Perspectives on Distance Education: Lifelong Learning & Distance Higher Education
Christopher McIntosh, Editor
Zeynep Varoglu, Editorial Coordinator
September 2005, 254 pages
Reflecting a common objective of ensuring quality Education for All, this book is a joint initiative of UNESCO and COL and jointly published. Lifelong Learning and Distance Higher Education brings together a diverse group of experts from many countries. The book provides a clear picture of the challenges, problems and potential of distance higher education at its current stage of development. It also describes successful practices for planning and implementing distance higher education and offers numerous practical insights. Aimed at planners, policy-makers and other stakeholders, the book is intended to be a practical tool for capacity building and decision-making.
Lifelong Learning and Distance Higher Education is fully available online at www.col.org/LLLinHigher or can be ordered through COL's distribution agents: Government Publication Services, Queen's Printer, Attn. COL Customer Service, PO Box 9452 Stn Prov Govt, Victoria, BC V8W 9V7 Canada; tel: 250.387.6409; fax: 250.387.1120; e-mail: QPPublications@gems5.gov.bc.ca. Orders can be placed online at www.publications.gov.bc.ca
Government agencies and institutions in developing Commonwealth countries may receive copies at no charge. Nominal charges apply to orders from developed, newly developed and non-Commonwealth countries - usually CDN $12.00 plus shipping. These orders must be accompanied by pre-payment or charged to VISA or MasterCard accounts.
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The Millennium Development Goals
Report 2005 
United Nations, New York, 2005
This report is the most comprehensive accounting to date of progress in attainment of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The UN's report is the product of extensive international collaboration to provide statistics and summaries of progress for each MDG. It contains useful new data and assessments of progress in different regions. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan calls it "a mixed scorecard".
"There has been a massive, unprecedented reduction in poverty worldwide since 1990, led by Asia," said the Secretary-General at the launch of the progress report in June. "But, at the same time, the very poorest are getting poorer in Sub-Saharan Africa."
Some of the report's findings include:
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Five developing regions are approaching universal primary school enrolment.
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The gender gap is closing in primary school enrolment in the developing world.
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While death rates in children under age five are dropping, 11 million children a year die from preventable or treatable causes.
This report preceded the UN 2005 World Summit in New York in September where world leaders assessed how far their MDG pledges have been fulfilled and
decided on what further steps are needed.
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The art of the possible: issues of learner support in open and distance learning in low income countries
By Charlotte Creed, Terry Allsop, Roger Mills and Ros Morpeth, March 2005
This report, prepared for COL by the International Research Foundation for Open Learning, focuses on an important aspect of open and distance learning (ODL): tutoring. It reflects on existing approaches to learner support, with a particular focus on lower income countries. The report also provides examples of how such support is provided in a range of circumstances and offers principles on which learner support systems may be based.