Sir John Daniel Appointed President of COL

Dr. Lewis Perinbam, O.C., Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Commonwealth of Learning has announced the appointment of Sir John Daniel, a world-renowned authority in open and distance learning and currently Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO, as President and Chief Executive Officer of COL. He succeeds Dato' Professor Gajaraj (Raj) Dhanarajan who retires in May.

A graduate of the universities of Oxford and Paris, Sir John began his academic career at École Polytechnique in Montreal. The "revelation" of a three-month internship at the new U.K. Open University in 1972 led him to refocus his career on expanding educational opportunity. After helping to establish the Télé-université (Quebec) and Athabasca University (Alberta) in the 1970s, he gained leadership experience in campus universities during the 1980's as Vice-Rector, Academic of Concordia University (Montreal) and as President of Laurentian University, a bilingual Ontario university that operates in both classroom and distance modes.

Sir John was Vice-Chancellor of the U.K. Open University (UKOU) from 1990-2001, a period when student numbers almost doubled, to 200,000, while the UKOU rose to fifth place in national rankings of teaching quality. Since 2001 he has been Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO where he is responsible, in particular, for co-ordinating the global drive to achieve Education for All. He has also held various non-executive posts in education, notably the presidency of the International Council for Distance Education and the vice-presidency of the International Baccalaureate Organisation.

Knighted by Queen Elizabeth for services to higher education in 1994, the honour recognised the leading role Sir John has played internationally, over three decades, in the development of distance learning in universities.

Commenting on his appointment, Sir John said, "Having chaired COL's original planning committee in 1988, I am delighted by the strong reputation it has so quickly established. Governments now realise that open and distance learning, using appropriate technology, can transform education by extending access, raising quality and cutting costs - all at the same time. COL is there to help the developing countries of the Commonwealth make this possibility a reality. I greatly look forward to seeing COL achieve even greater impact."

Sir John has been active as a scholar and student throughout his career. The success of his book, Mega-Universities and Knowledge Media: Technology Strategies for Higher Education (Kogan Page, 1996), established his reputation in international university circles as a leading thinker about the role of technology in academic communities. He has been awarded 20 honorary degrees from universities in 12 countries and was named an Honorary Fellow of COL in 2002 for his contribution to the development of open and distance education world-wide. He is a citizen of Canada and the U.K.

In making the announcement, Perinbam said, "Sir John Daniel will bring to the Commonwealth of Learning impressive credentials as a world leader in distance and open learning. He is a person of international stature who will take COL to new heights of achievement. COL is fortunate to be assured of his bold and imaginative leadership in the years ahead."

Professor Dhanarajan has been COL's President and Chief Executive Officer since September 1995. Although originally engaged on a three-year contract, COL's Board of Governors asked him to stay for additional terms. At a Board meeting in Durban in July 2002, Professor Dhanarajan agreed to stay on for the transition period as the organisation's Chair was changing. Dr. Perinbam, the new Chair of COL's Board of Governors appointed in April 2003, struck a search committee and engaged an executive search consulting firm to identify a successor.

Commenting on the appointment of a new President, Dhanarajan said, "Sir John commands world-wide respect for his contribution to contemporary thoughts on education. The Commonwealth of Learning is most fortunate to have attracted him to succeed me. I am thrilled. His impeccable credentials, experience and knowledge of open and distance learning and an abiding commitment to the mission of the Commonwealth will all help to make COL an even greater global asset to education than it currently is."

COL is an intergovernmental organisation that was created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies.

Sir John will take up his new post in Vancouver in June. 

Commonwealth Governments endorse COL's plans

The 15th triennial Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (15CCEM) and parallel conference were held at the end of October in Edinburgh, Scotland, followed shortly afterwards by the 2003 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held in early December in Abuja, Nigeria. Commonwealth of Learning representatives reported to both meetings.

At their meeting in Abuja, Commonwealth Heads of Government "received with appreciation the Report of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and accepted its recommendations, in particular, the proposal of the Commonwealth Conference of Education Ministers for a Commonwealth Virtual University for Small States. They noted COL's request for resources to finance its three-year Strategic Plan." Also, through their Aso Rock Commonwealth Declaration on Development and Democracy: Partnership for Peace and Prosperity, Heads of Government stated that: "We affirm that education, whether formal or informal, is central to development in any society and is of the highest priority to the Commonwealth." 

