COL helps countries to identify where livelihoods can be improved, and to create matching learning opportunities. Successful approaches to improving rural and peri-urban economies draw on COL's close relationship with international agricultural bodies. The Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth is a collaborative network for creating open educational resources for work-related learning.
In this sector of activity, COL brokers proven distance learning programmes already offered around the Commonwealth, including COL's International Organisations Programme. As well, COL develops and delivers eLearning courses to staff in agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank and transforms technical guides developed by these organisations into effective learning materials.
Learning for Livelihoods Sector Initiatives:
Learning and Skills for Livelihoods
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Identifying where livelihoods can be improved or expanded and creating learning opportunities to exploit them.
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Increasing access to basic literacy and occupational training for young people and illiterate and neo-literate adults.
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Developing technical and vocational education and training using ODL methods for low technology environments.
Rural and Peri-urban Community Development
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Developing ODL and ICT-based teaching/learning models for sustained improvement of livelihoods in rural and peri-urban communities, depending on the food and environment sectors.
National/International Community Development
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Building ODL capacity among strategic national and international agricultural education, extension, research and policy-making bodies with mandates and resources for education, training and research in the food, agriculture and vocational sectors.
Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth
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Developing a collaborative network of 24+ small states aimed at creating and sharing materials for livelihood-related post-secondary programmes.
Transnational Programmes
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Developing and managing learning programmes for international organisations and sharing ODL programmes of proven effectiveness with institutions globally.
Impacts:
Policy: COL encourages government policies that enhance rural connectivity and communications to facilitate the deployment of village ICT kiosks and the spread of community radio. Too often outdated regulations impoverish the village communications environment. To encourage the creation of jobs and self-employment, COL works with governments to create better connections between education for literacy and training for livelihoods. It helps agricultural universities and extension services to develop policies for conducting distance education at scale.
Systems: COL emphasises the importance of multi-directional communication between all those involved in its programmes. Enhancing the effectiveness of farmers' associations as local actors is one example of capacity enhancement at the grassroots level. The appetite for training in how to conduct distance learning is particularly high in organisations that bring together literacy and livelihoods.
Models and Materials: COL has found a self-replicating model in its Lifelong Learning for Farmers programme. This continues to spread in India and is now being tested in Africa. Closely linked is COL's Media Empowerment model, through which agricultural extension units enable many more farmers to learn to diversify their crops. COL facilitates the preparation, in local languages, of very basic materials related to livelihoods.
A diploma course for technical and vocational teachers developed through COL's assistance in the Caribbean is being adopted in Ghana and Pakistan. The COL-brokered Commonwealth Executive MBA and MPA programme, produced through regional cooperation in South Asia, will now be offered in Nigeria, Malaysia and other regions. The collaborative development of materials for small states in eLearning format will be a key activity in 2006-2009 under the Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth. Countries will reap the benefit of COL's investment in the technology and know-how of learning object repositories in facilitating the transfer and adaptation of materials.
Partnerships: To improve livelihoods in rural communities, COL has a close relationship with some of the institutions that form the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), as well as with various agricultural universities. As COL extends this work in Africa, it will benefit from the developing relationship with the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA). COL's work on literacy and livelihoods has led to a Memorandum of Understanding with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and its Caribbean equivalent, CARICOM. In the private sector, a relationship is developing with India's National Institute for Information Technology (NIIT) for skills training. The Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth involves partnerships between 25 Commonwealth states.
