Tennesseee State University to Expand Its Online Digital Literacy Education Project in Africa

Historically Black Tennessee State University in Nashville is expanding its program to bridge the global digital divide through a dual enrollment partnership for underserved students in Africa.

Tennessee State University has been operating an online program for students in South Africa and Liberia. The program is part of a STEM literacy partnership with the African Methodist Episcopal Church that gives students digital resources to develop their technology skills. All participating students receive an iPad, supplied by Apple, Inc. Initiated a year ago, the TSU digital literacy program is serving more than 300 high school and college students in three different locations in Liberia and South Africa

Now the university is opening the program to students in Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, and Zambia.“This program has been so successful in just the de-livery and the opportunities that we are bringing that these four countries have asked us to duplicate our model to include them,” says Robbie Melton, vice president of the Smart Technology Innovation Center at Tennessee State University. Dr. Melton says the programs for the new countries are in the works and will start this fall. “We have the capacity to handle those requests, because we have trained teachers on our side, but we are also using the train-the-trainer model, so the teachers over there are being trained to expand the program,” she says.