In Edinburgh, Ministers of Education complimented COL on its work and accomplishments of the past three years, approved its Three-Year Plan, 2003-2006 and pledged financial support for its target of CDN$9 million in annual core funding. Ministers also endorsed the concept of a Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth, as presented by COL in response to their request to study the feasibility of a virtual university to help improve access to education and training opportunities across the Commonwealth.  

COL was encouraged by the many supportive statements of Education Ministers and their senior officials. COL's funding continues to be assured through not only major donors - Australia, Canada, Britain, India, New Zealand and Nigeria - but also through the many smaller (but often larger on a per-capita basis) contributions from other member states.

The Edinburgh conference was a success, integrating more than ever before virtual conferences, the parallel conference, the exposition and a youth summit with the Ministers' meeting itself. Ministers also received input from the other connected events, which were integrated into the Action Plan that they developed. COL was pleased to join with the Commonwealth Secretariat, the British Council and the Association of Commonwealth Universities in organising the parallel symposium.  

New COL Education Specialist

Mr. Joshua Caleb Mallet will join COL's staff on 15 March 2004 as Education Specialist, Literacy and Livelihoods, on secondment from the University of Education, Winneba, where he has been Administrator for Distance Learning for the past nine years.

Mr. Mallet has been involved in distance education since 1994 and was a pioneer in the development of Ghana's distance education system. He is a writer, editor and trainer of trainers in distance education and has served as an educational consultant for French education and distance learning. Recently, he has been associated with projects involving the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Simon Fraser University, UNESCO, the World Federation of French Teachers and COL.

Joshua has been closely associated with livelihood training in Ghana and other countries and has assisted NGOs and national institutions working with low-income populations to help them create employment opportunities, especially for young women.

COL IN ACTION

COL Focuses On Three Programme Areas;
Seven Sub-Programmes

After wide consultation and subsequent endorsement from Commonwealth Ministers of Education, COL has now embarked on its new Three-Year Plan for 2003 - 2006. Using a Results Based Management (RBM) framework and further integrating the UN's Millennium Development Goals and "Education for All" priorities, COL's new strategy identifies three priority programme areas and three sub-programmes to support its overall purpose of Building Capacity in Open and Distance Learning (ODL):

ODL Policies - fostering the adoption and implementation of open and distance learning policies within the broader educational and human resource development strategies and policies of member nations.
Sub-programmes:

• Policy development for basic and secondary education

• Policy development for post-secondary education

ODL Systems Development - assisting in the development of open and distance learning systems that build on existing capacity or assist in creating new capacity appropriate for the contexts of member states.
Sub-programmes:

• Developing, strengthening and fostering regional centres of expertise

• Developing, strengthening and improving ODL capabilities at regional, national and institutional levels

ODL Applications - demonstrating how open and distance learning applications can benefit individual learners, institutions and member states by accelerating human resource development.
Sub-programmes:

• ODL applications for poverty reduction
   

• ODL for teacher education and alternate schooling
   

• Other Commonwealth priorities and the Millennium Development Goals, notably good governance, the unique needs of small states, and health issues

There are several "initiatives" within each sub-programme and several "activities" within each initiative. For example, one "policy" initiative is: "Conducting research and working with Ministries of Education to identify the need for ODL and ICT in education policy and develop plans to construct such policies." Another initiative, under "applications" is: "Addressing the massive need to improve knowledge and skills of small-scale farmers to enable them to participate in the increasingly complex global food production/market chains, and improve their livelihood."

Knowledge resources and management; fostering networks and partnerships with local governments and institutions, and with international development agencies and regional agencies; and stakeholder engagement are key to the success of the Plan.

Results Based Management is a planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation process that is seeing widespread use in international development. RBM aims to improve management effectiveness and accountability by "defining realistic expected results, monitoring progress toward the achievement of expected results, integrating lessons learned into management decisions and reporting on performance." (Canadian International Development Agency).

COL's new Three-Year Plan provides a summary of COL's RBM process, including a corporate-level "impact" statement - "Citizens within the developing nations of the Commonwealth will have greater access to education and thereby the means of securing decent livelihoods, notably increased social and economic development as targeted by the Millennium Development Goals" - and programme-level "outputs", "outcomes", "success indicators" and a clearly defined monitoring and evaluation process.

