The world has its fingers on Africa’s pulse. The continent’s economy is growing at a much faster rate than that of Europe, North America, and even Asia. Africa’s population is very young and growing rapidly. According to the African Union Commission, by the year 2020 three out of four Africans will be about 20 years old. Each year, about 10 million young Africans enter the labor market.

Educating Africa’s youth is critical to sustaining economic growth. As ATD previously reported, the e-learning industry in Africa is skyrocketing, with a sharp rise in the demand for online education. However, the continued growth of this market depends on the continent’s telecommunications infrastructure. A recent report from international media company ICWE examined the impact of Africa’s telecommunications industry on education and economic development.

The mobile-broadband subscription rate in Africa, although growing rapidly, is still only at 19 percent. It lags behind the global average of 32 percent and a developing country average of 21 percent. Rural areas remain generally unconnected. Limited broadband growth can “negatively impact the ability of developing countries to develop new employment opportunities,” says Brahima Sanou, director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau of the International Telecommunication Union. Sanou says that fostering competition within the telecommunications industry will encourage investors and boost development of information communications technology (ICT), ultimately giving African citizens greater access to digital society.

Sanou adds that e- and m-learning in Africa represent a lucrative opportunity for ICT and telecom companies: “Building innovative business models around informal learning and vocational training will represent the first level of successful market segments for the industry. However, the true transformative mass-scale adoption of e- and m-learning will occur when the formal education sector (primary, secondary, and higher education) is integrated.”

In a report for the survey, 52 percent of Africans said that government is most influential in ensuring the continued development of technology-enabled learning. Not only does it need to play a larger role in regulating the telecommunications industry, it must do more to generate awareness of the benefits of e-learning. Only 55 percent of Africans believe that their governments understand the benefits of e-learning, and only 39 percent believe that they do enough to promote it.

ICTs are already playing a pivotal role in developing Africa’s education system and workforce. In one pilot project, an m-learning program was designed to teach gold miners about health, safety, and environmental issues, including the dangers of the common practice of using mercury in gold processing plants. Also, a report for the World Bank, ICTs for Agriculture in Africa, concluded that ICTs have a critical role to play in boosting the agricultural industry, which employs 65 to 70 percent of the African workforce and accounts for a third of the continent’s GDP. ICTs can give farmers access to more information, more and bigger markets, funding methods, and so forth.

“African education will depend increasingly on good communications and connectivity,” concludes the ICWE report. To download the full report, see the E-Learning Africa website.