Survey of ICT and Education in Africa : Mauritania Country Report

Abstract

This short country report, a result of larger Information for Development Program (infoDev)-supported survey of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in education in Africa, provides a general overview of current activities and issues related to ICT use in education in the country. Mauritania's approach to the implementation of ICTs in the educational and public sectors has been to use the Universite de Nouakchott as the focal point of its activities to enhance the usage of these technologies in the youth and the administration of the country in future. The university is providing the leadership, plans, training, and management of the entire process. With the growth of the country's oil industry, financial constraints that previously could have impeded the country's drive towards its connectivity objectives will be reduced; this should help to advance the rollout of its Internet connectivity and electrification programmes. Challenges include the relatively low number of secondary schools, and corresponding low enrolment levels, which adversely impact the numbers of people who will become computer literate in the near-term, since the country's educational ICT development programme focuses mainly on the secondary and tertiary education sectors.