AFRICA-EUROPE

Partnership launches network to boost HE online courses
REAMOOC, a network to develop innovative online university courses to improve higher education for students in Sub-Saharan Africa, has been launched by a 10-member European and African partnership.The Réseau Africain de Développement de MOOC pour l’Innovation Pédagogique dans l’Enseignement Supérieur (African Network for Development of Massive Open Online Courses for Educational Innovation in Higher Education) was officially launched this month in Brussels.
REAMOOC is coordinated by the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) and Belgium’s Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), and jointly financed by the European Union’s Erasmus+ programme which is contributing €870,000 (US$1 million) to the project.
The other partners are Senegal’s Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar, Université Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis and Université Virtuelle du Sénégal; Cameroon’s universities of Yaoundé 1, Douala and Ngaoundéré; France’s Cergy-Pontoise University and educational technology start-up Milliweb; Belgium’s University of Mons; and the University of Patras, Greece.
REAMOOC’s aim is to improve students’ higher education experience through adoption of innovative digital educational practices within the heart of the universities, according to AUF and ULB.
It will help teachers develop MOOCs and integrate them into the courses of the partner universities in Cameroon and Senegal, before its expansion through a network of other African institutions.
Plans during the first three years include creating innovation centres and video studios in the partner institutions, as well as teacher training, producing 14 MOOCs, introducing international internships, organising conferences, distributing publications, providing technical and educational support, and installing advanced digital technologies, said AUF and ULB. – Compiled by Jane Marshall