The Asa Briggs Lecture will be delivered by Sir Shridath ("Sonny") Ramphal, former Commonwealth Secretary-General (1975-1990) and former Foreign Minister of Guyana on a topic of relevance to education in the Commonwealth. This Lecture honours the founding Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Commonwealth of Learning and distinguished British historian, The Rt. Hon. Lord Briggs of Lewes, who was instrumental in COL's establishment.

More (and bio)... here

Asa Briggs Lecture (6 July 2004)
 

Mrs. Shona Butterfield, TEC Commissioner
Keynote Address (5 July 2004)

The Honourable Mrs. Ann Therese Ndong-Jatta, Secretary of State for Education, The Gambia
Keynote Address (7 July 2004)
 

Professor Russell Bishop, is foundation Professor and Assistant Dean for Maori Education in the School of Education at the University of Waikato. He is a qualified teacher, having taught in secondary schools in Porirua and the Cook Islands. Prior to his present appointment he was a senior lecturer in Maori Education in the Education Department at the University of Otago and also acted as Interim Director for Otago University's Teacher Education programme. His research experience is in the area of collaborative storying in Maori contexts, having written a book Collaborative research stories: Whakawhanaungatanga and published nationally and internationally on this topic. His other research interests include Teacher Education, sustainable professional development and Collaborative Storying as Pedagogy. The latter area is the subject of a book, co-authored with Professor Ted Glynn, published in 1999. This book Culture Counts: Changing Power Relationships in Classrooms, demonstrates how the experiences developed from within kaupapa Maori settings; schooling, research and policy development, can be applied to mainstream educational settings.

He was the recipient of Te Tohu Pae Tawhiti, The New Zealand Association for Research in Education's research award for Maori education in 2003. He has been an invited keynote speaker to numerous conferences in recent years and an invited visiting scholar to a number of Canadian Universities.

He is currently the project director for a Ministry of Education
funded research /professional development project that seeks to improve the educational achievement of Maori students in mainstream classrooms.

Keynote Address (8 July 2004)

Sir John Daniel, President and CEO, Commonwealth of Learning  
Closing Remarks (8 July 2004)

Sir Paul Reeves, previous Governor General

The Honourabe Mr. Trevor Mallard, Minister of Education, New Zealand

Overview of Ngäi Tahu Keynote Address
With around half of the Ngäi Tahu population (totalling almost 40,000) living outside the takiwä (tribal boundary), including 10% residing overseas, how do we ensure that our people are informed, kept up to date with the latest tribal news, and have access to knowledge?

We will outline our strategic direction in education and language revitalisation, achievements to date and where we plan to head in terms of pioneering the transmission of tribal language and knowledge. We will also demonstrate learning techniques using our website and wireless technology and outline some of the geographical and technological challenges facing our people and other indigenous nations.

Janine Kapa, Education Manager for the Ngäi Tahu tribe. She is responsible for the entire education portfolio, including strategy development and implementation, and leads a team which works with education representatives in each of the 18 papatipu rünanga (sub-tribal councils).

Since graduating in the early 1990s, she has taught te reo Mäori, been a teaching fellow and Mäori Liaison Officer at Otago University, worked as a Skills Advisor, then Regional Mäori Advisor for the Education Training Support Agency, and at ACNielsen as a Research Executive. In 1999, she co-established a bicultural communications business in Wellington -working with a range of public and private sector organisations. In 2002, Janine and her business partner developed an interactive, bicultural CD-Rom, Te Rito, now licensed to over a dozen Government departments and agencies.

Karaitiana Taiuru, IT Manager for the Ngäi Tahu Language Revitalisation Unit, Te Waka Reo. Over the past 10 years, Karaitiana has been involved with authoring software
and papers to assist Mäori language revitalisation. He has also been working with the New Zealand Internet community to ensure that online learning is more accessible and 'comfortable' for Maori internet users. Major advancements in this area have included the first indigenous second level domain name - .maori.nz - and Mäori Language writing/editing tools.

Recently, he has been involved with a Ngäi Tahu community portal to assist the promotion and learning of te reo Mäori. Ngäi Tahu have been pioneers in the promotion of Mäori language, moving into new areas including wireless and DVD applications, while also researching leading technology.