TEACHER EDUCATION CHALLENGE: IMPROVING QUALITY AND QUANTITY
Thirty-two teacher educators from 13 countries took part in a one-day teacher education workshop prior to the Sixth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF6) in Kochi, India. The workshop was facilitated by Dr. Bob Moon, Professor Emeritus at the UK Open University and Founding Director of Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA). Discussions focussed on three aspects of teacher education: shortfalls in teacher supply, low teacher quality at the basic education level in developing countries and how to harness the potential of technology and ODL to address these challenges.
Although the participants did not agree on all the issues, a consensus on existing teacher education provision and the way forward emerged. Workshop delegates issued a Communiqué that identified factors influencing teacher development, policies and practices requiring reform, and an agenda for future collaborative efforts.
www.col.org/TeacherEducation
Dr. Umar’s blog post about the workshop: www.col.org/blog91
BUILDING CAPACITY IN ODL RESEARCH
The first graduates of the Post Graduate Certificate Course in Open and Distance Learning at the BOCODOL graduation ceremony in December.
COL’s Practitioner Research, Evaluation and Skills Training (PREST) open educational resources are being used as a core source for training of open and distance learning (ODL) researchers in Southern Africa. PREST was accredited by the Botswana Training Authority and is delivered through the Botswana College of Distance and Open Learning (BOCODOL) as a Post-Graduate Certificate Course in Open and Distance Learning. The year-long programme is delivered through ODL.
The first cohort of 18 students from Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe completed the course last year. The PREST participants were sponsored by COL through the Southern African Development
Community Centre for Distance Education (SADC-CDE) as part of ODL capacity building in the region and by BOCODOL as staff development. The course was facilitated by Dr. Stanley Modesto and
Dr. Godson Gatsha from SADC-CDE.
In addition to the distance learning component where students read materials, completed assignments and took part in online discussions, participants attended a one-week workshop in Gaborone, Botswana in March 2010. Led by senior researchers from the University of Pretoria, University of Swaziland, Zimbabwe Open University and BOCODOL, the workshop explored the research process, publishing issues, presenting conference papers and quality issues in research. It culminated in a one-day research conference and award ceremony for best research work.
A second cohort of students will complete the PREST training in May 2011.
www.col.org/PREST
DEVELOPING CHILD-FRIENDLY SCHOOLS
Representatives from five countries participating in the UNICEF-COL Child-Friendly Schools project met in November in Kochi, India to discuss progress made so far in the implementation of the project. Botswana, Lesotho, Nigeria, South Africa and Swaziland were represented at the Kochi workshop, which was also attended by representatives from UNICEF.
The Child-Friendly Schools model was developed as a response to growing global concerns about the poor quality of schools, teaching and learning at the basic education level, explained Ms. Susan Durston, UNICEF’s Global Chief on Education in her address to the group. The Child-Friendly Schools approach is based on the concept that quality education involves 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 health, safety and adequacy of school facilities and supplies.
The 17 participants at the Kochi workshop discussed challenges in implementing Child-Friendly Schools, lessons learned and the need to use open and distance learning (ODL) and school-based training to mainstream Child-Friendly Schools into teacher education initiatives.
COL is working in partnership with UNICEF to enhance the quality of education in schools by mainstreaming CFS models and approaches into teacher education curricula. In addition to the five countries at the workshop in Kochi, five other countries are involved in this initiative: Malawi, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Trinidad & Tobago and Zambia. More than 1,000 educators have taken part in Child-Friendly Schools workshops sponsored by COL.
www.col.org/cfs
COMMUNITY LEARNING IN CAMEROON
COL launched a community learning initiative in Cameroon by hosting a radio programme design workshop in Menji, Lebialem District in the country’s south west region in November 2010. The workshop, which focussed on Mother and Child Health Care, was facilitated by Mr. Gladson Makowa and Mr. Charles Simbi of Story Workshop, an educational media agency that has undertaken similar work in Malawi.
The Cameroon workshop was described as “a golden opportunity for the transformation of communities” by the Executive Director of Cameroon Link, Mr. James Achanyi-Fontem. COL is partnering with Cameroon Link and Lebialem Community Radio to develop a community learning programme that involves a consortium of partner groups working in media, maternal and child health care and community mobilisation. The goal is to make an impact on development indicators by reaching at least 1,000 learners through face-to-face sessions and 20,000 listeners through Lebialem Community Radio.
The five-day radio workshop in November resulted in the design and production of several radio programmes for the series. The partners will produce 30-60 minutes of original radio content each week for the next year. The COL-Cameroon Link partnership will also use video and mobile telephones to engage learners. Issues to be addressed include HIV/AIDS, nutrition, family planning and malaria.
http://camlinknews.blogspot.com
ICT SKILLS FOR WOMEN
Empowering female academic staff with information and communication technology (ICT) skills was the aim of a workshop hosted by COL and delivered by SchoolNet South Africa at Tanzania’s Institute of Adult Education (IAE) in November. The week-long workshop, which involved 24 women who work at IAE, built capacity in ICT use for academic purposes. In addition to helping participants improve their skills and knowledge about software and applications that can be useful to ODL programmes, the workshop enhanced gender equality by focussing exclusively on the needs of women.
NEW MEDIA IN SKILLS TRAINING
Ms. Alison Mead Richardson, COL Education Specialist, Skills Development (standing), visited the State Resource Centre Kerala, India for discussions about opportunities to increase the use of new media in their skills training programmes. In addition to offering distance learning courses as an Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) Community College, the State Resource Centre delivers skills training programmes through volunteer community development workers.
UPCOMING EVENTS
- 2011 Global Forum on Borderless Higher Education
Hosted by The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education
25-27 May 2011, Vancouver, Canada
Theme: “Levelling the International Playing Field”
www.obhe.ac.uk
- The Fourteenth Cambridge International Conference on Open, Distance and e-Learning 2011
25 - 28 September 2011;
Madingley Hall, Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Theme: Internationalisation and Social Justice: the role of Open, Distance and e-Learning
Presented by the Centre for Educational Research and Development, St Edmund’s College, Cambridge UK in association with The Open University and the Commonwealth of Learning.
http://www2.open.ac.uk/r06/conference
camcon@st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk