BOARD NEWS

His Excellency the Honourable Burchell Whiteman, O.J. has been appointed Jamaican High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. Jamaica's Minister of Education and Culture from 1992-2002, Mr. Whiteman has been a member of COL's Board of Governors since 2002 and was named an Honorary Fellow of COL at the fourth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning in 2006.

The Chair of COL's Board of Governors, Mr. Lewis Perinbam, O.C., recently received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the University of Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
www.jhcuk.org     www.col.org/board

 

 

STAFF NEWS

Dr. R. Sreedher joined COL as Director of the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA) in February 2007. Most recently Project Director with Local Voices Project of Internews in Chennai, India, Dr. Sreedher previously led the Educational Multimedia Research Centres at IIT campus Roorkee and at Anna University Chennai. He was also Director of the Electronic Media Production Centre at Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) and has worked in various capacities with India's national broadcasters, All India Radio and Doordarshan.

Dr. Sreedher's extensive experience in distance education includes producing the AIR School of Continuing Science Education while at All India Radio and executing mega radio science serials for children simultaneously in all of India's 18 recognised languages. He introduced Interactive Radio Counselling for IGNOU in 1998 and was the architect of India's 24-hour educational TV and radio channels, Gyan Darshan and Gyan Vani. The recipient of many national and international awards, Dr. Sreedher will lead CEMCA's efforts to promote the meaningful, relevant and appropriate use of information and communications technologies to serve the educational and training needs of Commonwealth member states in Asia.

Dr. Sreedher succeeds Dr. Usha Reddi, who served as Director of CEMCA since 1998. Dr. Reddi led the development of CEMCA into an active force that promotes the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) for education in Commonwealth nations in Asia.

Mrs. Frances J. Ferreira (formerly Mensah) has joined COL as Education Specialist, Basic Education and Open Schooling. A teacher by profession, Mrs. Ferreira was Director of the state-owned Namibian College of Open Learning (NAMCOL) for the past ten years. As NAMCOL's first chief executive, she facilitated the strategic positioning of the institution both nationally and internationally.

Previously, Mrs. Ferreira served as a teacher, school principal, the first female Mayor of Grootfontein and Vice-President of the Association of Local Authorities in Namibia. She has also served as Chair of the Namibian Open Learning Network Trust and Chair of the Distance Education Association of Southern Africa (DEASA). In recognition of her contribution to open and distance learning, Mrs. Ferreira received an Excellence in Distance Education Award at COL's second Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning in 2002.

Mrs. Ferreira succeeds Ms. Susan Phillips, who has retired. Ms. Phillips joined COL in 1989, its first year of operation. She has held roles in a variety of areas including materials design and development, gender issues, open schooling and basic education. Most recently, she was Education Specialist, Basic Education. As a result of Ms. Phillip's effective and diligent work, COL's expertise on Open Schooling is now much in demand and there is significant south-south collaboration in developing alternative schooling.

COL also sends best wishes with Ms. Helen Lentell, who has joined the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji as Director of the Centre for Educational Development and Technology. Ms. Lentell had been COL's Education Specialist, Training and Materials Development since 2001. She has made a strong contribution to capacity building in ODL systems around the Commonwealth.  Ms. Lentell led the creation of the Instructional Design Template that is now the basis for COL's work in this area and the development of the Practioner Research and Evaluation Skills Training (PREST) open source materials.
www.col.org/staff
www.cemca.org

 

INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION FOR COL

Sir John Daniel, President and CEO of COL, was recently awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University of Education Winneba in Ghana.
Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada awarded Sir John an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at the October 2006 convocation ceremonies. Sir John served as the university's President from 1984 to 1990 and is credited with playing a major role in the establishment of distance education and the expansion of francophone programmes at the university.

Sir John also received an honorary Doctor of Letters from Vardhaman Mahaveer Kota Open University in India in January 2007.
Sir John has accepted an appointment to the High-Level Panel of Advisers of the Global Alliance for Information and Communications Technology and Development (GAID). The United Nations launched GAID in March 2006 to meet the need for an inclusive, multi-stakeholder global forum and platform for cross-sectoral policy dialogue promoting the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to achieve development goals and to enable partnerships for action.
www.col.org/jdaniel
www.un-gaid.org