South African Presentations

Founded in 2015 by long-term colleagues Wynand Espach and Howard Blight, Agricolleges International’s mission is to offer affordable hope and opportunity to students in South Africa, Africa and across the globe, through cloud-based and shared e-learning of agricultural content, whilst promoting the principles of sustainable production to further food security around the world. Lifelong farmers, Espach and Blight saw that in South Africa there were few options for students, where University courses tend to be expensive and beyond the reach of the vast majority of young South Africans. They also realised that many of the problems faced by agricultural colleges were a result of poor infrastructure: they could not expand past a certain size due to limits in availability of water supplies and poor road infrastructure. It became apparent that following the traditional university model would make them face the same problems that every other agricultural college is facing across the world. So the challenge the entrepreneurs were facing was how to keep their fees low enough to make enrolment for students from poorer backgrounds possible, but still be able to maintain their facilities and expand over time without hitting the limits imposed by infrastructure. The answer was something rarely attempted in agricultural education – online learning. This model requires significantly lower infrastructure and maintenance costs, students do not need to worry about accommodation or travel but they still have the support of a consultant. But the versatility of the model desired also meant that Agricolleges would need to find the right technology partner to put their vision in place. D2L, the global learning technology leader, had recently partnered with Visions Consulting to extend its services into South Africa, so the timing was perfect to set it out! In this session you will find out directly from the inspirational leaders at Agricolleges about how Brightspace, D2L’s cloud-based platform, was used to personalise the experience for their learners and deliver real results, from engaging learners with poor digital skills to the must dos in providing a secure, reliable learning experience, accessible anywhere and anytime.