Building capacities and expanding skills development in the Pacific through open, flexible, and distance learning.
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) #COL4D is actively building the capacities of teachers, education officials, and TVET trainers across the Pacific, while simultaneously training thousands of youth in essential skills through open, flexible, and distance learning. Countries like #Fiji, #Kiribati, #Nauru, #PapuaNewGuinea, #Samoa, #SolomonIslands, #Tonga and #Tuvalu are benefiting from these initiatives, which aim to integrate digital competencies into education systems for sustainable development.
Through the Pacific Centre for Flexible and Open Learning for Development (PACFOLD)hosted at the University of the South Pacific @UniSouthPacific, COL is driving this transformation by offering a range of online courses designed to enhance digital literacy for educators. These courses cover essential areas, from foundational digital skills to advanced topics such as online assessment and digital content creation.
In addition to formal training, COL is working with governments to strengthen resilience in infrastructure, expand access to digital resources, and foster innovation in learning environments. This collaborative effort is not only transforming classrooms but also empowering teachers to adapt to a rapidly evolving educational landscape. It ensures equity, enabling all students to access quality education and acquire the skills necessary for future employment.
COL’s commitment to capacity building extends beyond educators. The organization’s open and distance learning frameworks are enabling youth in the Pacific to develop practical skills, ensuring they are prepared for the demands of the modern workforce.
COL remains dedicated to supporting the Pacific region’s educators, officials, and youth as they embrace technology and innovation to build a brighter, more equitable future.
#Resilience #CHOGM2024 #DigitalSkills #CapacityBuilding #TVET #EducationForAll #PacificYouth #Empowerment #Innovation #PACFOLD #FutureReady #TechInEducation #DigitalLiteracy #QualityEducation #MFAT #NewZealand
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COL's ODL practitioner mentorship programme fosters Pan-Commonwealth collaboration in higher education.
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) #COL4D launched the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) Practitioner Researcher Mentorship Programme in 2023 for early-career researchers in higher education. Research plays a vital role in advancing COL’s mission of assisting governments, institutions and organisations in enhancing the scale, efficiency, and quality of learning through appropriate open, distance and technology-based approaches. This programme was created to encourage and support practitioner research within the ODL sector, thereby promoting high-quality educational research in higher education.
Dr Jako Olivier, COL Adviser: Higher Education, observed, “The programme not only supports capacity building of academics researching ODL, but it also provides an ideal opportunity to create scholarly networks across institutions and countries. An example is the ongoing collaboration between the mentor, Professor Norm Vaughan (Mount Royal University, Canada) and the assigned mentee, Associate Professor Mpho-Entle Modise (University of South Africa), which has now extended beyond the end of the first cohort’s mentorship duration.
Their collaboration has been extensive, including joint research projects, co-presentations at conferences and seminars, and developing a strong mentee-mentor relationship. It serves as a testament to the power of mentorship in advancing research and professional development in the ODL field. Their joint efforts have already resulted in an article accepted for the Canadian Journal of Teacher Education special issue in 2024, titled ‘ePortfolios: A 360-degree approach to assessment in teacher education’. They are currently working on a second article and have presented on various ePortfolio-related topics at the National Open University of Nigeria and the #UNESCO Chair of ODL at the University of South Africa.
Despite the programme’s reliance on technology for communication between mentors and mentees, Professors Vaughan and Modise were eager to meet in person and had the opportunity when their paper was accepted for presentation at the eLearning Africa conference in Kigali, Rwanda, in May 2024. Dr Olivier notes that a second cohort of 36 mentees from 15 different countries started the programme earlier this year, building on the success of the 2023 programme in creating networks of thought leaders in ODL across the Commonwealth.
#Resilience #CHOGM2024 #Commonwealth #HigherEducation #DistanceLearning #ODL #ResearchMentorship #PanCommonwealth #EducationResearch #AcademicMentorship #OnlineEducation #CommonwealthCollaboration #OpenLearning
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The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) @COL4D values its Caribbean partners. In celebrating partners’ impact at the national and institutional levels regarding access to quality online teaching and learning, COL pauses to reflect on and share the outcomes of a sustainable initiative – St Vincent and the Grenadines Community College capacity-building project.
At its launch in early 2023, Prime Minister, the Honourable Dr Ralph Gonsalves @ComradeRalph described COL as “an institution of solidarity” for its transformative role in helping to realise the government’s strategic plan of having one graduate per household by 2030. This collaboration signals a positive educational change of inclusiveness, agility, and access for a small state of the Commonwealth, St Vincent and the Grenadines, made attainable through e-learning.
#Resilience #CHOGM2024 #COL4D #StVincentAndTheGrenadines #CaribbeanEducation #SVGCC #Elearning #CapacityBuilding #InclusiveEducation #SustainableDevelopment #OnlineLearning #GraduatePerHousehold #EducationForAll #SmallStates #DigitalEducation #PartnershipForEducation #EducationalTransformation
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