New technologies, an asset for education in Africa

Réseau Education Pour Tous en Afrique (Repta) was created in France in 2004 to pool the efforts of various players around the installation or support of field projects aimed at people sidelined from the educational system, like street children. It also helps improve the educational system by supporting alternative strategies and innovative practices: bilingual classes, reliance on information and communication technologies (ICT). Its founding projects (opening classes in Niger, creating a hostel for street children in Burkina Faso), combining school training, workforce development and social integration, have mobilized communities, international outreach associations, companies established in these countries, local and national administrations, locally involved nonprofits. Repta sets up an international network with African Reptas, which become its privileged partners and bring together regional authorities and NGOs, as well as representatives of the government (Ministries of Education, Social Action). To do this, Repta France acts as a financial backer, thanks to which projects can be set up.

Innovative practices to educate everyone excluded from the system

Following an experimental phase in 2009, Repta is focusing its efforts on the creation of an Observatory of innovative practices to promote the adaptation of the software and content to local contexts, with the installation of an Interactive Digital Table(IDT: a video projector combined with a computer to replace the conventional blackboard), and to exploit the experience and skills of the players in the field with the organization of "childhood and community development" conferences. The idea is to contribute to the training in ICT of African teachers in six French-speaking sub-Saharan African countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Niger, Benin and Cameroon), via the local Repta networks, in the structures operating in the informal education sector (trainers, educators, literacy specialists) with street children, young school dropouts, learning publics, female groups, etc. To do this, Repta enlists the aid of well known technical and educational partners: Smart Technologies (IDT distributor), Intel, Ateliers sans frontières, Hachette International, Jocatop and Carré Multimédia (publishers of educational tools), the International Center for Educational Studies in Sevres, and institutions (services in charge of informal education in the six countries concerned, Ministry of National Education, Interministerial Delegation for digital education in Africa).

Alongside Agence Française de Développement, private partners and public authorities of many countries, the Veolia Foundation is contributing to the production of digital resources, the purchase of software and the production of software in local languages, so as to afford Repta, which is thoroughly familiar with the issues of education, training and integration in the countries of the South, the means commensurate with its ambitions.