More than 700 delegates from 70 countries attended the Fifth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF5) at the University of London in July 2008. COL's biennial forum has grown to become one of the world's leading international conferences on learning and global development. This year's forum was by far the largest. The theme of PCF5 was "Access to Learning for Development" and the unique contributions that open and distance learning (ODL) can make towards achieving international development goals.
There were more than 320 papers, workshops and discussions around the forum's four main action themes:
. Children and young people;
. Governance, conflict and social justice;
. Health; and
. Livelihoods.
Three cross-cutting issues - appropriate learning technologies, institutions and learner support - helped to inform the discussions. Over four days, delegates discussed best practices, shared their experiences and were inspired by keynotes from leaders in ODL.
COL's Excellence in Distance Education Awards were also presented at PCF5 (see "In Focus" on page 8).
THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
PCF5 was hosted by COL in partnership with the University of London, forming a part of the University's celebration of the 150th anniversary of the establishment of its External Programme.
Vice Chancellor Sir Graeme Davies opened PCF5 with comments about the world's first open access university - the University of London. While many people associate distance education with the Internet and modern technology, the University of London began offering distance education in 1858 to enable people to learn without having to come to London. They exploited state-of-the-art technologies of the day - the postal service (developed to take advantage of the new railways) and the printing press. The University of London worked with partner institutions that provided local support and in so doing, helped to develop universities throughout the Commonwealth.
Charles Dickens' magazine, All the Year Round, called the University of London "the people's university". The External Programme's many graduates include five Nobel Prize winners, many heads of state and prisoners of war during World War I and II.
OPENING KEYNOTES
The Right Honourable Apolo Nsibambi, Prime Minister of the Republic of Uganda, delivered the forum's first keynote speech on behalf of His Excellency President Yoweri K. Museveni. His comments focussed on the role of formal and informal education in attaining development goals. The Prime Minister spoke about the need to provide equitable access to education for all people in order to unleash the potential for development. The process of development, he said, is a function of both formal and informal education.
"The opposite of development is poverty created by inability to attain relevant education," said Prime Minister Nsibambi. "Poverty often deprives a person of spirit and virtue. It is difficult to make a man or a woman stand upright without education. The challenge for us as leaders is to make education accessible, affordable, equitable and instrumental."
In his address to the forum, Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma spoke about the role of young people in meeting today's challenges. "Sidelined for so long, young people are now beginning to be seen as sources of wisdom and direction," he said.
The Secretary-General pointed out pressing challenges such as the 70 million out-of-school children in the Commonwealth (a group that is predominantly female), teacher:student ratios that approach 70:1 in some African countries, the impact of the continuing HIV/AIDS crisis and limited progress in attaining Universal Primary Education. He also called on COL to explore how ODL can achieve the Commonwealth priority of teaching values at the heart of our societies, especially respect and understanding between people of different faith, ethnicity, language and community.
OPENING CEREMONY: (L to R) MR. BURNETT, MR. SHARMA, PRIME MINISTER NSIBAMBI, SIR JOHN AND SIR GRAEME
He concluded: "We are living in a fast-paced world - our needs move fast, our technological solutions move fast, and education has to move with them. Some things don't change, though. Our values, for a start, and our Commonwealth approach to using our networks to share the things we do best, and to bring them to as many people as possible. That is the essence of open and distance learning; and that is the essence of providing Access to Learning for Development."
Education is a right that leads to many aspects of development, said Mr. Nicholas Burnett, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education in his PCF5 address. He spoke about the role of education in meeting the Education for All goals and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. While great progress is being made in Education for All, many countries will not achieve these goals. An acceleration of progress is needed, he said. "This is an optimistic time but it is not a time to relax."
Mr. Burnett discussed education challenges faced by the developing world including enduring gender disparities, poor quality of education, poorly trained teachers and minimal attention to adult literacy. He spoke about the need to increase access to education, pointing to solutions such as early learning programmes for disadvantaged children, relevant learning for youth and adults, more and better teacher training, a renewed emphasis on quality, cross-border higher education and open educational resources (OERs).
