COMMUNITY ODL: WORKING TOGETHER TO USE MEDIA FOR LEARNING

Through its new Healthy Communities initiative, COL is helping to build capacity in the use of community radio and other local media to support non-formal education programmes. Partnering with local organisations, COL is facilitating a series of activities and workshops to seed new collaborative, community-based open and distance learning (ODL) programming in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

LEARNSHARE HIV/AIDS AFRICA

COL hosted a community ODL training workshop in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire in April 2009 in conjunction with the AMARC Pan-African Community Radio Conference, and in partnership with EcoNews Africa, the International AIDS Society and the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC). Thirty broadcasters from Commonwealth countries were introduced to LearnShare HIV/AIDS Africa, an initiative that aims to increase HIV/AIDS treatment literacy. Workshop participants received training in community ODL programme development and how treatment literacy can be used as a strategy to fight HIV/AIDS.

LearnShare aims to encourage and support a significant increase in access to learning about HIV/AIDS in communities across Sub-Saharan Africa by facilitating collaboration among media, health and education groups. LearnShare brings together community partners to develop programmes for traditional media, such as radio, to reach marginalised communities. These partners are supported by an online group of media, education, health and development specialists who exchange information, and link international AIDS and media networks with community programmes in remote and resource poor areas of the Commonwealth.

The need to increase and expand HIV/AIDS educational programming in the African community radio sector was included in the Abidjan Declaration signed by 145 broadcasters from 40 African countries at the Pan-African Community Radio Conference.

The Abidjan workshop seeded new community learning programmes in Kenya, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Tanzania focussed on increasing HIV/AIDS treatment literacy, including what treatments are available and how they work. Community radio stations carry learning content; face-to-face meetings of community-based groups support the learning process. Early results of these programmes will be presented at a special session planned for the International AIDS Conference in Vienna in July 2010.

COMMUNITY MEDIA DEVELOPMENT IN TANZANIA

Nineteen people from seven local radio stations and the newly formed Community Media Network of Tanzania (COMNETA) attended a workshop in Sengerema, site of a community media centre. COL facilitated the workshop in partnership with the Institute for Adult Education, Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Tanzania and UNESCO Dar es Salaam.

In addition to building organisational skills among community radio stations, in particular how to ensure community ownership and participation, the workshop launched the LearnShare HIV/AIDS initiative in Tanzania.

Following the workshop, a community radio station in Karagwe District, under the umbrella of the Family Alliance for Development and Cooperation (FADECO), is partnering with local public and civil society health groups and people living with HIV/AIDS to create a new non-formal ODL programme. The programme launch is planned for 1 December 2009, World AIDS Day.

New community ODL programmes are planned in Bangladesh, India and other countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. Media, education, health and development groups that are interested in starting or enhancing community ODL programmes are invited to contact Mr. Ian Pringle, COL’s Education Specialist for Media at ipringle@col.org.

HEALTHY ENVIRONMENTS IN JAMAICA

Broadcast staff, teachers and volunteers at a COL-sponsored workshop in Jeffrey Town, St. Mary, Jamaica in July 2009 created a learning programme about solid waste management and organic farming. The educational drama is being broadcast on community radio station JET FM. The workshop was held in partnership with the Caribbean Institute for Media and Communications and the Jeffrey Town Farmers Association.

HEALTH PROMOTION IN SOLOMON ISLANDS

COL partnered with Australia's Swinburne University to host a participatory content creation workshop for the health promotion team at the Solomon Islands Ministry of Health. This is part of an innovative initiative in Isabel Province that sees health and education agencies working with village media centres to develop new community learning programmes about local health priorities. Pictured here, a woman in Buala, Isabel Province, uses a radio telephone, a technology used for email communications in the absence of landlines or mobile coverage.

TEACHER EDUCATION PARTNERS MEETING

Promoting collaboration and building partnerships in teacher education was the focus of a meeting at COL’s office in Vancouver, Canada in July that brought together representatives from COL, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Consortium on Teacher Education for Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA), the West African Consortium for Teacher Development (WACTED), UNESCO, UNICEF and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

There’s a need for strong partnerships to achieve greater synergy and increased impact, the group agreed. There was also recognition that the partners’ different comparative advantages strengthen the case for working together to scale up teacher education.

In addition to existing activities, the group identified two areas for potential future collaboration:

• Teacher Resource Centres: improving connectivity and management of Teacher Resource Centres so they can meet needs for open schooling and teachers’ professional development.
• Capacity development and quality assurance: scaling up access to quality assurance toolkits and teacher education materials already developed by partners.

The partners will promote the meeting’s Statement of Commitment within their organisations and networks and invite others to participate.

