On Thursday, February 24, 2022, Ministry of Education focal points from Global Partnership for Education (GPE) partner countries in Eastern, Southern, and Western Africa met together with the Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (KIX) Africa 19 Hub to share their countries’ priorities and to provide input on the planned activities of the KIX Africa 19 secretariat.
As a platform for country partners to share their knowledge and experiences, the Hub sought out a consultative meeting with focal points to ensure alignment of priority areas with Hub country members. Focal points serving in ministries of education and local education groups in The Gambia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia joined and contributed to the session hosted by KIX consortium partners from UNESCO IICBA, UNICEF ESARO, and the Africa Union (AU). Representatives from IICBA, UNICEF, and the AU highlighted their KIX focus thematic areas as well as provided a roadmap of potential activities for the year.
Following the presentation from these three consortium partners, focal points also shared their own countries’ priority areas. Alpha Bah, Head of EMIS and ICT under the Ministry of Basic and Secondary education in The Gambia, shared his Ministriy’s joint work with the University of Oslo and announced an international conference on EMIS to occur in The Gambia in May 2022. Additional priorities for the education sector in his country also included “the mainstreaming of national language or mother tongue in teaching and learning”.
Professor Joyce Aykoru of Kyambogo University in Uganda also articulated some of her country’s focus areas including “building resilience in our education system” through “promoting [the] education digital agenda strategy 2021-2025” as well as integrating ICT in teaching, learning, assessment, and sports. Furthermore, Professor Aykoru shared plans to “build teachers' capacity to implement the lower secondary competence-based curriculum”.
Dr. Makhube Ralenkoane, the Head of Curriculum and Assessment at the Ministry of Education and Training in Lesotho, announced that his country is requesting KIX support for their national curriculum review. “We need KIX to help identify quality assurance in the curriculum, with an emphasis on skill development. Right now, we are only focused on the traditional teaching and learning stream, but want to include the psychological and skills.”
Furthermore, UNESCO representatives supporting the 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report focusing on technology and education invited the Ministry of Education focal points to share resources, concerns, challenges, and areas for inclusion in the annual publication. The two-hour meeting concluded with the KIX secretariat sharing their appreciation for the focal points’ insights and participation as well as disseminating a country pulse survey to learn more about partner countries’ focus areas in 2022.
In 2022, the KIX Africa 19 Hub will have a variety of activities for ministries of education and local education groups, including in-person national dialogues, virtual capacity-strengthening workshops with thematic experts, several communities of practice groups, and a joint research symposium with the KIX Africa 21 Hub in Western Africa. To follow the work of the ministries of education and local education groups, see the KIX page on IICBA’s website and the Global Partnership for Education’s (GPE’s) website.
