Teacher education and development in Africa: the need for access, equity, sustainability, quality & relevance within the context of globalisation

Abstract

Foreword: The fifth Distance Education and Teachers’ Training in Africa (DETA) Conference in 2013 was hosted by the University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya, from 30 July to 1 August. The biennial conference was borne out of the necessity to create a unique platform for all faculties of education to share knowledge and deliberate on educational issues as they affect Africa. We now understand our contextual landscape as it affects education far better. Expanding education and improving its quality is central to the continent’s development. African scholars always meet at international conferences, but at the inception of the DETA Conference in 2005, there were few conferences to bring them all together. DETA’s major objectives are to contribute to the debate on teacher training in Africa and to build capacity for the delivery of teacher-training programmes in Africa. These objectives represent ways in which the conference can support NEPAD, various protocols on education and training in Africa, the Millennium Development Goals, and some of the recommendations of the All-Africa Education Ministers’ Conference on Open Learning and Distance Education.