CREATING CHILD-FRIENDLY SCHOOLS
A five-day Child-Friendly Schools workshop in Gaborone, Botswana in August hosted by the Ministry of Education and Skills Development involved 70 education officers, lecturers from teacher training institutions and representatives from UNICEF Botswana AND UNICEF’s Regional Office in Kenya
More than 300 teacher educators from five Commonwealth countries have taken part in workshops this year that promote Child-Friendly Schools. The Child-Friendly Schools approach is based on the concept that quality education is multi-dimensional and concerned with the total needs of the child as the central focus and beneficiary of all education decisions. Quality goes beyond good teaching methods and learning outcomes to also include the health and nutrition status of learners; adequacy of facilities, services and supplies; and the safety of the learning environment.
In partnership with UNICEF, COL is working to enhance the quality of education in schools by mainstreaming Child-Friendly Schools models and approaches into teacher training curricula in ten countries: Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Trinidad & Tobago and Zambia.
The main areas of concentration for this project are:
- Integrating Child-Friendly Schools models and approaches into pre-service and in-service teacher training curricula, and training teacher educators and other educational personnel about Child-Friendly Schools, and
- Strengthening the role and Child-Friendly Schools capacity of teacher resource centre managers, schools heads, inspectors and other in-service educational personnel.
Ten workshops facilitated by COL thus far this year have focussed on introducing Child-Friendly Schools, reviewing curriculum and developing teacher training materials that incorporate Child-Friendly Schools principles, concepts and methods. Many of the training materials are currently being piloted and will then be made freely available to teacher training institutions.
Ministries of Education and teacher training institutions are showing a strong sense of ownership, demonstrated by their contribution of workshop resources, including facilitators, supplies, venues, transportation costs and accommodation costs.
www.col.org/cfs
OERs FOR OPEN SCHOOLS
The oers for open schools steering committee meet in Botswana
Master Teachers in six Commonwealth countries are continuing to develop open educational resources (OERs) in secondary school subjects specifically for use by open schools. Over the past two years, COL’s “OERs for Open Schools” initiative has trained 100 Master Teachers from Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Seychelles, Trinidad & Tobago and Zambia in materials design using collaborative methods. They are producing print-based and electronic OERs in 20 selected subjects.
A mid-term evaluation report conducted by the South African Institute of Distance Education (SAIDE) identified several factors that have led to a slower than expected timeline for the project. Lack of access to computers, inadequate connectivity, time constraints and insufficient training are the main factors hampering progress. The report identifies how sample units can be improved and recommends that print-based materials be completed before electronic versions are created. The project timeline has been adjusted, and work is continuing on the materials.
Master Teachers have made significant progress with the first 15 subjects, and close to 200 completed units are being reviewed.
“OERs for Open Schools” is funded by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Once the OERs are complete, they will be freely available for open schools – and other educational institutions – to download, adapt and use.
www.col.org/OpenSchooling
IMPROVING QUALITY IN MULTIMEDIA MATERIALS
As the use of multimedia materials proliferates along with expansion of open and distance learning, the quality of these materials is increasingly an issue. COL’s regional office, the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), is working to promote quality assurance in multimedia learning materials. In 2009, CEMCA collaborated with partners in India and Malaysia to develop a framework for quality assurance in multimedia learning materials, QAMLM (Quality Assurance in Multimedia Learning Materials).
CEMCA is now encouraging agencies that develop multimedia learning materials to implement the guidelines. Earlier this year, CEMCA hosted a four-day QAMLM meeting in collaboration with the Educational Multimedia Research Centre at Kamaraj University in Southern India. Forty delegates from multimedia user and developer groups in India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka shared feedback about the guidelines. The consensus was that the guidelines are useful and needed, but modifications, including more detailed instructions, are required.
CEMCA is currently developing more detailed guidelines in collaboration with two partners: the Consortium for Educational Communication (CEC), the umbrella organisation representing 17 educational multimedia research centres across India that develop e-content for higher education and the Central Institute for Educational Technology (CIET), which is overseeing a Government of India project to develop secondary school level multimedia learning materials. The revised guidelines will be offered to a wider user group later this year.
www.cemca.org
COMMUNITY RADIO EXPANSION IN INDIA
In an effort to streamline license applications for community radio stations, India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has introduced an online application system. Developed in association with COL’s regional office, the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), the online application system can be easily accessed by anyone interested in applying for a community radio station license. The system allows the application to be sent simultaneously to different government ministries, enabling quicker clearance and swifter communication between the government and the applicants.
Backed by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Government of India and CEMCA, community radio outreach and awareness are rapidly expanding in India. Between May and July 2010, the number of operational community radio stations grew from 57 to 82. More than 230 Letters of Intent have been signed, signalling more growth ahead.
www.mib.nic.in
www.cronlineindia.net
CHINESE AND COL COLLABORATE
COL President Sir John Daniel met with a delegation of post-secondary educators from China at COL’s office in Vancouver, Canada in September 2010. They discussed aspects of open and distance learning, particularly its application to rural development and the use of mobile phones.
AGRICULTURE OERs FOR AFRICA
In partnership with the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE), COL has developed a database for open educational resources (OERs) related to agriculture in Africa. More than 300 high quality agricultural OERs, released under Creative Commons licensing, have been uploaded to the OER Africa website. The primary purpose of the Agricultural OER space is to provide African agricultural higher education institutions with access to relevant learning materials. The materials are freely available to anyone to download, adapt and use.
www.oerafrica.org/agricultureoer
MINI-LAPTOPS FOR LEARNING
The Maldives Minister of Education, Dr. Mustafa Lutfi, launched the country’s mini-laptop programme with a class of Grade 3 students in August. Dr. Lutfi presented mini-laptops to the young students, saying that he has “been dreaming about this event” since he was appointed Minister of Education in 2008. His hope is that all students in the third grade will be using mini-laptops for learning by 2011.
The mini-laptop, originally known as the Eduframe, was developed by COL’s regional office, the Commonwealth Media Education Centre for Asia (CEMCA). In addition to enabling wider use of information and communication technology (ICT) in teaching and learning, the mini-laptops will also ease the heavy load of textbooks students have to carry because the books are pre-loaded on the laptops. This pilot research project in Maldives will assess the information and communication technology (ICT) skills of the students as well as the user friendliness of the Eduframe.
CEMCA led development of the Eduframe, which was originally a digital photo frame that carried educational content. It evolved into a low-cost laptop, which is now marketed by M/S Orbit Peripherals Pte Ltd., Singapore as the Datamini Netbook for US $74. The Eduframe has a seven-inch screen and uses a 2 GB flash drive for storage. It runs on Windows CE and has 128 MB of memory, three USB ports and a battery that lasts about two hours.
www.eduframe.net/maldives
www.cemca.org/eduframe