Abstract

During the 1980s and early 1990s, the funding of higher education in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) steadily declined as investment emphasis shifted from higher education to basic education. By the second half of the 1990s, a more balanced view had developed of the relationship among primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of education. Unfortunately, there has been no way to quickly fix the deteriorated higher education infrastructure. Alternative systems of providing higher education have had to be explored. In 1998, the World Bank, CIDA (Canada), DfID (UK), and AusAID (Australia) collaborated to sponsor the introduction of a new form of distance education to SSA: the e-learning-based African Virtual University (AVU). Since then, the AVU has struggled to leapfrog over the debilitating problems of higher education institutions in the region and transform itself from an international agency/donor project into a full-fledged "virtual university." This essay outlines the circumstances and conditions that led to the development of the AVU, and examines its credibility as an alternative higher education strategy for SSA. It explores the effect that poor or nonexistent national information communication technology (ICT) infrastructures have had on the evolution of the AVU, and addresses whether, and how, such a top-down, externally imposed innovation can have a future in the region.

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