ASA BRIGGS LECTURE
Professor Brenda Gourley, Vice-Chancellor of the U.K. Open University and Chair of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, delivered COL's Asa Briggs lecture, "New technologies: new possibilities for reaching the unreached". The Asa Briggs Lecture honours the founding Chairman of the COL Board of Governors and renowned British historian, the Rt. Hon. Lord Briggs of Lewes, who was instrumental in establishing the Commonwealth of Learning. COL invites renowned scholars/speakers to deliver the Lectures on topics of interest and relevance to education in the Commonwealth.
Professor Gourley discussed how technology is a major catalyst for change. A full 50 percent of the world's population use mobile phones, she said, which provides many people with a window on the world of knowledge. However, the benefits of technological innovation are massively inequitably distributed. Poor infrastructure is a continuing barrier; for instance, universities in Sub-Saharan Africa pay 50 times what American universities pay for bandwidth. The resulting isolation of African students is an impediment to education and development.
She also talked about OERs, saying that 110 universities have now placed educational resources on the web. The U.K. Open University's OpenLearn website is being accessed by millions of users from virtually every nation.
She concluded with a message of optimism: "I am enormously encouraged by the dazzling advances in technology and the hope they give us for reaching people in ways that would have been impossible not so long ago."
ASA BRIGGS GIVES HIS RESPONSE
A response to the lecture was given by Lord Asa Briggs himself. He told forum participants, "These issues matter as much to me in old age as they did in my youth." He spoke about his role as chair of the committee that brought COL into existence saying, "COL stands for the things that really matter in a changing world."
CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE
Speaking to the first day's theme - Children and Young People - Ms. Carol Bellamy, President and CEO of World Learning, discussed the role of ODL in providing access to education for young people.
"A quality basic education will better equip girls and boys with knowledge and skills needed to adopt healthy lifestyles, to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and to take an active role in social, economic and political decision-making as they transition to adolescence and adulthood," said Ms. Bellamy. "As educated adults, they are more likely to have fewer children, be informed about appropriate child rearing practices and ensure their children start school on time and are ready to learn."
(From left to right) BELLAMY, GOURLEY, DUFBORG, BRITO, PITYANA
There were 72 million out-of-school children in 2005, according to the Education for All Global Monitoring Report. This number could be as high as 93 million, according to Ms. Bellamy. There is no single solution to this problem; the answer lies in thousands of local solutions worldwide - a "tapestry of innovation", she said.
Success in providing Education for All means working it from every angle, said Ms. Bellamy. That includes shifting the perspective from getting kids to school to getting schools to kids. Technology alone isn't going to be the hero, nor should it be the villain.
The theme of Children and Young People grew from one session at PCF1 in 1999 to a major element in PCF5, with sessions that explored everything from open schools and teacher education to women's literacy and innovative uses of technology. Some of the recommendations from these sessions were to ensure appropriate technologies are used, to take advantage of public-private partnerships, to exploit the potential of open educational resources and to explore the possibilities of South-North collaboration especially in open schooling.
GOVERNANCE, CONFLICT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
Day 2 of the forum focussed on the "Governance, conflict and social justice" theme, a new area of work for COL. Some of the discussions in the Governance sessions focused on increasing access to education in tertiary institutions for women, indigenous peoples, incarcerated individuals and marginalised communities. Other sessions explored conflict prevention and mitigation using ODL and facilitating effective sustainable decision-making at the local level.
The conclusions reached in these sessions include the value of peer learning and the need to embed good governance within local culture in a gender-sensitive way. Participants agreed to engage in ongoing dialogue to bridge the research-practice gap, share best practices, encourage South-South learning networks and initiate South-North learning.
