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Date : 02/02/2004
Source: Department of Education
Title: Asmal: All-African Ministers' conference on open learning and distance education


Speech by the South African Minister of Education, Professor Kader Asmal, MP, at the All-Africa Ministers’ Conference on Open Learning and Distance Education Cape Town International Convention Centre

Honourable Ministers of Education

UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education, Sir John Daniel
President of the Commonwealth of Learning, Professor Dhanarajan
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

It gives me great pleasure in welcoming you, in particular, my fellow African Ministers of Education and the international participants, to this open learning and distance education conference, which is being held at the fairest Cape in southern tip of our great continent. South Africa is deeply honoured to host this important conference and we are gratified that so many Ministers of Education from across the length and breadth of the Continent have made a special effort to participate in the deliberations of the conference.

For South Africa this conference is of great symbolic significance coming as it does in the year that we celebrate the tenth anniversary of our liberation and the establishment of democracy. In playing host to this conference therefore enables us to acknowledge again the role of our African brothers and sisters in contributing to the downfall of apartheid. And to reaffirm our membership of the African family of nations, which is united in its desire and commitment to the reconstruction and development of Africa in pursuit of a better life for all our people.

Our coming together at this conference is a recognition that education and training is a crucial pillar, indeed the foundation, for the reconstruction and development of Africa. It is a recognition that to educate our people is to invest in our development, as all the evidence suggests that sustainable economic development is dependent on an adequate and ever-increasing skills and knowledge base. It is also a recognition that the role of education goes well beyond its contribution to economic development; that it is fundamental to building and ensuring a sustainable democratic society, as it provides citizens with the tools to understand the issues that confront us, thus enabling them to actively participate in the building and governance of our societies.

This dual role of education and training in sustaining the economy and democracy is well-captured in Namibia’s policy framework for education, Toward Education for All – a Development Brief for Education, Culture and Training, which states:

“Education also improves the quality of our lives by helping us develop our abilities. As we learn more about our environment and the threats to it, we become better able to protect and preserve it. As we become better at identifying and solving problems, we also become better at creating jobs and increasing our income. As we develop our own ideas and technologies, we become less dependent on imported innovations and the conditions that often accompany them. As it helps us become more successful in setting and pursuing our own goals, education is liberating, both individually and socially”.

In short, education provides us with the tools to interpret and understand society and therefore with the tools to change it. It enables us to determine and define our own development agenda, which would give meaning and substance to our commitment, in the context of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), to make the 21st century, the century of Africa’s rebirth and renewal.

In education, as President Mbeki indicated in his address yesterday, Africa has embraced and is committed to the goals of Education for All, which have been aligned to and underpin the NEPAD framework for education and training. The goals are ambitious and wide-ranging and include, amongst others:

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