THREE-YEAR PLAN 

Three-Year Plan, 2009-2012

COL’s Three-Year Plan for 2009-2012, Learning for Development, is available for download on the right. This final version replaces three previous drafts that have been posted for discussion. This final version was presented to Commonwealth Ministers of Education and received their endorsement at the 17th triennial Conference (CCEM) to be held in Kuala Lumpur in June 2009.

Learning for Development includes an executive summary, a welcome message from our Board Chair, H.E. the Hon. Burchell Whiteman, a foreword from COL President, Sir John Daniel, a fold-out Logic Model and a summary of the external evaluation of COL’s work during 2006-2009.

The plan benefits from Commonwealth-wide consultation through various formal and informal channels including meetings of COL’s country Focal Points and COL’s Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (London, July 2008).

Also available for download on the right is Logic Model, the external evaluation of COL’s work during 2006-2009, COL in the Commonwealth 2006-2009 (a compendium of reports on COL’s work in each Commonwealth country in the last three years) and a file containing references for various quotes contained in the Three-Year Plan.

COL is also working with Ministries of Education in preparing Country Action Plans in order to ensure that the implementation of Learning for Development in each country will closely match the Government’s priorities for COL’s work.

Foreword from the President:

COL enters its third decade with confidence. The number of countries making voluntary contributions to its budget has grown to 41 – with some having made significant increases – and additional financial contributions are a mainstay of COL’s work.

Comprehensive Commonwealth-wide consultation underpinned a robust plan for the 2006–2009 triennium. COL is building on that foundation by implementing the recommendations of an external evaluation of its work in 2006–2009 (see Appendix 1 on page 48), while retaining the theme, Learning for Development. This new plan takes account of the declarations of the 2006 Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (Cape Town) and the 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Kampala). The 700 delegates to the Fifth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning in London in 2008 discussed the relevance of all aspects of COL’s programme. To consult governments directly, COL brought its country Focal Points together in three regional meetings. In these ways COL has refreshed its understanding of Member States’ needs and sharpened the focus of this plan for 2009–2012.

The context of COL’s work has evolved in three years. Its plan for the new triennium responds to three imperatives in the contemporary agenda for development:

• a global economic slowdown requires billions of people to learn their way to new livelihoods and demands cost-effectiveness in educational spending;
• Universal Primary Education is finally on the horizon and a surge towards secondary schooling must now be satisfied; and
• healthy communities, in which free individuals treat each other with respect and understanding, are best equipped to face contemporary
  challenges.

The plan adapts to three trends in the technologies available for learning:

• continuing expansion of connectivity is enabling much greater access to technology-mediated learning;
• new social software is transforming the Web into a vast space for online collaboration; and
• open educational resources herald the emergence of a global intellectual commons.

In the 2009–2012 triennium, COL will pursue eight initiatives in two sectors: Education and Livelihoods & Health. In all its activities COL will seek to scale up and extend its successful models for the application of technology to learning.

COL will develop country action proposals in consultation with its Focal Points and partners to link this strategy to each nation’s priorities.

Through this plan, COL will help governments and institutions advance development more effectively by expanding opportunities for learning.

Sir John Daniel
President and CEO
Commonwealth of Learning