Dr. Astrid Dufborg, Executive Director of the Global eSchools and Communities Initiative, delivered an afternoon keynote that questioned assumptions about access to learning for development. Much of the education system is based on outdated assumptions about learning, she argued. Whereas the learner used to be a passive recipient of knowledge, the learner now should be an active subject constructing knowledge.
We know very little about what's happening with information and communications technology (ICT), according to Dr. Dufborg. She called for more research from both the developed and developing world so we can maximise the potential of ICT to meet our educational challenges.
HEALTH
The day featuring the Health stream began with a lively presentation by Professor Lídia Brito, Assistant Professor at the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique and former Mozambican Minister of Education, who offered an African viewpoint in her keynote address, "Access to learning for health with particular reference to HIV/AIDS". She talked about the impact of the disease in her country: about 15 percent of the population (mostly young people) are infected and an estimated 20 percent of children are orphans due to AIDS, causing enormous economic and social problems. "We're running out of time," she warned.
While Mozambique offers programmes such as health education, day clinics, anti-retroviral drugs and research, it's not working. It is still the seventh worst affected country in Africa. Professor Brito spoke about the need to integrate education with social and economic practices, to involve all actors in order to capture and mobilise social energy. "Access to learning for health is both a right and a duty," she said.
The Health workshops and discussions explored pressing issues such as using ODL for HIV/AIDS prevention and building public health capacity using OERs. There was encouraging news about innovative programmes that are making significant improvements in health promotion in developing countries. The sessions concluded that a more holistic and culture-centred approach is required, we must raise community awareness and discussion of values, simple technology works best, and ODL and OERs have great potential in promoting health.
FACES FROM THE CONFERENCE
LIVELIHOODS
Learning for Livelihoods was a major theme at PCF5. The 23 sessions on Livelihoods generated many examples of good practice and also explored the barriers to ODL for livelihoods, potential solutions and considerations for the future. A key recommendation was that access to finance (such as micro-credit) is a crucial element in improving livelihoods. Another important point is the need to focus on community learning as much as on individuals; one way to do this is to work with existing self-help groups.
Some of the future directions suggested for improving livelihoods through ODL include a greater focus on disadvantaged communities, developing capacity especially among youth and girls, facilitating partnerships and creating OERs for livelihoods.
ACCESS TO LEARNING FOR DEVELOPMENT
The final day of the conference concentrated on the overall conference theme, "Access to Learning for Development". In his keynote address about the promise of ODL in Africa, Professor Barney Pityana, Vice-Chancellor of the University of South Africa (UNISA), said that while there is an unrelenting hunger for education in Africa, higher education is dismal.
Professor Pityana outlined some of the perils of ODL in Africa, including an emphasis on increasing enrolment with little regard for quality, throughput and outputs. He also expressed scepticism about OERs, saying that Africans should be interrogating and engaging their own knowledge resources.
"No one needs convincing in Africa any longer about the merits of ODL in enhancing the provision of higher education, driving the development agenda, skilling Africa for sustainable development, and for meeting Africa's needs in technology and economic development," he concluded. The challenge Africa faces is to be creative in planning and development, willing to share resources across the continent and to understand the power of African initiatives, rather than generate competition for resources.
Following summary remarks from leaders of the conference's four main strands, COL President Sir John Daniel provided a closing address. He paid tribute to PCF5 Programme Chair Dr. Roger Mills and the four theme leaders for putting together "an incredibly rich programme".
"Remember that PCF5 is not over when you leave London," Sir John told delegates. "Now is when you start working to sustain the networks that you have developed here. For our part, the Commonwealth of Learning will reflect deeply on the conclusions and recommendations arising from your discussion as we prepare our next Three-year Plan for the period 2009 - 2012."
Major sponsorship support for delegate participation from developing countries was provided by COL, the U.K. Open University, the U.K Department for International Development, the University of London External Programme, Nexus Strategic Partnerships and AusAID - the Australian Government's overseas aid programme.
