Commonwealth of Learning - COL in the Pacific

LEARNING FOR DEVELOPMENT is the theme of the Commonwealth of Learning's Three-year Plan for 2006-2009. Conceiving of development as a process of increasing the freedoms that people can enjoy, the plan addresses an agenda that includes the UN's Millennium Development Goals, the goals of Education for All (Dakar), and Commonwealth's objectives of peace, democracy, equality and good governance.

COL helps governments and institutions to expand the scope, scale and quality of learning by using new approaches. COL promotes policies and systems to make innovation sustainable and works with international partners to build models, create materials, enhance organisational capacity and nurture networks that facilitate learning in support of development goals.

COL helps developing Commonwealth countries to increase access to learning using distance education and appropriate technologies. Its work is grouped into three sectors of activity: education, learning for livelihoods and human environment.

Being largely comprised of small island states, the Commonwealth South Pacific faces challenges similar to those in the Caribbean region. Most countries possess limited resources to sustain a large education and training infrastructure.

In the Commonwealth South Pacific, the University of the South Pacific is the key provider of off-campus tertiary education and employs distance education methods to reach learners throughout the region. However, challenges remain in the use of open and distance learning (ODL) to increase economic productivity in all countries of the region and improve literacy levels in some. Furthermore, it is necessary to increase local capability in the application of information and communications technologies in developing and distributing training programmes. Encouraging and establishing partnerships among institutions in the region will support activities related to these goals. COL's activities in the Pacific emphasise the use of ODL to upgrade the skills required to strengthen local economies.

The Government of New Zealand, through its New Zealand Agency for International Development (NZAID), is one of COL's six major donors.

EDUCATION

QUALITY ASSURANCE: A collection of quality assurance best practices across the Commonwealth, based on quality indicators for teacher education (QUITE), has been completed. QUITE, along with a module on Introduction to Quality Assurance and a package of Best Practice Cases, is being published as a "toolkit" on Quality Assurance in Teacher Education and Development (QUATED) which will be used jointly with UNESCO for capacity building of policy makers and administrators in the school education sector. COL has also launched a Quality Assurance Micro-Site on its website.

TEACHER DEVELOPMENT: COL is working with institutions in the Pacific on teacher development programmes.

OPEN/ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLING - TO INCREASE ACCESS TO BASIC AND SECONDARY SCHOOLING: COL commissioned and published a study on open schooling for secondary and higher secondary education in 2007. In its endeavours to develop and promote models which are sustainable, COL has identified Cost and Financing of Distance Education as a critical element in planning for sustainable Open Schools. In August 2007, twenty-five participants from eight countries attended a COL-sponsored workshop on the subject held in Gaborone, Botswana and, from there, developed an interactive learning resource which is available for use and further development on COL's WikiEducator.
www.col.org/OpenSchooling
www.wikieducator.org/Cost_and_Financing_in_Open_Schooling

HIGHER EDUCATION: COL continues to work closely with the University of the South Pacific and the National University of Samoa. In 2008, a COL consultant conducted a study and prepared a report intended to facilitate in-country discussion and decision making concerning the optimal structural framework for the effective organisation of ODL in Papua New Guinea's higher educational (HE) sector.

ELEARNING FOR EDUCATION SECTOR DEVELOPMENT: ODL materials have been converted into "wiki" format through COL's WikiEducator and three open educational resource example lessons for secondary education have been completed. There has been a substantial increase in the acceptance of open educational resources (OERs) concepts and approaches and expanded networks & partnerships in the Commonwealth and beyond. The College of Flexible Open and Distance Learning in Port Moresby, took the lead in hosting a Learning4Content workshop in Papua New Guinea. As part of a global initiative which aims to conduct 160 workshops, train 2500 teachers/educators and develop 2500 lessons of free content, Learning4Content aims to present two online workshops in each Commonwealth member state in the Pacific. WikiEducator averages over 3500 unique visits per day.
www.col.org/WikiEducator

LEARNING FOR LIVELIHOODS

LEARNING AND SKILLS FOR LIVELIHOODS: COL has assisted in courses for a coordinated programme that is developing Basic Trades Skills courses for use throughout the Pacific Region. Courses such as Small Engines, Working with Timber and Working with Concrete are now being offered and more courses will be in development. A new initiative has been started to upgrade learners' competency in English. COL and the regional co-ordinating agency, PATVET, are also planning to convert the Basic Trade Skills courses into online programmes using open educational resources.

RURAL AND PERI-URBAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: "Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger" (Millennium Development Goal #1) guides the efforts of this initiative. One of COL's flagship programmes, Life Long Learning for Farmers (L3Farmers), is developing ODL and ICT-based teaching and learning models for sustained improvement of livelihoods. It is extending to more rural and peri-urban communities, often by self-replication, helping them to develop a holistic poverty-reduction programme. COL is expanding this programme into the Pacific Region, starting in Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. In 2008, COL's Poverty Reduction Outcomes through Education Innovations and Networks programme (COL-PROTEIN) awarded developmental funding to the Department of Agriculture, University of Technology, Papua New Guinea for a training programme addressing women and youth in villages.

NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: COL is helping to build ODL capacity among strategic national and international agricultural education, extension, research, training and policy-making bodies with mandates and resources for education, training and research in the food, agriculture and vocational sectors. In June 2007, COL sponsored a regional workshop on "Delivering Distance Learning Programmes for Agriculture and Rural Development." Through initiatives such as this workshop COL has a catalytic role in the South Pacific, promoting capacity-building and information dissemination to enable regional institutions and leaders to apply distance learning strategies to shared development goals.

