Ms Mpumi Mdlalose promotes tourism in one of Africa’s smallest countries. As a marketing representative with the Swaziland Tourism Authority, Ms Mdlalose helps tour operators and individual travelers plan travel in her country. In July 2007, she took part in a five-day training workshop for tour guides at the University of Swaziland’s Institute of Distance Education. This was a valuable opportunity to gain new skills and knowledge while networking with others in the tourism industry. Ms Mdlalose returned to work with improved communication skills, new knowledge about crisis management and the ability to create a community strategy for the Tourism Authority. In a small country where training opportunities are scarce, this workshop made a real difference to Ms Mdlalose and her colleagues.
The Tourism course that Ms Mdlalose attended used course materials provided at no cost by the Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC). Led by COL, VUSSC is a ground-breaking initiative that is transforming lives and livelihoods in some of the smallest and poorest states in the Commonwealth.
The idea for VUSSC originated at the Commonwealth Ministers of Education Conference in Halifax, Canada in 2000. Ministers of education from several small states expressed a concern: with the rapid growth of the Internet and eLearning, would their countries be left behind? COL was asked to conduct a review exploring how these countries could advance their education systems. COL’s recommendations were approved by the Education Ministers three years later, and the Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth was born.
VUSSC is designed to address the unique challenges of small states. Access to educational materials is a significant obstacle to using education in the development of nations, particularly in small states. Defined by their small populations and relative isolation more than their geographic size, small states are often characterised by limited natural resources and a small population that has limited skills for the global market. Small landlocked states face challenges in transporting goods; island states are confronted by the high cost of sea and air links. Small states are often more vulnerable to natural calamities and are less able to recover than countries with more resources and people.
In this context, small states stand to gain substantially from increased learning. Huge advances in technology in recent years enable small states to connect, collaborate and be included in the Knowledge Revolution. Not a traditional bricks-and-mortar institution, VUSSC is a consortium of ministries of education and institutions enabled by information and communications technology (ICT) applications, working together to plan programmes, develop the required content and ensure delivery of these programmes and support services to learners.
First step: build capacity
To form a network where small countries all contribute to the development of course materials, participants needed to form relationships with peers in other countries that could be on the other side of the world. And they needed to learn to collaborate online, across national, cultural and sometimes language barriers.
In 2006, COL hosted its first “boot camp” or training and materials development workshop for educators from 13 Commonwealth small states in Mauritius in August 2006. Over a three-week period, participants developed online skills to enable them to collaboratively develop learning content for courses in entrepreneurship and tourism. After the participants returned to their home countries, they continued to contribute to content development and they committed to training colleagues in the skills they learned.
One of the participants in the Mauritius workshop was Ms Nokuthula Vilakati, Co-ordinator of Materials Design and Development at the University of Swaziland’s Institute of Distance Education. In addition to gaining practical skills in collaborative design and development of learning content, Ms Vilakati also learned how to develop activities and study skills related to the subject area. She says there is an urgent need to develop the skills of tour guides in Swaziland.
“There is a dire need for well trained tour guides to boost Swaziland’s tourism industry, especially as we approach the Soccer World Cup in South Africa in 2010,” Ms Vilakati explains. “By having access to the VUSSC learning materials, we were able to conduct a very useful training session for tour guides.”
The success of the VUSSC workshop in Mauritius led to subsequent workshops in Samoa, Seychelles, Singapore, Trinidad & Tobago and the Bahamas. Each workshop had a focus for content development including life skills, professional development of educators and disaster management. The aim is to provide learners with a wide variety of educational opportunities and the flexibility to choose when, where and how they learn. This takes advantage of one of the greatest strengths of open and distance learning.
By 2008, 30 small states had committed to VUSSC and over 100 people had taken part in workshops facilitated by COL. It’s estimated that well over 500 additional people have received training from workshop participants and the use of the learning materials continues to expand the benefits. The workshops received financial support from COL, the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
The COL website provides free access to VUSSC courses developed by small states, for small states. The workshop in Swaziland for tour guides is an example of how VUSSC materials can be accessed and used to meet local needs.
Developing learning content has caused COL to investigate copyright licenses more deeply, especially in the case of Creative Commons licenses. Interpretations for the so-called “non-commercial” and “no derivatives” are available on COL’s website.
Increasing eLearning
Meanwhile, the learning continues among educators. In Swaziland, Ms Vilakati and two colleagues are continuing to develop learning content on ethics and standards in tour guiding. VUSSC enables her team to contribute content and gain access to content developed elsewhere.
As educators continue to discover the potential of eLearning, they will help learners seize opportunities and help people in small states acquire the skills and training they need to improve their livelihoods and contribute to development in their country.
www.col.org/vussc