Executive Summary 

Governments face a difficult dilemma in responding to the global economic downturn. On the one hand they must help their people adapt to wrenching change by expanding opportunities for education, training and learning generally. On the other hand they must ensure that state spending on human resource development is as cost-effective as possible. The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) has developed its plan for 2009–2012 to help address this dilemma.

COL’s mission is to help governments and institutions expand the scope, scale and quality of learning by using new approaches and technologies, especially those subsumed under the general term of open and distance learning (ODL).

ODL is a cost-effective approach to expanding education. Its use has grown rapidly over the 20 years since Commonwealth Heads of Government established COL. Today, thanks to expanding connectivity and new developments in information and communications technologies (ICTs) such as social software and open educational resources, ODL applications continue to accelerate. The interactive Web is a rich environment for learning and a powerful vehicle for expanding awareness about the possible futures of humankind.

The theme of this plan, Learning for Development, expresses a vision that reaches beyond formal education to embrace areas of learning that are vital for better livelihoods, greater prosperity and a safer environment. Understanding development as the process of increasing the freedoms that people can enjoy, COL pursues this vision operationally within the framework of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the campaign for Education for All (EFA) and Commonwealth values.

While building on the extensive pan-Commonwealth consultation conducted for the previous triennium, COL has refreshed its understanding of current development priorities through regional meetings with the country Focal Points appointed by Ministers of Education. A rigorous external evaluation of its work in 2006–2009 has enabled COL to play to its strengths in responding to these priorities.

COL’s first response is to tighten the focus of its programme work. COL’s two programme sectors, Education and Livelihoods & Health, embrace just eight initiatives that will help governments pursue the twin goals of expanding access to learning and using public funds cost-effectively.

Its second response is to scale up its impact. Working with its country partners, COL has developed powerful models for applying technology to learning for development. These models must now be applied at scale and extended to new countries.

The programme initiatives are:

Education

• Open Schooling: Growing success in achieving universal primary education is creating a surge of demand for secondary schooling, that many governments will not be able to satisfy by building more schools. Open schooling can deliver quality education cost-effectively at scale.
• Teacher Education: Achieving the MDGs and EFA will require hiring millions of new teachers as well as training millions of others already in post but needing to be upgraded. Teacher education institutions will not be able to meet these demands without adopting the methods of ODL. This is where COL can help.
• Higher Education: Faced with burgeoning demand, many countries are creating open universities to expand access to higher education. COL will facilitate the expansion of quality higher education and share programmes among institutions, including imaginative courseware to promote the Commonwealth agenda of Respect and Understanding.
• Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth: Hundreds of teachers and officials have acquired advanced ICT skills through this network. It produces and shares eCourses in skills-related areas within a new Transnational Qualifications Framework and links them together in a common portal.

Livelihoods & Health

• Skills Development: COL assists with the development of policy for the use of ODL in skills development and works with partners to design and deliver quality courses that are increasingly rich in ICTs. Partnerships among institutions at different stages of development operate in a spirit of south-south co-operation.
• Learning for Farming: Lifelong Learning for Farmers (L3F) is a
  successful grassroots model for increasing rural prosperity. It uses ICTs to link banks and universities to village communities to exploit new economic opportunities. It is now being implemented at scale by training a cadre of knowledge info-mediaries.
• Healthy Communities: COL’s Media Empowerment model has proven its effectiveness for bringing health messages to communities. It will now be scaled up by training health groups and communities to create and share learning materials and to make effective use of community media.
• Integrating eLearning: Countries are eager to raise levels of digital literacy and deploy eLearning in their education systems. To build capacity, COL is training educators to develop eLearning materials, to conduct eTutoring, and to share materials as open educational resources through communities of practice.

The cross-cutting themes of gender, quality and appropriate technology are pervasive throughout the programme.

COL pursues its aims through five core strategies: partnerships, models, policies, capacity and materials. These strategies focus on co-creating value with COL’s extensive network of partners and stimulating new developments.

To be better present at the regional level, COL has its own unit in India, the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA). In West Africa it works with RETRIDOL (Regional Training and Research Institute for Distance and Open Learning) and in Southern Africa with SADC-CDE (Southern African Development Community Centre for Distance Education).

To adapt its programme to fit the unique needs of each country, COL develops individual Country Action Plans after extensive consultations with Ministers, Focal Points and partner institutions. These are monitored and updated regularly. COL in the Commonwealth, a compendium of individual Country Reports, is published at the end of each triennium.

COL practises results-based management. This is summarised through a logic model that lays out the expected long- and intermediate-term results (impacts and outcomes) over the three-year period. Outputs and activities, and the inputs needed to achieve them, are set out annually in log frames that are integrated with the logic model and are specific to each initiative. The log frames are regularly updated and include detailed performance indicators.

COL exists through its partnerships and maintains relationships with many stakeholders, including member governments, institutions, donors and individuals. Its network of Focal Points in all Commonwealth countries is a key component of this strategy. In 2009–2012 it will formalise other links by establishing honorary chairs in open universities and creating a network of advisors.

To build on its core strengths and operate effectively in a fast-changing world, COL has identified six critical success factors to help it manage risk: financial stability, partnerships, visibility, leadership, managing expectations and emerging issues. Risk-mitigation strategies are reviewed regularly by the Board of Governors’ Audit Committee.

COL is an intergovernmental body established by a Memorandum of Understanding, signed by Commonwealth Governments, and a Headquarters Agreement with the Government of Canada. It has sound structures in place for governance and management. The Board of Governors updates its governance manual regularly and management operates through four functions: stakeholder engagement; the programme; knowledge management, information systems and communications; and finance, administration and human resources.

COL’s financial strategy is based on three sources of revenue. Voluntary contributions from more than 40 Member States provide approximately 80% of the annual budget. Additional contributions (from grants and fee-for-service work) and miscellaneous revenue account for the remainder. On the expenditure side, a minimum of 80% of the budget is directed to the programme and not more than 20% to organisational management and governance.

A human resource strategy, including a rotation policy for its internationally recruited specialists and a performance
management system, helps COL maintain a dedicated and expert team of people. At its headquarters in Vancouver and at CEMCA in New Delhi, staff work with modern knowledge management and information technology systems that are carefully tailored to the needs of the organisation and the Member States that it serves.