Online learning portal Gaps Academy already has over 3,400 video classes uploaded onto the platform, as low-cost eLearning establishes itself as a solution to Africa’s education barrier.
Jobberman, one of the largest online job markets in Nigeria, and Dymore Consulting, a digital media consultant, partnered to found the online school.
GAPS, which stands for Grow-Advance-Produce-Succeed, is focusing on crowd-sourcing the education process through the building of a network of stakeholders who want to change the face of education. Due to its low setting up costs, eLearning is increasingly being viewed as key to expanding education across Africa.
“With over 3,400 video classes and hundreds of topics, GAPS Academy is currently the platform with the highest amount of digital learning content in Africa,” Jobberman and Dymore said in a statement.
“It is also the largest library of learning related videos on YouTube with content ranging from academic to the everyday Do-it-Yourself tasks.”
Topics already covered include management, marketing and brand management, financial management and accounting, economics, mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology, with more content being put up and optimised daily.
The eLearning Africa 2012 Report released in May this year details trends that suggest that eLearning is developing quickly in Africa.
Most African nations are gearing towards establishing reliable Internet network connections, with countries like Kenya and Ghana top in Africa in terms of broadband speed. Increasing Internet penetration creates the opportunities for more eLearning portals to establish themselves.
In the report, David Angwin, the Vice President, Field Marketing for Wyse Technology, said that in investing “in digital classrooms African educators are demonstrating incredible foresight in what new generations of Africans need to improve their lives.
“Sustainability in African eLearning is vitally important in making ICT widely accessible to students across the Continent. Indeed, African countries look set to trail-blaze other economies in their innovative use of cloud client computing on a massive scale.”
Dr. Anderson Uvie-Emegbo of Dymore Vision Consulting heads the GAPS Academy. He is the director of learning at the school and is Adjunct Faculty at the Strathmore Business School, Kenya and the School of Media and Communication, Pan African University, Nigeria.