With a straight-forward vision of "Access to education - Access to a better future", COL's mission statement remains unchanged:

Recognising knowledge as key to cultural, social and economic development, the Commonwealth of Learning is committed to assisting Commonwealth member governments to take full advantage of open, distance and technology-mediated learning strategies to provide increased and equitable access to education and training for all their citizens.

COL's Three-Year Plan, 2003 - 2006 also includes analyses on historical and global dynamics, regional needs summaries, criteria for the selection of specific initiatives, critical success factors, risk management and financial resources. It is available online or by request on CD-ROM or in print.

National Forum on ODL ― Cameroon

COL facilitated a national forum on open and distance learning (ODL) in Cameroon in December that was attended by all three education ministers - the Honourable Professor Maurice Tchuente, Minister of Higher Education; the Honourable Mr. Joseph Owona, Minister of National Education; and the Honourable Louis Bapes Bapes, Minister of Technical Education and Vocational Training - and over 200 other policy makers and practitioners.

The forum resulted in a recognition of the need for Cameroon to develop an ODL policy as well as implementation strategies for the overall development of human resources in the Republic.

Participants formulated a set of recommendations and a plan of action and acknowledged the role of COL as a key support agency in policy development and capacity building in ODL. Other development agencies, such as the British Council and Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, also participated and confirmed that they too are ready for further collaboration and support.

The three ministers also publicly signed a Declaration, which endorsed the recommendations of the participants and affirms their commitment to promoting ODL in Cameroon.

 

 

Singapore Hosts Third Teacher Training Institute

Participants at the 2003 management development workshop for heads of Sub-Saharan teacher training college

The third of a series of five annual management development workshops for directors and principals of teacher training colleges and institutes in Commonwealth Sub-Saharan Africa was held at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Singapore, from 20 - 31 October 2003. These workshops are specially designed to help participants to address the challenges they face in training teachers toward achieving their "Education for All" goals, focussing on advantages of open and distance learning in teacher training.

Nineteen participants from Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Seychelles, Uganda and Zambia took part in this year's session. The first two workshops were attended by 36 participants from Botswana, Cameroon, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The workshop series is jointly sponsored and organised by COL and NIE - and hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Singapore.

 

 

Open Learning Health Net

COL is collaborating with the World Health Organization in the South Pacific to create the Open Learning Health Net. This service automates the collection and updating of information of importance to about 2,500 health care workers in the region who serve a population of about 1.6 million. The service is built on the technology of COL's Knowledge Finder, which indexes about one million documents on education and development for researchers throughout the world.

 

NCERT, OUSL to Train South Asian, African Teachers

COL and India's National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop teacher-training programmes for South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.

With funding from COL, NCERT will develop distance learning training programmes using various media to enable teachers of selected countries to upgrade their qualifications and skills through a post-graduate diploma in guidance and counselling. NCERT will also provide tutor training and assessment systems for the various local delivery institutions.

COL is also partnering with the Open University of Sri Lanka in the development of a Master of Arts in Teacher Education (MATE) to be offered in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. This programme will use a variety of media and models to enhance the skills of teacher educators.

Teacher Education in Nigeria

Its work with the National Teachers' Institute (NTI), Kaduna, is one of COL's major initiatives in West Africa. The COL/NTI partnership is designed to increase access to, and the quality of, teacher training and professional development of teachers in Nigeria through the use of open and distance education. More and better-trained teachers in the schools and non-formal sectors are essential for achieving "Education for All" goals.

NTI is unique as it is a single-mode distance education institution dedicated to teacher training. Established in the seventies it has been instrumental in training large numbers of primary school teachers in Nigeria. COL is providing expertise in reviewing and improving their course development and learner support systems. Training workshops on instructional design, course development, video scriptwriting and the use of audio-visual media have been conducted for NTI staff and COL has also helped in updating the infrastructure of the graphic and media units there. COL is working with NTI towards the establishment of a training resource group in the Institute that would organise orientation and training programmes for tutors and other leaner support staff. COL is also supporting the development of monitoring and evaluation systems and a quality assurance mechanism.

In addition to building capacity in NTI, COL is facilitating partnerships and linkages between NTI and other organisations in Nigeria such as the National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE), the Universal Basic Education Programme, the National Commission for Nomadic Children and the newly re-established National Open University of Nigeria.

