Gaborone, July 1, 2010: A total of 19 participants from seven different SADC countries successfully concluded a Distance Education Course on “GIS, Remote Sensing and GEONETCast” on June 25th 2010. The course, which began on May 17, 2010, was undertaken in the framework of the Southern African Development Community Thematic Action (SADC THEMA) of the African Monitoring of Environment for Sustainable Development (AMESD). AMESD in Southern-Africa aims to empower SADC and its member states to manage their agricultural and environmental resources in a sustainable way.

Masego Nkepu, one of the trainees in Botswana

“This training shall improve the capacity of the participating countries to work with the GEONETCast data and enables our participants to become familiar with GIS and Remote Sensing” says Isaac Kusane, the Project Leader of the SADC THEMA within the Botswana Department of Meteorological Services (BDMS). He further explains, “Good knowledge of GIS and RS are the basis to work with the AMESD services in the future. At the end, we do not aim at passive users of the services, but rather would prefer active users who improve and expand the services towards the needs of their countries.”

Participants of the course are staff members of the collaborating Ministries (Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Environment) of the participating member countries. Participants from Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South-Africa, Namibia, Malawi and Swaziland attended the distance education course. A second session is planned to start in November 2010.

The main topics are the “Principles of Remote Sensing” (3 weeks), the “Principles of Geographical Information Systems” (2 weeks) and GEONETCast (1 week). The course was specially assembled for the SADC-THEMA of AMESD. The course combines self-study with online support by ITC staff. The general approach is task-based learning that blends theory and practice. Most communication occurs via ITC’s digital learning environment Blackboard. The participants have to submit the result of their exercises to ITC at a regular basis for assessment purposes. The DE course is ended with an online-real time exam. The course took 6 weeks, 20 to 24 hours a week.

“The biggest advantage is that the trainees can stay in their own premises, while following the Distance Education course. It is often difficult for staff to take time off for such a course. By combining it with their regular duties, most staff can easily manage to follow such a course,” says Isaac Kusane.

“Many of the participants will come to the Kick-Off workshop in July in Gaborone. I am looking forward to hear about their experience,” Isaac concludes.

© African Monitoring of Environment for Sustainable Development (AMESD), 2010