Abstract—Rapid development in modern industrial technology require pragmatic approach in the learning environments. Practical skills need to be imparted early among learners so that they are ready for industry practice. Because of research orientation of tertiary and higher learning institutions, they are at a vantage point to be aware of modern technologies earlier than industry. Taking a strategic initiative further to be technology transfer centers, learning institutions can adopt learning factories (LFs). Modern day economies are backed by emerging small and medium enterprises (SMEs). These SMEs are mainly founded by young graduates who have superior advantages in terms of trending technologies learnt in institutions that are practical and technology orientated. Africa industrialization agenda is better promoted through a strategic initiative of learning factories. The article seeks to promote learning factories among Africa's learning institutions as a strategic initiative to spearhead industrial development, innovation, and rapid growth of SMEs.

Index Terms—Industrialization, learning factory, technology transfer, innovation, engineering education, active learning, industry 4.0.

Norman Gwangwava is with Department of Mechanical, Energy and Industrial Engineering, Botswana International University of Science and Technology, Palapye, Botswana (e-mail: gwangwavan@biust.ac.bw_.

Cite: Norman Gwangwava, "Learning Factories as an Opportunity for Industrialization in Africa," International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, e-Management and e-Learning vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 73-84, 2021.

Copyright © 2021 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).