WORKSHOP ON OPEN SCHOOLS FINANCING

COL continued its efforts to build capacity among managers of open schools with a workshop on costs and financing of open schools in Delhi, India in July 2009. Twelve senior managers from open schools and education boards from India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka attended the five-day workshop, which provided training in planning, negotiating and managing finances in open schools. Using self-study materials developed at a similar workshop in Botswana in 2007, participants learned about different types of costs, setting fees, acquiring and managing funding, budgeting, and how to measure efficiency and cost-effectiveness. The self-instructional resource book used at the workshop, Costs and Financing in Open Schools, is freely available on the COL website.

www.col.org/Costs_OpenSchools

A DECADE OF ODL IN THE COMMONWEALTH

In collaboration with the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) and UNESCO, COL held a forum on “A Decade of Open and Distance Learning in the Commonwealth: Achievements and Challenges” from 18 to 20 May 2009 in Abuja, Nigeria. The objective of the forum was to identify the achievements and challenges facing open and distance learning (ODL) in the Commonwealth and develop strategies to improve access, enhance quality and reduce costs in the next decade. The forum was attended by 146 delegates from 13 Commonwealth countries.

The forum’s communiqué, Blueprint for the Next Decade, is available on COL’s website at www.col.org/DecadeDE.

TASK FORCE ON TEACHERS FOR EFA

Representatives from 27 national governments, intergovernmental organisations and non-governmental organisations took part in a meeting of the International Task Force on Teachers for Education for All (EFA) at UNESCO headquarters in Paris in July 2009. The task force is co-ordinating international action to meet the challenge of providing sufficient quality teachers to meet rapidly growing demand for education worldwide. It’s estimated that 10 million new primary teachers are needed by 2015 to achieve universal primary education.

The Task Force is focussing on three gaps in teacher provision: policy, capacity and funding. At the Paris meeting, the group discussed recent research, partnerships, a work plan and staffing. The Task Force will be led by a 15-member Steering Committee and supported by a Secretariat located at UNESCO.

www.unesco.org/en/efa-international-coordination/international-cooperation/task-force-on-teachers

LEARNER SUPPORT IN MOZAMBIQUE

COL hosted a workshop in June 2009 to build capacity in open and distance learning (ODL) in Mozambique. Twenty-four educators attended the four-day meeting, which provided an introduction to ODL and open schooling, with particular emphasis on learner support. COL is working in partnership with Mozambique’s National Institute for Distance Education (INED) to explore how ODL can meet the Southern African country’s education challenges, particularly the need for in-service teacher training, expanding access to secondary and higher education, and helping young people acquire professional skills.

COL’s new Learner Support Tutor Guide, a self-instructional manual for ODL tutors, was translated into Portuguese for workshop participants in Mozambique. It is available on COL’s website.

www.col.org/OpenSchooling

AFRICAN VICE-CHANCELLORS MEETING

The African Council for Distance Education (ACDE) held its first Vice- Chancellors’ workshop on 22 August 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya. The meeting focussed on two of ACDE’s key initiatives being implemented across Africa:

• the Technical Committee on Collaboration, a programme promoting collaboration for materials and curriculum development, joint offering of programmes, facilitation of student mobility and portability of credits between institutions, and enhancement of institutional capacity to deliver high quality ODL programmes, and
• the establishment of the ACDE Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency.

Also discussed at the workshop was the creation, customisation and use of open educational resources (OERs). COL’s Director
of Knowledge Management and Information Technology, Mr. Paul West, contributed as a resource person dealing with the use of Creative Commons copyright licenses and how Vice-Chancellors can facilitate the sharing of learning resources. Workshop participants discussed the availability of materials and technological skill requirements for sharing and customising OERs.

Formally launched in 2004, the ACDE is comprised of open universities and other African higher education institutions that are engaged in ODL delivery. ACDE acts as a continental unifying body that facilitates the pooling of resources and provides leadership in shaping policies on distance education in Africa. The ACDE has a permanent secretariat based in Nairobi, Kenya and is funded by member universities and the South African Ministry of Higher Education and Training.

www.acde-africa.org

UPCOMING EVENTS

SCOP 2009:
ICDE Standing Conference of Presidents

International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE)
20 – 21 November 2009
Barcelona, Spain
Theme: Quality in the context of the financial crisis
www.uoc.edu/symposia/scop2009

Global Higher Education Forum (GHEF2009)

13 – 16 December 2009
Penang, Malaysia
Jointly organised by the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia, and the Universiti Sains Malaysia
Theme: Global Higher Education: Current Trends, Future Perspectives
www.gheforum.usm.my

The Sixth Pan-Commonwealth Forum
on Open Learning (PCF6)

24 – 28 November 2010
Kochi (Kerala), India
Co-hosted by COL and the
Indira Gandhi National Open University, India
Theme: Access & Success in Learning:
Global Development Perspectives
www.col.org/pcf6