ADUN represented at the African Network Project Workshop

After being an expert panellist on innovation in African Higher Education at the ADUN Colloquium 2020, Prof Barbara Moser-Mercer, invited ADUN to participate in the African Network Project Workshop, 19-20 March 2020. The rationale for the workshop and project is summed up in the workshop report:

“… it is essential that African universities go beyond being involved in building higher education programs that are inclusive of refugees and displaced populations, but clearly take the lead in the response on the continent. This is the key rationale for building this network of African institutions of higher learning that seeks to develop higher education programs that address the needs of refugees and IDPs on the African continent.”

Dr. JP Bosman from Stellenbosch University in South Africa provided a presentation from the African Digital University Network (ADUN) with particular reference to potential capacity-building in digital learning for the African University Network. He shared experience of the ADUN and its progress as a new network over the past two years.

The Workshop was held virtually in the form of a webinar as universities around the world were going into lockdown. It was such an important experience in terms of what EiEC (Education in Emergency Contexts), like HE in refugee camps, e.g. Kakuma in Kenya, can teach us about teaching with contextual and human empathy. This approach is what all HE institutions now need to understand in order to inform their own strategies around temporary online teaching in the time of the Corona virus pandemic.

Prof Moser-Mercer is the Director of InZone, at the University of Geneva, that spearheads and supports this initiative