The Early Literacy Resource Network portal is a resource that provides one-stop access to solutions, best practices, research, and toolkits for anyone working in early literacy. It is a space to develop and disseminate knowledge and best practices for every link in the book value chain to produce new efficiencies and expanded offerings at minimal cost.
This is the second post in our Digitising TVET series.
As the world ushers in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) – which is characterized by increasingly blurred lines between the digital, biological, and physical worlds (Ndung’u and Signé) – technologists are coming to grips with the opportunities of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, and the Internet of Things. These and other emerging technologies offer exciting possibilities; in theory, they might allow us to galvanize unprecedented socio-economic change and democratise access to services such as the internet, education, and healthcare.
Neil was born and grew up in Johannesburg in South Africa during the final years of apartheid. He began a career in education after university studies and was privileged to work in an education NGO during South Africa’s transition to democracy and beyond. During this time, he founded Neil Butcher & Associates, where he still works today. He is privileged to have been able to travel extensively throughout the world during his career, an opportunity that has provided him unique opportunities to engage with many cultures and appreciate the extraordinary diversity of the world in which we live.
Neil is passionate about helping governments, development partners, and educational institutions to reform education systems to enable people and societies to achieve their full human potential. Having worked in education in developing countries across the globe for over 30 years, Neil recognizes that there are no simple formulae for educational reform; each context is unique, as are the people who inhabit it. Thus, providing service to initiatives focused on education reform requires willingness to listen and understand what is most important, combined with a patient conviction that transformation, no matter how difficult it may seem, is possible.