In collaboration with COL, NCCE has developed a "benchmarking" system that includes performance indicators for teacher training in Nigeria. Capacity building, strong partnerships among agencies and institutions and the use of open and distance learning will improve the application of new and in-service teacher training and the ongoing professional development of teachers, teacher educators and other personnel in the Nigerian school system - an area where there is great and immediate need.

 

E-Learning in Indian Higher Education

COL and the University Grants Commission (UGC), India held a dialogue on "Enhancing higher education through e-learning", held in New Delhi in November. Several international experts also participated. One of the key recommendations to emerge was that the UGC would create a system to support the use of e-learning by all higher education institutions in the country. An action plan with an ambitious timeframe was devised and the roles of both UGC and COL were identified. COL will facilitate the development of:

•  shared of international experience and expertise,

• international partnerships and collaborations,

• content platforms, tools and techniques for the delivery and management of e-learning, and

• quality assurance protocols for e-learning.

 

 

Participants in the inaugural workshop on gender mainstreaming and first users of the new GMS Toolkit, Kuala Lumpur, January 2004

Gender Management Training

COL partnered with the Commonwealth Secretariat to develop a "Gender Management System (GMS) Toolkit" designed to assist Commonwealth governments in ensuring that an awareness of gender issues informs their decision-making in all areas, and at all levels. The Toolkit was launched in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 26 January 2004. About 300 representatives of the Government of Malaysia, the National Institute of Public Administration (INTAN), the diplomatic corps, universities and non-governmental organisations attended the launch, where Malaysia's Minister of Women and Family Development, Dato' Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, and INTAN Director, Dato' Dr. Zulkarnain Hj Awang, expressed the keen commitment of the Malaysian Government and INTAN for this initiative. The launch was immediately followed by a three-day workshop on how to use the GMS Toolkit that was attended by 80 participants representing all key sectors.

The GMS Toolkit uses principles of open and distance learning to enhance access to and usability of the Secretariat's series of GMS manuals, which focus on gender mainstreaming in key areas such as finance, development planning and the public service, as well as cross-cutting development issues such as HIV/AIDS, poverty eradication and the Millennium Development Goals. The Toolkit transforms the manuals into a user-friendly, learner-centred, trainer-oriented package. It includes an Action Guide to facilitate individual learning, a Trainer's Manual for gender trainers, a Change Management Briefing for anyone committed to effecting gender equality through institutional change and a CD-ROM that contains all the original GMS manuals as well as the contents of the Toolkit.

GMS, the Commonwealth's approach to gender mainstreaming, calls for a broad-based partnership in society in which government consults and acts co-operatively with other key stakeholders, including civil society and the private sector.

EDUSAT India

COL's President and CEO, Professor Gajaraj Dhanarajan, presented the keynote address to the Southern Regional Consultation for EDUSAT at Anna University in Chennai, India, in January. The consultation looked at regional educational needs that the soon-to-be-launched satellite service could address.

Through its Indian Space Research Organisation, the Government of India will be dedicating the entire satellite to educational delivery. EDUSAT will provide "education on demand" - in the classroom, regional learning centres, at home, through work or whereever most convenient - and will also support Internet connectivity and web browsing. The satellite will have several channels that will deliver educational programming, facilitate high-bandwidth interactivity and broadcast multi-media content. Every part of India will have access through five regional "footprints", supplemented by national beams. 

www.isro.org

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If you are not currently receiving COL's e-mail notices and would like to, please send us your e-mail address, along with your other contact details so that we can update our records.

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FOCUS ON SCHOOLNETS

Educators everywhere are increasingly turned on to information and communications technology (ICT) to get the job done. Educational radio, TV and the Internet are becoming mainstays in education delivery. Spurred by substantial, growing evidence that technology can effectively support learning and teaching, virtual education is a reality that shapes, and often drives, global education research and development.

Why the rush toward a plugged-in education? In the Education for All (EFA) imperative to make universal primary education a reality by 2015, there is urgency to find efficient, creative education solutions. The stakes in the developing world are high, raised by strained teaching and learning resources, the knowledge divide and the debilitating impact of HIV/AIDS on education communities.

But integrating ICT with a conventional education system, especially in the developing world, is a challenge. Given the considerable ground that needs to be covered, does a road map exist for successful integration of ICT in schools?

The schoolnet option

One possible, practical route to ICT integration is via a school network, or "schoolnet." School networking means what it suggests - schools regularly communicating and collaborating with each other on inter-school projects and on content and curriculum development, via the Internet and other ICTs.

