By From Vicfalls
The Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Dr Washington T Mbizvosaid that Zimbabwe will be seriously accelerating the digitisation of learning institutions and the Zimbabwe Open University is commended for making strides towards the cause.
Speaking during the recently held African Council for Distance Education ACDE Summit in Victoria falls, The Permanent secretary pledged support to Zimbabwe Open University and the resolution passed by 16 African countries to quickly migrate from the orthodox conventional learning to digital using Open Distance Electronic Learning (ODEL).
By Toneo Tonderai Rutsito
During an interview with TechnoMag, Dr Mbizvo said embracing and implementing technology across all the educational levels was a high priority and government has made the availability of technological infrastructure to support education as high priority.
“As Zimbabwe government, we fully support the African Council for Distance Education in their endeavour to push electronic learning to the distance education system as a tool that will facilitate and speed up the learning experience”, said Dr Mbizvo
The Vice Chancellor of Zimbabwe Open University, Professor Primrose Kurasha announced that they have accelerated the implementation of digital education and applying platforms to disseminate and exchange information
Speaking during the 4 day conference from Victoria falls, the Vice chancellor who is also the incoming president for ACDE said that ADCE members through the usage of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) will greatly accelerate information dissemination.
The need to have much more openaccess and open licences were chief among the topical issues identified as the force towards the growth of MOOCs with ubiquitous and seamless connectivity complementing the learning experience.
During an interview with TechnoMag, Professor Kurasha said that embracing technology as a tool via MOOCs will drive Open Distance Electronic education further. This will aid support and seamless connectivity where research and learning goes beyond the conventional book limitations.
The ACDE conferences are held once every three years and Zimbabwe for the first time since inception has successfully hosted over 15 African countries and 3 more European countries which came under the International Council for Open and Distance Education.
Zimbabwe was also on the same night announced to take over presidency for the African Council for Distance Education body which was a great honour for professor Kurasha who was passed on the button stick for the next three years.
In her acceptance speech, Professor Kurasha ” i am greatly humbled to have been nominated for the post and this is surely a vote of confidence for Zimbabwe and would want to assure that handing it over to Zimbabwe was the best decision ever made.
VC Kurasha also got an honorary award for her tremendous input towards the open distance learning together with other various professors from different countries.
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