Papers and reports from sessions are available online in the Forum 'wiki' and 'blog' at www.wikieducator.org/pcf5 and http://pcf5.wordpress.com . Keynote presentations, Sir John's sum-up keynote and the four theme reports (conclusions and ways forward) are available at www.col.org/speeches .
Forum website: www.col.org/pcf5
"THERE IS NO SINGLE SOLUTION to increasing access to education and improving its quality - but rather, thousands of proven local and national solutions," said Ms. Carol Bellamy in her keynote address at PCF5. "You are all part of that tapestry of innovation that we so desperately need to weave in order to get the job done."
A number of innovative solutions were discussed at PCF5. Here's a small sampling:
"TELEPHONE LADIES" IN BANGLADESH
Grameen Bank provides microcredit financing to women so they can acquire a mobile phone. The "telephone ladies" then create profitable businesses by hiring out the mobile phones to others in their community. In addition to improving livelihoods, these mobile phones are providing people with a window on the world of knowledge.
www.grameen-info.org LEARNING THROUGH MOBILE PHONE GAMING
The non-profit group Mindset Network has partnered with Nokia and the South African Department of Education to introduce an innovative mobile phone programme to teach math. The pilot programme sees Grade 10 students in two schools receive handsets loaded with educational games. In one game, Fashion Empire, students create a business while developing math skills such as reading trend forecast graphs, designing clothes using geometrical shapes, three-dimensional problem solving in the box stacking warehouse and calculating interest rates for bank loans. This project capitalises on the popularity of mobile phones to tackle the problems of girls' underachievement in math and a lack of qualified teachers in this subject area.
www.mindset.co.za MOBILES FOR LEARNER SUPPORT IN LESOTHO
How do you provide learner support in a country where only three out of every 1,000 people have Internet access? Even more of a challenge, how do you support learners who live in remote areas where they have no electricity? These are some of the challenges faced by the Distance Teacher Education Programme at the Lesotho College of Education. Mrs. Lineo Clementina Kolosoa told a PCF5 session about how the College found a way to communicate with learners in the rugged mountainous area of the country. A survey revealed that none of the 200 learners had electricity; they study by light provided by gas, paraffin (kerosene) or candles. Only 14 per cent have televisions and none have computers, but 88 per cent of them have radios and 82 per cent of them have access to a mobile phone (they are charged by car batteries owned by local entrepreneurs). By gaining a clear understanding of learner characteristics, the College is able to use appropriate information and communication technology (ICT) to provide learner support and enable people to learn in remote environments.
COMMUNITY RADIO FOR WOMEN
COL's regional office, the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), is spearheading a community radio programme, Science for Women, that is reaching an estimated 13,000 women with health information such as hygiene, nutrition, pre- and post-natal care, anemia and menopause. Designed to be accessed by women in community settings, the programmes often offer women the opportunity to phone in questions to health professionals. Women are also involved in the creation of the 15-20 minute radio programmes. The recent liberalisation of community radio policies by the Indian government has enabled the establishment of this programme, which is expanding to another 20 radio stations...and thousands more women.
www.cemca.org ICT FOR TEACHER TRAINING
Four million new teachers need to be trained in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2010 to meet the goal of Universal Primary Education. This number was mentioned numerous times at PCF5 as an example of the daunting challenges facing the education system.
One response is Teacher Education for Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA), an initiative that brings together 18 institutions from nine countries to offer open educational resources (OERs) for teacher training. In his closing address to PCF5, Sir John Daniel referred to TESSA as "perhaps the most successful of all the OER projects we have heard about." A large bank of OERs is available on the TESSA website; anyone can adapt and use them. Authored primarily by academics in Africa, the 750 study units include audio clips and guidance for teacher educators. Since most teachers don't have Internet access, each study is available on CD-ROM in PDF format so they can be easily printed and shared.
www.tessaafrica.net