Andrés Moreno, Dr. in Computer Science, previously Project Coordinator at University of Eastern Finland, speaks with enthusiasm about his visits to Asmara and the positive impact of the cooperation between the Eritrea Institute of Technology and the University of Eastern Finland.
Moreno and his team have been working on a project to support higher education in Eritrea as part of a bilateral programme between the Finnish and Eritrean academic sectors.
The project is called ICT4EEDU and aims to develop and promote the use of educational technologies in Eritrean Higher Education Institutions.
Among other goals, the ICT4EEDU project will support the setup of a national academic network between the Eritrea Institute of Technology (Mai Nefhi), College of Health Sciences (Asmara), Orota School of Medicine (Asmara), College of Business and Economics (Halhale), College of Marine Science and Techology (Massawa), Hamelmalo Agric. College (Hamelmalo) and the College of Arts & Social Science (Adi Keih).
Dr. Marcus Duveskog and his colleague Dr. Ilkka Jormanainen have taken the lead of the project and are on their way to Eritrea to give a two-week training in Asmara as part of the three-year project.
Their visit follows the previous visit of Dr. Moreno to Asmara. Great inroads and contacts were made then that are already helping in the next phases of the project.
Both experts will train Eritrean academics in a video production system to distribute educational material through internal networks since Internet speed in Eritrea is still slow. Eritrean students and staff from different colleges and subjects such as Education, Engineering and Science will participate in the training.
“There will be a focus on digital storytelling and the plan is to train people for the video production unit that will form a part of the Educational Technology laboratory (EdTech Lab) that can support the different faculties to produce video lectures and other video based digital learning materials,” Duveskog said.
EdTech stands for Educational Technology and can include almost any technology that can be used in the field of education. The University of Eastern Finland emphasizes on contextualized learning solutions, which means that they pay more interest in the innovative ways in which modern technologies can be applied within a context of local challenges.
“This becomes especially interesting in rural or less developed parts of the world where one need to consider an environment where the infrastructure is not in place and one need to be innovative and apply the technology in completely new ways,” explained Duveskog.
Edtech at the Eritrean Institute of Technology for example, aims to support the existing educational system while finding ways of improving it by for instance providing new solutions for delivery and expression.
The project uses a participatory approach to work closely with students and staff in Eritrea to come up with innovative ideas on how to best use state-of-art technology for enhancing education within the context of Eritrean Universities.
Dr. Duveskog and his colleague will train students, staff and teachers, in video production. For the Edtech lab functions they plan to train staff members who will be responsible for the activities in the Lab once it has been set up.
Following a successful launch of the project in Asmara, a delegation from the Eritrea Institute of Technology (EIT) visited the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) in Joensuu in December 2015.
The delegation was composed of the Acting President (Prof. Tesfamichael Haile) and the Director of EIT’s ICT and Tele-education Centre (Mr. Samuel Tewelde). The visit served to present the ICT services and methods that are used for education in Finnish Universities.
The overall objective of the Finnish-Eritrean cooperation programme is to support the development of sustainable institutional capacity in higher education so that higher education and research can contribute to the development of society, build competencies consistent with national development goals, and contribute to the goals of inclusive sustainable development and reduction of poverty.