Revenue from e-Learning projects in Africa is expected to surge to $512.7 million by 2016 after recording $250.9 million in 2011, says a report by Ambient Insight.

“Senegal has the highest growth rate in Africa at 30.4%, followed by Zambia and Zimbabwe at 27.9% and 25.1% respectively,” says the report, titled; "Africa Market for Self-paced eLearning Products and Services: 2011-2016 Forecast and Analysis".

It also presents results for countries such as Algeria, Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Tunisia among others.

"In all the years I have been doing learning technology research, I have never seen a regional market grow so fast. The dynamics in Africa are amazing,” said Sam Adkins, chief research officer at Ambient Insight.

The major finding of the report, according to Adkins, is that“the supply and demand metrics for e-Learning in Africa are evolving so fast that the market bears little resemblance to the competitive landscape as recently as two years ago”.

Tyson Greer, chief executive officer of Ambient Insight, has said Africa represents a lucrative opportunity for e-Learning suppliers.

“Ambient Insight has revised our previous forecasts significantly upward for most African countries for three major reasons. First, there are far reaching academic digitisation programs underway in every country in this report. Second, the sharp rise in online higher education enrolments in Africa is nothing short of astonishing," said Tyson Greer.

He added that there has also been a “spike in the uptake of e-Learning in the corporate segment.”

The report further states that owing to the “exceptionally promising market conditions in Africa,” the region has the highest growth rates in the world for most of the e-learning product types.

The growth rate for cloud-based e-Learning products in Africa has also reportedly risen to 38.6%, Adkins added.

"The eLearning product type that will generate the highest revenues in Africa throughout the forecast period is packaged content," said the report.