COL and Simon Fraser University (British Columbia, Canada), in partnership, have been selected by the Asian Development Bank to execute a US$400,000 contract to design a post-secondary education and skills development project in Maldives.
A team of consultants is now assisting the Government of Maldives to prepare a project leading to increased institutional capacity to provide a broad range of post-secondary education and employment skills training that will address labour market demand, contribute to economic and social development and generally assist in reducing poverty in the country.
The project will address issues of capacity, access, and relevance of post-secondary education, including technical/vocational education and training for out-of-school and unemployed youth, especially in the outlying atolls where most of the poor live.
The consultant team includes an educational management and organisational development specialist, a labour and education economist, a continuing education/outreach specialist and a technical education and employment skills training specialist. Four local experts are also part of the team.
Maldives is a group of 19 tropical atolls in the Indian Ocean, south-southwest of India, totalling 300,000 square kilometres. Historically a sultanate, the islands were colonised first under Dutch and then under British protection. Maldives gained independence from Britain in 1965 and joined the Commonwealth in 1982. Its population of 300,000 has a per capita GDP of US$2,000. Tourism and fishing industries are being developed on the archipelago.
With funding from the Government of Canada's Youth Employment Strategy, through the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, COL and Canada's Youth International Internship Programme offer young Canadians an opportunity to gain international development work experience through a nine- to 12-month international internship programme. This year, COL received funding for 16 postings.
The interns are recent graduates from arts and science programmes. While they also have volunteer and student work experience, the internship is providing them with their first paid work in their career and, in most cases, their first overseas travel. Working with a variety of organisations in, or on behalf of, developing Commonwealth countries, the interns are learning about the challenges facing the developing world, how education is a broad-based and multi-faceted discipline and how the skills that they will develop during their internship can be transferable to other employment. Internship activities focus largely on areas related to the development and sharing of open learning/distance education resources and technologies to assist developing nations improve access to quality education and training.
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| COL's 2002/2003 youth interns |
BACK ROW: Danielle Ross, Shanta
Varma, Dave Johnston-Monje, Erin
Barrett, Susan White
FRONT ROW: Janine Cocker, Shannon
Dow, Kellee Ngan, Jennifer Chan | BACK ROW: Ivor Tossell, Kirk Shannon, Anne McCulloch, Emma Jackson
FRONT ROW: Miranda Post, Shira Windecker, Anna Grimes |
The host organisations, in turn, have an opportunity to complete special projects. Upon their return, the interns will be better prepared to enter the Canadian or international workforce full-time.
This year's host organisations are the Association of Commonwealth Universities (U.K.), the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (U.K.), the Commonwealth Press Union (U.K.), the Commonwealth Secretariat's Commonwealth Youth Programme (Regional Centres in Zambia, India and Guyana), the Global Knowledge Partnership Secretariat (Malaysia), the In-Service Training Trust (Zambia), the International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (India), the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (Nigeria), the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (Italy), The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand (New Zealand), UNIFEM's Global Programme on Gender and HIV/AIDS (India), the West Africa Rice Development Association (Côte d'Ivoire, but the intern has currently relocated to Nigeria due to safety concerns in Côte d'Ivoire), the World Agroforestry Centre (Kenya) and the World Alliance for Citizen Participation-CIVICUS (South Africa). www.col.org/internships
 | | COL mid-term evaluation panel, left to right: Geoff Peters, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Strategy, Planning and Partnerships), the Open University, U.K.; Esther Williams, Director of Planning and Development, the University of the South Pacific, Fiji; Shell Harvey (Chair), former Assistant Deputy Minister, Ministry of Education, Province of British Columbia, Canada; Jenny Glennie, Director, South African Institute for Distance Education, South Africa; V.S. Prasad, Vice-Chancellor, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, India | An external panel commissioned by COL to undertake a review of all of its activities at the mid-point of the current Three-year Plan (2000 - 2003) has completed its evaluation and the report has been posted on COL's web-site. The panel found that COL has achieved a great deal in the period under review and has consistently improved upon previous performance in its key roles as a resource for training, partner in capacity building, catalyst for collaboration and information/knowledge provider. Nevertheless it identified a number of areas that should allow COL to further improve its performance in the next planning cycle. The report notes that "COL is a well-respected organisation within the Commonwealth and even beyond. In the twelve short years of the organisation's existence, COL has touched nearly all of the nations of the Commonwealth and has had a positive impact on the lives of many thousands of people." "The panel hopes that this report and its recommendations will assist COL in building on this strong base," said Mr. Shell Harvey, Chair of the external panel.
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