Papua New Guinea’s national open schooling system to go digital.
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) @COL4D will continue supporting Papua New Guinea’s Flexible Open and Distance Education (FODE) system to help scale a digital open schooling model for Grades 7–12. Following a successful pilot and independent evaluation in 2024, COL will assist FODE in implementing a national Technology-Enabled Learning and Open Educational Resources (TEL/OER) policy and rollout strategy for the period 2025–2028.
The project aims to reduce reliance on printed materials, enhance learner engagement, and improve cost efficiency. A hybrid model will launch in late 2025, starting with digitised content for Grades 11 and 12, and expanding to Grades 9–10 and eventually Grades 7–8 by 2027.
COL supported FODE in developing digital open schooling content for Grades 11 and 12 using a Moodle platform as a first step. A mini-pilot of the Grade 11 content received positive feedback from students and teachers. Following an independent evaluation of the support provided by COL to date in 2024, COL recently offered further support to the FODE team to finalise a technology-enabled learning and open education resources policy and related implementation strategy for the period 2025-2028, as well as a student engagement and support handbook for FODE online learners.
The Implementation Strategy operationalises the Technology-Enabled Learning and Open Educational Resources (TEL/OER) Policy, aiming to transform FODE into a national leader in flexible, equitable education. Aligned with Papua New Guinea’s National Education Plan 2020–2029 and Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4), it leverages technology and open educational resources to overcome barriers, enhance teaching, and ensure sustainable learning opportunities for all.
Roll-out of the new model will commence later in 2025 for Grades 11 and 12, with expansion of digitisation of Grade 9-10 content starting alongside continuation of the print-based version from the fourth quarter of 2025, and with digitisation of Grade 7-8 content commencing from the fourth quarter of 2026. By the end of the first quarter of 2027, FODE plans to “deliver equitable, high-quality education to Grades 9-12 via a hybrid TEL/OER system, reduce costs by 30 per cent, and position itself as a model for distance education, with plans subsequently to extend to Grades 7-8.”
Dr Tony Mays, COL’s Director: Education, observed that “for existing open schooling providers seeking to change their models of provision, there is need for a gradual process to build staff capacity, update policies and procedures, build systems, onboard students, pilot, evaluate and scale, possibly with the help of other external partners. However, for long-term sustainability, the new models of provision need to be integrated into the national budget. In the interim, staff will need to manage multiple models of provision, which will likely mean the need to recruit more support from part-time staff for online tutoring, assessment, monitoring, and evaluation.”
#COL4D #FODE #EducationForAll #DigitalLearning #OpenSchooling #EdTech #PapuaNewGuinea #DistanceEducation #FutureOfLearning #TechEnabledEducation #OER #FlexibleLearning
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Photos from COL4D's Empowering Women & Girls's post
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From innovation to impact: AI-powered OER training equips Ghanaian educators.
As part of its ongoing efforts to advance inclusive, high-quality teacher education, the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) @col4d is scaling up the use of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in resource-constrained settings. A recent workshop in Ghana, conducted under COL’s Teacher-in-the-Loop AI (TiL AI) project, demonstrated how AI-powered tools can support educators in co-creating curriculum-aligned Open Educational Resources (OER) while mentoring the next generation of teachers. Twenty-two educators at Wesley College of Education, Ghana, recently participated in a training workshop exploring the transformative potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in teacher education. The workshop aimed to empower participants to use generative AI for co-creating inclusive and curriculum-aligned educational resources while mentoring pre-service teachers of Biology.
Organised in collaboration with the Centre for National Distance Learning and Open Schooling (CENDLOS) @CENDLOS_gh, the workshop marked a significant step toward scaling AI integration in Colleges of Education across Ghana. The activity brought together lecturers as mentors and pre-service teachers committed to improving teacher capacity and classroom innovation.
In his opening remarks, the Principal of Wesley College of Education, Mr Kennedy Ameyaw Baah, highlighted the value of ethical and strategic AI integration, calling on COL and the Government of Ghana to extend similar capacity-building programmes nationwide. He said, “Such a national rollout would ensure a broader cascading impact and accelerate the modernisation of teacher education.”
The workshop introduced participants to practical AI applications using COL’s AI-powered OER platform. This system supports participants in generating lesson plans, activities, and teaching materials tailored to the national curriculum. Peer review, contextual adaptation, and pedagogical alignment are central to the process, reinforcing COL’s Teacher-in-the-Loop approach.
A total of 22 OER for the subject Biology were developed during the workshop, with more resources to be developed subsequently through a co-creative mentoring process involving teacher educators and 100 pre-service teachers. About 80 of these teachers have completed COL’s short course on “Understanding OER”.
COL’s Education Specialist for Teacher Education, Dr Betty Ogange, observed, “Generative AI should be viewed as a valuable teaching and research partner that enhances educators’ capacity to design locally relevant, contextualised learning experiences that meet the real needs of their students and communities.”
COL’s TiL AI project continues to support teachers and TVET trainers in Ghana, India, Jamaica, Kenya and Nigeria.
#COL4D #GhanaEducation #TeacherTraining #EdTechAfrica #InclusiveEducation #EducationInnovation
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