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OLU JEGEDE |
Professor Olugbemiro Jegede
was appointed by Nigerian President
H.E. Olusegun Obasanjo in November as Vice Chancellor of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). Until then, Jegede was heading the re-establishment of NOUN as National Coordinator of Open and Distance Learning Programmes, on secondment from the Open University of Hong Kong (OUHK).
Professor Jegede is well known in the field of open and distance learning, having held positions and consulted for several international organisations (including COL) in Nigeria and throughout the world. He was Director of OUHK's Centre for Research in Distance and Adult Learning (CRIDAL) from 1997 to 2001.
NOUN has now enrolled its first set of students, with a current nationwide enrolment of 32,000, and plans to enrol another 68,000 by the end of 2004 - served by study centres in 18 state capitals.
Nigeria's Minister of Education, Minister of Education, the
Honourable Professor Fabian Osuji has assured them that degrees, diplomas and certificates they would earn will be equivalent to those from conventional universities and institutions. Professor Osuji also noted that Nigeria and NOUN have benefited from support from COL and UNESCO, as well as from India and the U.K.
Professor Osuji said that, "there are only about 200,000 vacancies in the 54 existing universities in the country. Less than 15 per cent of all the candidates can be admitted ... It has, therefore, become imperative for Nigeria to adopt the open and distance learning option to solve the enormous challenges of providing access to thousands of our citizens who are constantly excluded from access to education because of the limited provision of schools and facilities."
COL is also collaborating with NOUN toward establishing the institution as a "Centre of Expertise" in the provision of quality open and distance learning for Nigeria and the West African region, focussing on research activities and staff training and development.
Professor Jegede has described the re-establishment of NOUN and the implementation of other national open and distance learning programmes by the Government of Nigeria as "a discovery of its weapon of mass instruction."
The Board of Trustees of the Lewis Perinbam Award in International Development has named
Mr. Burris Devanney, Executive Director, Nova Scotia-Gambia Association (NSGA), to receive the 2003 Award. Mr. Devanney was honoured at the annual conference of the Canadian Bureau for International Education held in Charlottetown in October.
The Perinbam Award honours
Dr. Lewis Perinbam, O.C., who has dedicated his life to serving developing communities and has played a major role in shaping Canada's international development priorities. He is currently Chair of the Board of Governors of COL. The Perinbam Award recognises grassroots achievements in improving life in developing countries. The monetary value of the Award is Cdn$2,500, but its true value lies in bringing international development home to Canadians through highlighting the dedication and extraordinary accomplishments of ordinary citizens. Mr. Devanney is the 15th laureate.
COL has worked with the NSGA on community radio initiatives in West Africa.
www.cbie.ca
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DESMOND BURMINGHAM |
The newest member of COL's Board of Governors,
M
r. Desmond Bermingham,
was named as Britain's representative in July. Recently appointed as Head of Education (
Office of Chief Advisers, Policy Division) at the U.K. Department for International Development (DFID), Mr. Bermingham has over 15 years experience in the education field, including education and development work in the Caribbean, South America and Africa. His most recent assignments have involved the development of education projects in Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has a particular interest in the role of education in post-conflict situations and effective aid modalities to support education sector development. Dr. Bermingham succeeds
Dr. Marshall Elliott (now Deputy Director of DFID's Policy Division) on COL's Board.
Professor Christopher Colclough
has been selected as the first Director of the Centre for Commonwealth Education. The Centre is a joint venture between the Commonwealth Institute and the Faculty of Education at Cambridge, and will be based at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. Professor Colclough, who is currently Director of UNESCO's
Global Monitoring Report on Education for All and a Professorial Fellow in Development Economics at the University of Sussex's Institute of Development Studies, will take up his appointment in mid- to late-2004.
www.commonwealth.org.uk
Dr. John Rowett,
an Oxford academic, will become Secretary General of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) in July, upon the retirement of
Professor Michael Gibbons, a Canadian who has been ACU's chief executive since June 1996. Dr. Rowett is currently Chief Executive of the Rhodes Trust and Warden of Rhodes House at the University of Oxford. He is also joint chief executive of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation, which he founded with
Mr. Jakes Gerwel, Chancellor of Rhodes University, South Africa.
www.acu.ac.uk
Mr. John Bartram,
COL's Education Specialist, Technical/Vocational Education and Training (TVET), retired from COL at the end of September and has returned to Australia. He joined COL in June 1998 from the Adelaide TAFE Institute in South Australia, where he was responsible for many international programmes, fellowships and consultancies conducted in and for the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Bartram steered several initiatives while at COL, including COL's TVET Programme for the Pacific (facilitating collaboration designed to increase TVET access throughout the Pacific Islands by using open and distance learning) and technical teacher training systems in the Caribbean and Africa.
