Computing Education in African Countries: A Literature Review and Contextualised Learning Materials

Publication Date

1-23-2025

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Title

Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE

DOI

10.1145/3689187.3709606

First Page

1

Last Page

33

Abstract

This report begins with a literature review of computing education in Africa. We found a substantial body of work, scattered over more than 80 venues, which we have brought together here for the first time. Several important themes emerge in this dataset, including the need to contextualise computing education. In the second part of this report we investigate contextualisation further. We present a pilot study, grounded in the literature review, of the development of course materials, sample code, and programming assignments for introductory programming, contextualised for six African countries: Botswana, Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zambia. We include the materials, report on a preliminary evaluation of the materials by fellow educators in African countries, and suggest a process by which other educators could develop materials for their local contexts.

Keywords

Africa, African, Algeria, Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, computer science education, computing education, contextualisation, CS1, CS1 materials, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, introductory programming, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, literature review, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia

Department

Computer Science

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS