BOARD NEWS

The Acting Chair of COL's Board of Governors, His Excellency, the Honourable Burchell Whiteman, O.J., is pleased to announce three new appointments for three-year terms:

 

Mr. R.P. Agarwal has been appointed to the Board as the representative for India. The Secretary to the Department of Higher Education in the Ministry of Human Resources, he is responsible for the development of higher education, particularly the issues of access, equity and quality. Shri Agarwal has held a variety of government posts, including Deputy Chief of Mission for the Embassy of India in Belgium and Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. He was also responsible for industrial and commercial development in the State of Andhra Pradesh. Mr. Agarwal is a regular faculty member at several public administration and staff colleges in India.

 

The Honourable Dr. Dame Carol Kidu is the Board's new Pacific representative. As Minister for Community Development, Women, Religion and Sports in Papua New Guinea, Dame Kidu has spearheaded major initiatives related to poverty reduction, access to learning for all, development strategies for the informal sector and human rights, particularly the rights of women, children and indigenous people. She has served on the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarian Committee, the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Advisory Panel on Poverty and Social Development and the UNDP Advisory Panel on HIV/AIDS. The first female cabinet minister in her country's history, Dame Kidu was awarded the Imperial Award of Dame of the British Empire in 2005.

 

Dr. Linda Sissons, CEO of the Wellington Institute of Technology, has been appointed to the Board as the representative for New Zealand. Her experience includes working in management roles at post-secondary institutions. Dr. Sissons is on the Board of the Institutes of Technology and Polytechnics of New Zealand and is Vice President of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce. She has been a member of a number of Government commissions including Tertiary Education Advisory Commission, a commission into the Learning for Life reforms and a Committee of Enquiry into Industrial Democracy. A Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM), Dr. Sissons holds a PhD from London University and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Advanced Management Programme.

 

The Board offers its thanks to Mr. Sudeep K. Banerjee, who served as the Government of India's representative on the Board and has now retired from government service, and to Kiribati Vice-President, the Honourable Teima Onorio, and Dr. Penina Mlama who completed their terms on the Board at the end of 2007. Professor Mlama has joined CAMFED Tanzania as Executive Director. CAMFED is an international organisation dedicated to eradicating poverty in Africa through the education of girls and the empowerment of young women. A champion of education for girls and women, Professor Mlama was previously Executive Director of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE).

STAFF NEWS

Mr. Ian Pringle has joined COL as Education Specialist, Media. He has worked with community and public media for the past 20 years, in Canada, where he was born and raised, and later in South Asia and internationally. Mr. Pringle's experience includes working in Nepal for the Centre for International Studies and Cooperation as an advisor to Radio Sagarmatha, South Asia's first independent radio broadcaster. In 2002, he joined UNESCO's Regional Bureau for Communication and Information in New Delhi, managing programmes in community media and new information and communication technology (ICT). In 2006, he began an assignment at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris to co-ordinate the organisation's community multimedia initiatives, with a focus on scaling-up community media centres in Africa.

 

A skilled and experienced media specialist with broad international experience and strong interests in innovation, social change and policy environments, Mr. Pringle will manage and direct a portfolio of interventions around the Commonwealth in the use of mass media for health and community development. 

 

Mr. Pringle takes over from Mr. David Walker, who made a tremendous contribution across the Commonwealth by facilitating the use of mass media for development purposes, especially in health and agriculture. Mr. Walker led numerous initiatives that empowered people in developing countries to use community radio and video to address challenges such as HIV/AIDS prevention, agriculture, skills development, teacher education, poverty alleviation and food security. 

 

Former COL Education Specialist, Ms. Patricia McWilliams, passed away in November 2007 while in Bangladesh working on an ADB-funded teacher education project. Ms. McWilliams was on COL's staff as Education Specialist, Training, from 1993 to 2000. Upon her departure, she relocated to Southern Africa and became a consultant. Prior to joining COL, she was Co-ordinator, Distance Education with the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology (SIAST, Canada). She leaves her daughter, Heather, and her son, Ian.