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KRISHNA ALLURI |
Dr. Krishna Alluri
joined COL in January 1997 on an attachment as a Visiting Fellow and continued as a staff consultant and then in a staff position from July 1999. In July 2003, he became COL Education Specialist with responsibility for food security and environment programmes. Dr. Alluri develops and manages initiatives where distance education and open learning applications can be encouraged and applied in the agricultural, forestry and fisheries sectors. He has fostered several partnerships with local NGOs and international organisations that bring education and training to grass-root levels in rural communities. First working in India, Dr. Alluri has been involved in agricultural research, training and development for almost 30 years. He has worked for several international organisations, including the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI, Philippines) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA, Nigeria).
www.col.org/kalluri
COL's regional agency, Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), announces three new staff members, appointed over the past few months.
In July 2003,
Mr.
Dalip Kumar Tetri became Head, Administration and Finance, bringing with him 36 years of experience with the Indian Audit and Accounts Department, the Ministry of Communications and the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) where he contributed extensively in organising and conducting staff training programmes.
Mr. Pankaj Khare
joined CEMCA as Programme Officer in November 2003, coming from IGNOU where he was Deputy Director (Programme Evaluation and Feedback) in the Planning and Development Division.
At the end of 2003,
Ms. D. Rukmini Vemraju also took up a position at CEMCA as Programme Officer. With a background in communication and educational technology, she is from the TALEEM Research Foundation, Ahmedabad, a literary society and trust engaged in social science, media and educational technology research.
Mr. Nimal T. Fernando
and
Dr. Sanjaya Mistra concluded their terms as CEMCA Programme Officers in June and July 2003. Mr. Fernando returned to Sri Lanka and Dr. Mishra returned to IGNOU's Staff Training and Research Institute of Distance Education (STRIDE).
Mr. K. Narayanan retired as Head, Administration and Finance at CEMCA in July 2002. He had been with CEMCA since 1994.
Headed by
Dr. Usha Reddi (Director), CEMCA promotes meaningful, relevant and appropriate use of information and communication technologies to serve the educational and training needs of Commonwealth member states of Asia: Bangladesh, Brunei, India, Malaysia, Maldives, Pakistan, Singapore and Sri Lanka.
www.cemca.org
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WALTER PERRY |
We remember Lord Perry of Walton as a great visionary, pioneer and pragmatist in the field of distance education. As the founding Vice-Chancellor of the U.K. Open University (UKOU), his wisdom and leadership helped to establish and guide, not only this great pioneering university, but also the other open universities that followed in its footsteps. His efforts helped to awaken the consciousness of world educators and leaders to recognise the importance of providing education to countless numbers of people whom conventional education systems had either ignored, could not reach or were not available to.
Walter Perry was largely responsible for turning the British Labour Party's long cherished dream of a massive expansion of second-chance educational opportunity for all those people previously denied access to university education, into reality. When it was launched in 1971, the UKOU was one of the most exciting educational innovations of the second half of
the 20th century, mixing broadcasting, correspondence education and tutors with new material prepared by teams of academics recruited by Walter himself. What made it so remarkable was that he achieved it, by his own admission, with almost no precedents to guide him, and against the background of an academic establishment that was sceptical of the whole concept of distance education.
As the UKOU gained in respectability and many more open universities sprang up around the world, Lord Perry was frequently called upon to help other institutions develop their distance education programmes.
In 2002, he was named an
Honorary Fellow of the Commonwealth of Learning, in recognition of his contribution to the establishment of higher education by distance learning in the United Kingdom and for his influence on the development and progress of distance education around the world
While Lord Perry's example and accomplishments will be a continuous source of inspiration to many of us, he will be missed.
Gajaraj Dhanarajan