Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) in collaboration with African Virtual University (AVU) on Monday launched its multinational project II, aimed at increasing access to high quality open, distance and e-learning resources relevant to Africa.

Dr Bakary Diallo, Rector of AVU said the University is a Pan African inter-governmental organisation established by charter with the mandate of increasing access to quality education and training through the innovative use of information communication technologies.

The strategic objective of programme is to build and sustain partnership with institutions that can support the AVU and carry out research and evaluation activities on the African continent.

Dr Diallo said the mission of the University is to facilitate the use of effective open, distance and e-learning in African tertiary education institutions.

He said under the AVU multinational project I, it had trained 40,000 students in e-learning network and has the ability to work across borders and language barriers in Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone Africa.

Dr Diallo said the project I had been successful and helped in testing and proving that e-learning present an alternative to face-to-face education in Africa as well as developing of a virtual network.

He said the purpose of the AVU multinational project II (2012-2016) is to continue to strengthen the capacity of AVU and a network of 27 institutions to develop, deliver and manage quality ICT integrated programmes in 22 African countries.

Mrs Catherine Wangeci Thuo, Project Manager for Multinational Support Project II said 21 Anglophone, Francophone and Lusophone countries including Ghana are benefiting from the project II.

Mrs Thuo said the project is being implemented with the Ministries of Education at various countries and funded by the African Development Bank.

She said the multinational support project II comprise of activities such as establishment and upgrading of distance and e-learning infrastructure, development and improvement of programmes in teacher education with focus on Mathematics, Science, Computer science and Peace and Conflict Resolution.

Dr Samuel Nii Noi Ashong, Deputy Rector of GIMPA said the initiative was timely since it would enhance the capacity of participating institutions in developing, managing and implementing its own programmes using e-learning.

He said the project would enhance and provide technical and infrastructure support to GIMPA and enable it to use e-learning for its face-to-face teaching and strengthen the quality of online resources through quality assurance mechanisms.

Dr Joshua C.Mallet, Director of Centre for National Distance Learning and Open Schooling, Ministry of Education said the project has the full support of the Ministry because its attached priority to distance learning education due to its value.

He expressed the hope that the project would meet its objective and help in the promotion and development of Open Education Resources in the African continent.