In the past few years, schoolnets have mushroomed across the virtual education landscape. Recognising the far-reaching potential of electronic networking, the Commonwealth of Learning (COL, www.col.org) responded to calls from Commonwealth leaders to create the Commonwealth Electronic Network for Schools and Education (CENSE, www.col.org/cense) in 1998, a collaborative project with the Commonwealth Secretariat (www.thecommonwealth.org) and COMNET-IT (www.comnet-it.org). CENSE is a portal to the websites of individual schools, institutions, governments and non-government organisations (NGOs), throughout the Commonwealth and internationally. CENSE also links with other schoolnets and national education grids Commonwealth-wide, including SchoolNet Africa (www.schoolnetafrica.org), SchoolNet India (www.schoolnetindia.com) and Canada's SchoolNet (www.schoolnet.ca).

In Commonwealth Africa and elsewhere, many early schoolnets were NGO-funded, small-scale start-ups that formed part of an initial "technology push" from institutions eager to establish a localised ICT infrastructure of computers, computer networks and laboratories. More recently, governments and education-related ministries have earmarked resources, policies and funding initiatives for establishing schoolnets, and the accompanying ICT infrastructure, on a national level.

The necessary next step is implementing a long-term game plan that will popularise and familiarise the schoolnet concept, and use of the Internet and electronic media, with education professionals and learners. One such plan is the schoolnet value chain, a strategy that borrows a few concepts from the corporate world.

Critical elements for success

2. Prepare schools for the technology: ICT implementation plans must provide for basic infrastructure such as electricity, security and insurance, although solutions exist even for schools situated off the electricity grid. An implementation plan should also ensure that any investment in technology, teacher training and additional staffing, is sustainable.
    

3. Obtain and install the technology: Any new or refurbished ICT purchases should have a warranty and customer support. Internet-related hardware, operating systems and software must provide efficient and affordable Internet access to schools.
    

4. Develop ICT-use teaching and learning models: Conduct dedicated instruction seminars on ICT use, and on how to integrate it with the curriculum. Foster "champion teachers" - those who excel in using ICT for teaching and learning.
    

5. Develop relevant educational content: Produce locally relevant material either in-house or outsourced, using multimedia applications such as radio, television and CD-ROM. Consider evaluating and adapting content from other countries for local use.
    

6. ICT evaluation and research: Ensure that any institutional ICT learning application and infrastructure improvements keep pace with developments in ICT.
    

7. Curriculum-ICT integration: Optimise ICT-enhanced learning and teaching by fully integrating ICT with the existing curriculum.
    

8. Ongoing technical support: Train educators in basic equipment troubleshooting, maintenance and repairs. Further local help, such as repair facilities and technicians, is also necessary.
    

9. Ongoing curriculum support: Encourage pro-active feedback and suggestions from teaching staff on using ICT for different subjects, to increase and improve overall ICT use.
    

10. Strategic partnerships: Develop a working partnership model, for example between schools, communities, key government players, the donor community and the private sector, to sustain schoolnets in the long term.

Recent studies on ICT use in African schools acknowledge the value chain's ten factors, and reiterate the importance of local follow-up to national or regional policies.

Additionally, applying gender considerations to schoolnet planning and implementation will ensure all needs are addressed.

Value-added education

To incorporate ICT into the education system of a country, you need a sound policy and implementation plan, and above all, leadership from national government. If the value chain approach is to find success, it must be recognised that the above ten elements of the chain are crucial to that success. Another key factor is a holistic approach, that uses strategic partnerships (one of the value chain's elements) to develop and enable all aspects of the framework concurrently once core development and infrastructure issues are identified.

Although the value chain may be a more gradual, less dramatic process of schoolnet development and ICT infrastructural growth than showcase projects and a piecemeal approach, establishing a value chain will lay the groundwork for all parts of the education system to work together with other relevant organisations and institutions (both locally and internationally), to establish and promote integrated ICT use.

The value chain encourages education officials throughout the system to re-think policy development, and learners to re-evaluate their relationship and approach to knowledge. Through implementing a schoolnet value chain, ICT can be used to add value to the education system - not merely project by project, but as a whole.

For more information, please contact the authors, Vis Naidoo, COL Education Specialist, Education Technology (vnaidoo) and Shafika Isaacs, Executive Director, SchoolNet Africa (s.isaacs@schoolnetafrica.org).

