push can only go so far, and there is a need for an equivalent demand from teachers and students, as well as facilitation of the process from policy-makers and education administrators. The report makes a series of additional recommendations including creating an enabling policy environment and harnessing ICTs to improve in management and administration of education.

For more information, take a look at the report, and tell us what you think in the comments section below. More information on the educational development debate.