The Commonwealth Ministers of Education, at their meeting in Halifax, November 2000, directed The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to develop a virtual university to particularly serve the small states of the Commonwealth, using existing structures and capacity. Recommendations are to be presented at the meeting of Commonwealth Ministers of Education in 2003. The process of developing the recommendations was assisted by a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) comprised of representatives from the small state regions, plus representatives of various Commonwealth organisations.
The TAC reviewed the current state of higher education in the regions of the small states, considered the emerging models of virtual education and the applications of information and communications technologies (ICT) in education, and prepared a proposal for further consideration. This was widely circulated for comment and subsequently reviewed by a small group of Ministers of Education from small states at a meeting hosted by the Minister of Education in the Seychelles in March 2003.
The Ministers endorsed the proposal put forward by the TAC and issued a communiqué to their colleagues calling for its endorsement at the 15th meeting of the CCEM in Edinburgh (A copy of the Communiqué is attached)
Evolution of Virtual Education
Virtual education has emerged from the application of ICT in the context of distance education, however, it has now developed to the point where it can be used to support classroom-based learning as well as distance education.
One of the most significant developments has been the recent ICT applications in the area of content learning resources development and information management. The Internet and World Wide Web have become vehicles for making instructional resources very accessible, thereby providing opportunities for educators and learners to find, evaluate, reuse or repurpose instructional resources that have been developed by colleagues around the world. At the core of this new way of thinking about learning resources and course materials is the notion of learning objects, defined as finely grained modular units of instruction that can be stored in network databases and aggregated, recombined or re-engineered to suit the purposes of multiple institutions, faculty members or instructional developers. The Ministers that reviewed the proposal are strongly of the view that these emerging applications of technology will have a profound impact on the evolution of virtual education by enabling more access to educational opportunities, enhancing the quality of teaching and reducing costs.
The Case for a Virtual University for Small States
The Ministers concurred with TAC that the creation of a virtual university could benefit small states by:
Ø Enabling the small states to be "players" in the evolution of ICT applications in education.
Ø Acting as a facilitator in helping the institutions of small states form consortia and partnerships to share existing course materials, develop new ones, and plan new programmes for joint delivery and market existing programmes in content areas where a member institution has unique resources.
Ø Enabling access to professional knowledge that would provide a competitive edge for small states.
Ø Providing services that enable students to plan programmes and take courses from a variety of quality-assured providers and have the credits earned accumulated towards an appropriate credential.
Ø Providing accreditation systems to develop quality standards, and ensure they are met.
Ø Enabling small states to have access to research and development capacity through which they would be able to assess various innovations involving ICT applications.
These conclusions were reached on the basis of the following assumptions:
Ø Collaborative action is essential.
Ø Initiation and management of change requires strong, committed leadership.
Ø Application of ICT in the higher education systems of most small states will continue to lag behind developments in other parts of the Commonwealth unless there are interventions that increase the capacity to participate more actively.
Ø Access to ICT infrastructure in small states will continue to improve.
Ø Emerging information database standards will enable small state institutions to create unique resources and to access global resources.
Ø The once-separate models of distance and on-campus teaching are converging with the applications of ICT to such educational functions as program and course development, delivery to students, provision of learner support, and, administration.
Ø Both faculty and learners will require reorientation and training with regard to the development of curricula and instructional materials as well as to their role in the teaching/learning process.
Ø The institutions will be able to reduce costs to the extent that they are prepared to rethink the way they currently operate and allocate resources.
The Proposal
The vision
The vision that is proposed for a virtual university serving small states is that of a consortium of institutions, enabled by appropriate ICT applications, working together in practical ways to plan programmes, develop the required content and ensure the delivery of those programmes and support services to learners. Three features of this vision need to be underscored:
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The virtual university is not being proposed as a university in the conventional single institutional sense. It will, in fact, be a "virtual organisation."
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The virtual university will carry out its functions by optimising ICT applications, particularly those that enable the creation and deployment of content databases based on learning objects. It is therefore a bold and challenging vision that has the promise of enabling the consortium of member institutions to become leaders in the development of virtual education models that can be tailored to the realities of the learners they serve.
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The virtual university will be as much concerned with "adding value" to conventional on-campus instruction as it is with serving learners at a distance.
The functions of the virtual university
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To provide a vehicle for collaboration in the development and use of emerging technologies that are needed to develop virtual education models such as subject matter databases and learning management systems.
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To provide leadership in the planning, design and delivery to learners of programmes, curricula and courses that are pertinent to the human resource development needs of the states involved.