Source:  www.schoolnetafrica.net

Poor management and an unhealthy work environment too often characterise the workplace for women toiling in Bangladesh's booming export garment industry. Now, through international co-operation, a new management-training programme will be available to garment industry managers throughout the country. The initiative was launched with an agreement signed in August by COL and the Bangladeshi non-governmental organisation, South Asia Enterprise Development Facility (SEDF).

"Stitching Values Together", a "modular" self-instructional course, is designed for cost-effective and flexible delivery of training to improve the management skills of shop-floor supervisors in the export garment industry. It emphasises occupational health, welfare and safety as well as the particular role of women in the industry.

COL played a catalytic role in developing the course through a partnership with OXFAM and the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum (PWIBLF), UK, in conjunction with Bangladeshi NGOs. The learning package was first developed in English and subsequently translated into Bangla (Bengali) and adapted to local circumstances. It was then piloted successfully in five factories in Dhaka.

The agreement with SEDF involves taking the course materials, upgrading them as recommended by the pilot/evaluation process and promoting them throughout the country. It also provides for marketing of the materials in the other countries that SEDF works with and allows COL to use the material as models through its work in other Commonwealth countries.

The South Asia Enterprise Development Facility is a multi-donor funded, International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group) managed, initiative with a broad goal of developing viable small and medium sized, private sector enterprises in Bangladesh, Northeast India and Nepal.

www.col.org/newsreleases

As one of the largest international organisations specialising in emergency response, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) is well skilled in the ability to mobilise resources quickly across borders. These well-honed skills came into play when IFRC and COL teamed up to offer the workplace-based (distance education) communications course, Writing Effectively. The Training Unit at IFRC quickly put into place the skills for which their organisation is so well known. Participants from regions as far-flung as Azerbaijan to Kenya, in total 21 locations, received their course materials in less than one week. When asked how they managed this, the response was, "We are a disaster response organisation. We know how to move quickly."

In addition to standard distribution channels of courier and the post, IFRC took advantage of the large amount of travel their staff do and some found themselves on a plane with a small package of course manuals beside them ready to be placed in the hands of lucky course participants. IFRC's innovative blend of orthodox and unorthodox distribution channels maximised organisational resources resulting in 100% of participants receiving the course materials well before the course start date.

Education ministers from the world's nine high population countries - Commonwealth member countries Bangladesh, India, Nigeria and Pakistan in addition to Brazil, China, Egypt, Indonesia, Mexico - have reaffirmed their commitment to meet the basic learning needs of all their peoples and to work more closely together to achieve the six goals set at UNESCO's World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, in 2000.

The ministers were taking part in the 5th E-9 Ministerial Review Meeting, which was held in Cairo in December. The E-9 Initiative was created in 1993 in New Delhi as part of the follow-up to the Education for All (EFA) Conference in Jomtien, Thailand. It aims to strengthen collaboration between the world's nine high population countries in their quest to provide quality education for all. The E-9 countries are home to over 50 percent of the world's population and account for 70 percent of illiterate adults and more than 40 percent of the world's out-of-school children.

In a declaration issued at the close of the Cairo meeting, ministers outlined the improvements in education in their countries, including increased enrolments, improving literacy rates (especially for women), and greater access to Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), which was the theme of the meeting. However, they also acknowledged that they "still face a number of challenges," including poverty, "inequitable access to quality services ... for disadvantaged children, particularly girls", funding constraints, and a lack of planning and coordination, especially for ECCE.

To face these challenges, the education ministers committed themselves to "revitalise and realign the E-9 Initiative" in light of developments since the World Education Forum, and to broaden their partnership "to include key international actors, civil society, and corporate/private sector".

They also agreed to "promote technical co-operation among the E-9 countries and other developing countries in areas such as rural education, open and distance learning, ICT, research and knowledge transfers, inter-institutional linkages, exchanges of students as well as teachers and establish a databank of successful innovations."

The Declaration also noted "with concern" that the E-9 countries were yet to benefit from additional funds promised for the EFA movement through the Fast Track Initiative (FTI), a multilateral initiative organised by the World Bank after the Dakar Forum. It also urged the international community "to revisit the question of debt swaps for education to support country efforts for resource mobilisation for EFA."

The six goals, from the Dakar Framework for Action on Education for All, are to ensure by 2015 t