Connecting all HEIs to High-Speed Broadband

Broadband connectivity is a critical enabler for modernizing higher education institutions (HEIs) in their mission of teaching, research, and community outreach. Connecting African HEIs for improved learning, research collaboration, and access to global scientific resources has been on national and global development agendas for many years but has never achieved top-priority policy consideration.
The higher education sector in Africa falls far behind the rest of the world in connecting to global research and education networks. The available bandwidth is generally expensive and limited in capacity and therefore cannot meet modern institutions’ research and education requirements.

Significance of Broadband Connectivity for HEIs and Research and Education Networks in Africa
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the urgent need to extend broadband infrastructure even further to facilitate teaching, learning, research, and access to educational resources, and the attainment of effective administration in higher education. The COVID-19 pandemic led to global lockdowns and made any physical face-to-face approach to learning difficult. Because of the many major gaps in broadband connectivity, and the limited preparedness across the continent, most African universities were not
able to participate in online teaching, which immediately kicked in as an alternative form of educational delivery in developed countries. This underscored the urgency of enhanced connectivity for HEIs, placing immediate corrective action high on the agenda of governments, educators, and development partners.

Read more about this is the document below.