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Summary - Livelihoods  

Fifth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning
London, UK

17 July 2008

Summary of Livelihoods

Livelihoods theme leaders:
Krishna Alluri, Education Specialist, Food Security & Environment and Joshua Mallet, Education Specialist, Learning & Livelihoods, Commonwealth of Learning and Peter Fenrich, Project Leader and Instructional Multimedia Designer at British Columbia Institute of Technology

Summary delivered by Krishna Alluri
Commonwealth of Learning

 

Dear distinguished Invitees, Chairs, Facilitators, Reporters and Participants,

Let me on behalf of the Livelihood Theme Leaders, Joshua Mallet, Peter Fenrich and myself, express our sincere appreciation to the organisers of the PCF5 and make a special mention of those who played significant roles in the Livelihoods Theme as follows:

  • Four special invitees and speakers during the Introductory Session, Messrs. Zamal Uddin Biswas, Monty Jones, Dyno Keatinge and Shivani Jain;
  • The Think Tank Team who helped plan the Livelihoods programme and in particular, Ajit Maru, Balasubramanian, Som Naidu and Rainer Zachmann
  • Two key members of the Theme Reporters, Shaheen Nanji and M. S. Alam.

Thanks to all of your valuable contributions to the Livelihoods theme, which attracted the largest number of papers and also covered other PCF5 themes related to children and young people, health and governance.. We had 23 sessions that were grouped under 5 broad topics, as follows:

  1. INSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGE ISSUES
  2. CAPACITY ISSUES
  3. TECHNOLOGY ISSUES
  4. CONTENT ISSUES and
  5. OVERALL PROGRAMME ISSUES

We requested the participants to tailor their presentations as well as their contributions during discussions to aim at responding to the following 5 questions:

  • What Open and e-Learning policies, systems, models and materials have worked for Livelihoods?
  • What have not worked?
  • What were the barriers for Open and e-Learning for Livelihoods?
  • What are the potential solutions?
  • What are relevant considerations for Open and e-Learning for Livelihoods for the future?

To capture the information for the above questions, we designed the Livelihoods Report Template under 6 specific items, as follows:

  1. Background of the topic covered and an Outline of theoretical perspectives explored
  2. Summary of evidences (data) that are offered
  3. Unresolved issues and challenges
  4. Potential solutions
  5. Useful resources, people or institutions and
  6. The role that COL and its partners can play in strengthening the use of Open and e-Learning for effective learning for livelihoods.

It became evident that the success of COL is largely due to its partners and thanks to all of you.

While the detailed observations and conclusions would be captured later, the participants identified that COL and its partners need to aim at the following 5 key areas for the future:

  1. Bringing Change in Learning for Livelihoods through (i) greater focus on disadvantaged  communities (ii) reorienting and creating new learning systems and (iii) reorienting and creating new institutions 
  2. Taking the lead in creating greater awareness, sensitisation and advocacy for Livelihoods through Open and e-Learning. This should include specific new focus on climate change and environment as they relate to Livelihoods
  3. Facilitating capacity development especially for developing a new cadre of knowledge intermediaries, with focus on youth and girls as well as creating Open Education Resources for Livelihoods
  4. Facilitating partnerships, collaboration and coherence for collective action
  5. Considering the development of a Global Task Force for all activities related to Livelihoods through Open and e-Learning policies, systems, approaches, models and materials.

Three weeks prior to PCF5, we started to communicate with the participants through Google Group e-discussions on "Open and e-Learning for Livelihoods", which we wish to continue to use for further follow-up of the outcomes of the PCF5.

Once again, many thanks to all of you for your contributions that resulted in an exceptional learning experience for us all and allowed us to capture valuable outputs for our collective benefit for furthering the Open and e-Learning for Livelihoods.

Thank You All.