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To provide support services to students, which would include assessment of current skills and knowledge, advice regarding academic plans, quality-assured access to courses, record of learning and the provision of awards where these are not available from other organisations.
Core activities
Needs assessment.
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Programme development and delivery.
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Development and maintenance of virtual systems.
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Provision of learner support systems.
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Development of quality assurance procedures.
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Leadership on policy development and strategic planning.
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Research on virtual education.
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Internal staff development and training for staff in participating institutions.
Action Plan
If the Ministers support the development of a virtual university to serve the small states of the Commonwealth as defined in this proposal, the process of implementation will need to begin immediately. The following tasks are illustrative of the matters that will need to be addressed:
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Preparation of a marketing Plan
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Development of the governance model.
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Preparation of a Corporate Plan.
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Identification and prioritization of the needs to be addressed in small states.
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Development of an Inventory of Resources available in small states and elsewhere regarding content, programs and expertise.
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Development of procedures for ensuring quality and accreditation.
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Definition of the membership of the Consortia.
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Description of the necessary technical infrastructure
The Cost
(Note: This to be reviewed)
Table 1.0:
Framework and estimate of costs
for the first five years of operation of the virtual university
|
Content creation and management |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Servers for each site |
$50,000 |
|
|
Operating and maintenance cost |
$1,250,000 |
|
|
Content development team staffing costs |
$7,500,000 |
|
|
Subtotal |
|
$8,800,000 |
|
Content deployment and programme delivery
|
|
|
|
Learning management system (LMS) for hub |
$0 |
|
|
Administrative and Student Information Systems |
$2,500,000 |
|
|
Staff |
$2,800,000 |
|
|
Operating |
$1,500,000 |
|
|
Regional call centres to support members and learners |
$435,000 |
|
|
Subtotal |
|
$7,235,000 |
|
Virtual university leadership and development
|
|
|
|
Member orientation |
$200,000 |
|
|
Core leadership team |
$2,000,000 |
|
|
Travel |
$500,000 |
|
|
Training |
2,500,000 |
|
Subtotal |
|
$5,200,000 |
|
TOTAL COST ESTIMATE |
|
$21,235,000 |
Governance
The Ministers that reviewed the Proposal at their meetings in the Seychelles have recommended that COL be invited to provide leadership for the implementation of the Virtual University and that this activity be incorporated as a project within the next Three-Year Plan. They also requested that COL establish a Strategic Planning Committee, consisting of representatives of Ministries of Education of small states of the Commonwealth, for the purposes of advising COL as the implementation of the Project proceeds, and, providing a mechanism through which to involve states and institutions in the work to be done.
ATTACHMENT
Communiqué by Ministers of Education
Commonwealth Virtual University for Small States Meeting
12th - 14th March 2003, Seychelles
We the undersigned Ministers of Education drawn from Africa, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific and the Caribbean meeting in the Seychelles at a Commonwealth Virtual University for Small States meeting, note that:
Ø The 14th Commonwealth Conference of Education Ministers (CCEM) in Halifax, Canada passed a resolution requesting the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to develop a proposal for a virtual university for small states of the Commonwealth.
Ø A proposal for the virtual university for small states was developed by a Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) established by COL and that this proposal was distributed to all Commonwealth Ministers of Education for their comments.
Having reviewed the proposal developed by the TAC, we wish to
Ø Reaffirm our commitment to the Halifax Declaration on the virtual university for small states of the Commonwealth.
Ø Thank the COL and the TAC for their work in researching and developing the proposal.
Ø Support the vision of the virtual university as presented in the TAC proposal and recommend its transmission to the 15th CCEM in Edinburgh.
We wish to recommend that:
Ø The 15th CCEM endorse the proposal as presented by the TAC.
Ø COL be invited to manage the continued development of this project as part of its next three year programme (2003 -2006).
Ø A strategic planning committee be established for the project comprising, inter alia, representatives of Ministries of Education of small states of the Commonwealth.
Ø Small states be urged to identify the areas of needs and priorities to guide and inform decision- making regarding programme development.
Ø COL takes note of and utilizes the professional knowledge, expertise and infrastructure available within small states for the development of learning content.
Dated the 14th day of March 2003
The Honourable Danny Faure
Minister of Education - Seychelles
The Honourable Ann Thérese Ndong-Jatta
Secretary of State for Education - Gambia
The Honourable Steven Obeegadoo
Minister of Education - Mauritius
The Honourable John Mutorwa
Minister of Basic Education - Namibia
The Honourable Fiamé Naomi Mata'afa
Minister of Education - Samoa
The Honourable Mario Michel
Minister of Education - Saint Lucia
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