New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) e-Schools

The NEPAD e-Schools objectives are to:

• provide ICT skills and knowledge to primary and secondary school students that will enable them to function in the emerging Information Society and Knowledge Economy
• make every learner health literate
• provide teachers with ICT skills to enable them to use ICT as tools to enhance teaching and learning
• provide school managers with ICT skills so as to facilitate the efficient management and administration in the schools

The project works to equip African primary and secondary schools with ICT apparatus such as computers, radio and television sets, phones and fax machines, communication equipment, scanners, digital cameras, copiers and also to connect them to the internet. Each school will also be equipped with a “health point”.

The project execution entails the following components:

• infrastructure (including computes, communications, networking, power, etc.);
• ICT training for teachers;
• content and curriculum development;
• efforts towards community buy-in, involvement and ownership of the process;
• “health point” definition issues.

NEPAD e-Schools works through Country Liaison Persons (CLPs) whose roles include: ensuring the successful implementation of this project and mobilising other stakeholders to ensure a broad support for the Initiative in their countries. The CLPs work with the school principals and teachers and ensure that there is adherence to the schedule of the project in their countries. They also ensure that the communities get involved and share in the resources provided by the Initiative.

The programme is being executed over a ten-year period, with the secondary school component to be completed in the first five years. Three phases are envisaged with 15-20 countries involved in each phase.


During the first stage of the NEPAD e-Schools initiative, the "NEPAD e-Schools Demo" established and monitored six NEPAD e-Schools in each of the 16 participating phase one countries: Algeria; Burkina Faso; Cameroon; Egypt; Gabon; Ghana; Kenya; Lesotho; Mali; Mauritius; Mozambique; Nigeria; Rwanda; Senegal; South Africa; and Uganda. The countries invited to participate in the first phase were those which had acceded to the memorandum of understanding (MOU) of the NEPAD African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM).

The NEPAD e-Schools Demo is intended to accrue a body of knowledge, based on real-life experiences of the implementation of ICT in schools across the African continent that will serve to inform the rollout of the broader NEPAD e-Schools Initiative.

Technology, Education, Children.

The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is a vision and strategic framework for Africa's renewal, designed to address the current challenges facing the African continent. Issues such as the escalating poverty levels, underdevelopment and the continued marginalisation of Africa needed a new radical intervention, spearheaded by African leaders, to develop a new Vision that would guarantee Africa’s Renewal. The ultimate goal being that within 10 years of implementation of the initiative in more than half a million schools on the continent, the majority of the Africa population would possess ICT skills with far reaching implications for the development of the African society.