TRANSNATIONAL PROGRAMMES: UN and international agencies such as the UNHCR, UNAIDS, WHO, the ILO, the World Bank, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are using COL's eLearning for International Organisations programme to provide customised communications and data management skills training for their headquarters staff and field-based workers located throughout the world. Two modules of the "Debt Management" course offered by Commonwealth Secretariat to staff in the Ministry of Finance in Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu and will be transformed into eLearning modality by COL. www.col.org/COLeIO

HUMAN ENVIRONMENT

GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT: COL is working with several partners to develop a Toolkit for Gender Friendly School indicators. These indicators are intended for primary and secondary schools and for use by School Management Committees, Parents, Students and Teachers.

HEALTH, WELFARE AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: COL works with international and national partners to build the capacities of educational institutions, NGOs and community organisations to produce educational media content and develop non-formal open and distance learning programmes related to livelihoods, health and other aspects of community development. Since 2006, COL has helped to establish new media units in Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu and provided support for capacity building in Kiribati and Samoa).

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION: COL is working on expanding environmental education at all levels, creating awareness of the benefits and the feasibility of using ODL for environmental education and developing learning materials for sharing across the Commonwealth. The Green Teacher Diploma is an excellent example of using ODL to scale up capacity for environmental education.

GOOD GOVERNANCE: COL is working with a number of partners to expand good governance through training for all levels of government and civil society. ODL training material is being developed, focussing on developing skills enabling informed, evidence-based and inclusive public decision making and on the processes by which policies are formulated and implemented. www.col.org/governance

EDUCATIONAL USE OF MASS MEDIA AND ICTS: COL's work with media spans the full range of traditional media and new information and communication technologies, from FM radio to mobile phones. COL's programme includes special focuses on building the capacities of community radio and telecentres to be effective parts of the larger open and distance learning process and to work in concert with educational institutions and development organisations. COL also works actively with colleges and universities to improve their use of educational broadcasting, especially radio. There is also a new emphasis on exploring and demonstrating the educational applications of mobile technologies. Since 2006, COL has worked with educational and media partners in Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY FOR SMALL STATES OF THE COMMONWEALTH

Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu are members of a collaborative network of 30 small states that is creating a new Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC). COL is facilitating this initiative, which includes ICT capacity building of professional educators and the establishment of a Transnational Qualifications Framework. Participants learn to collaborate using technologies such as BaseCamp (an online team project management system). VUSCC workshops (or "Boot camps") on the creation of open educational resources (OERs) have been held in various countries, once in Samoa.

Where learning materials are created, these are shared free of charge via COL's website. These can be readily adapted to the specific context of each country and may be used in the offering of credit-bearing qualifications in the countries' postsecondary institutions. The focus so far is on skills-related courses in areas such as tourism, entrepreneurship, professional development, disaster management, fisheries management and a range of technical and vocational subjects. The VUSSC is throwing a wide bridge across the digital divide. www.col.org/vusscp

REGIONAL PRESENCE

COL supports its activities in the Pacific with a COL Representative, based in Vanuatu, who facilitates COL programmes and Pacific Education Ministers' resolutions, including promoting regional co-operation, facilitating capacity building and creating appropriate regional resources.

INFORMATION EXCHANGE AND KNOWLEDGE RESOURCES

COL is co-operating with international experts and agencies to provide information on COPYRIGHT so that institutions and Commonwealth Governments might take action to implement education-friendly legislation that makes access to learning content affordable for more people. Information on various kinds of copyright licenses is provided on COL's website. www.col.org/copyright

COL's web site, newsletter (Connections/EdTech News) and electronic PUBLISHING/KNOWLEDGE RESOURCES PROGRAMME has led to its recognition as one of the world's foremost sources of knowledge on open, distance and technology-mediated learning in developing countries. Most of COL's more recent publications are also available on a CD-ROM. www.col.org/connections
www.col.org/resources

COL indexes large numbers of documents from quality-assessed sources on ODL and development on its freely available KNOWLEDGE FINDER. The Knowledge Finder includes information on education and development. www.col.org/kf

COL is supporting the development and use of FREE AND OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE and advocates the use of the CC-BY-SA (share and share alike, with attribution) content license where appropriate and possible. COL is also helping to launch the Pacific Chapter of the FLOSS4Edu project and working with UNESCO in promoting the COL/UNESCO Computer Navigator's Certificate, to widen access to information and communications technologies (ICTs) skills training using free software.
www.col.org/WikiEducator www.col.org/ccnc

COL maintains a network of FOCAL POINTS which are nominated by Ministers of Education in each member country. COL's focal points facilitate dialogue between COL and country stakeholders as well as among the countries themselves, both regionally and Commonwealth-wide.
www.col.org/focalpoints

Several delegates from nine Pacific Region countries participated in COL'S FIFTH PAN-COMMONWEALTH FORUM ON OPEN LEARNING (PCF5), held in London in July 2008, many of whom were sponsored by AusAID - the Australian Government's overseas aid programme. PCF5 included COL'S EXCELLENCE IN DISTANCE EDUCATION AWARDS, where the University of Papua New Guinea was presented with an Institutional Achievement award and Mr. Kelly Yapa, of Papua New Guinea, was honoured for his achievements as a student in a degree-granting programme. www.col.org/pcf5 www.col.org/edea/2008

OCTOBER 2008