Achieving Development Goals: Innovation, Learning, Collaboration and Foundations: The Road to London

4th Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning

Ocho Rios, Jamaica
3 November 2006

Theme:
Achieving Development Goals: Innovation, Learning, Collaboration and Foundations

The Road to London

Remarks at the Closing Ceremony

Sir John Daniel
President, Commonwealth of Learning

 

 

Honourable Ministers, Your Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates.

Three days ago it was my privilege to make some opening remarks and set the stage for the conference drawing on the conclusions of the virtual conferences that preceded this real conference.

I might say this was a very real conference. Never have I attended a conference where the level of engagement was so high. I congratulate and thank you all for acting so energetically on my request four days ago that you take full advantage of  PCF4 to develop and extend our community of practice so that, collectively, we make a great contribution to achieving the development goals.

 
May I say how good it has been to have some ODL students with us, both those who won awards last night and others sponsored by the Commonwealth Scholarship Foundation. The emergence of scholarships for people studying at a distance is a wonderful development. I am delighted to learn that the success rate of the students who obtain these scholarships is excellent and hope this will lead others to create similar scholarships, which are a most cost-effective way of expanding education.

 
Any one of us can only attend a small sample of the many sessions that have taken place. The ones that I went to were filled to capacity, as they deserved to be given the excellent presentations and interesting discussions. Thanks to the diligence of the many session chairs, who have submitted reports on their individual sessions, I now have a pretty good overview of the whole Forum and it is a very pleasing picture.

On behalf of COL and our Caribbean co-hosts I thank the session chairs, the speakers and all of you for grasping so fully the opportunities that we offered you, through the programme to take forward the practice and the theory of open and distance learning, especially as it applies to development.

 
My task in the next minutes is to summarise some of the conclusions that emerge from our three days of debate and discussion. You must forgive me in advance because I cannot possibly do proper justice to the very rich interactions that we have all engaged in. I hope however, that I can offer some useful reflection and some food for action as well as for thought.

We shall meet next as PCF5 in London. Sir Graeme Davies welcomed you to that event last evening and I add my welcome to his. I have entitled these closing remarks The Road to London, because I shall try in a minute to emphasise some conclusions that we should act on in the two years before we come together again.

I begin by paying tribute to our three keynote speakers, Winston Cox, Penina Mlama and Sugata Mitra. Three speakers who came from three continents, having different backgrounds and addressing different topics - yet whose words were united by a common emphasis on values.

 
Winston Cox stressed that using ICTs to increase participation and strengthen democracy must start from strongly held values like the Commonwealth values of peace, equality, democracy and good governance. Defining development as freedom, he noted that ICTs have powerful potential for reinforcing those values since civilisation is information.

 
Talking about journalism without journalists he showed that new media like blogs can increase the transparency that can make for a better world and other online technologies can make the processes of democracy more accessible. The message for us is that in using new technologies in governance we must raise our sights and raise our game.

Yesterday Penina Mlama began her keynote by emphasising that education is a human right. She applauded the progress made towards the Millennium Development Goals but noted that the world seemed at a loss to reduce the huge number of illiterate adults.  Observing that people used to become restless when one talked about gender, she proceeded to make us restive for ODL to attack a challenging gender agenda. Since most ODL programmes cannot claim any level of gender equality to date ODL must move beyond itself and develop formulae for addressing gender inequalities in education. For the sake of our development and our dignity we must transform the deeply entrenched gender construction.

This morning Sugata Mitra challenged us to take a robust approach to the use of ICTs for development, focusing on the poorest and least accessible areas with the best technology. A little improvement through the use of advanced technology at the bottom of the pyramid will do wonders for development. His own work arising out of the original 'hole-in-the-wall' project has shown the power of non-invasive education, meaning that children can go a very long way into using and understanding ICTs simply by using the technology and learning by doing. I am sure that you are still reflecting on his concept of outdoctrination.

These inspiring keynote addresses have been illustrated and extended by the extraordinary variety of papers that have been presented in the parallel sessions, which have been of a rare richness and intensity.

How have things changed since some of us met two years ago for PCF3 in Dunedin?

 
First we are seeing a gradual shift away from papers that are purely descriptive to presentations with deeper analysis. However, we still need to progress faster in beefing up research to underpin our activities. Vital developments like open schooling will not be taken seriously by governments and donors without more research on their cost-effectiveness and their social and educational impacts.

Second, we have heard more of the professional programme management: terms like results-based management and logic models. You had anticipated the plug for articulating models that I made in my opening remarks.

Third and most appropriately given our conference theme, there have been far more presentations from developing countries, giving, in turn, evidence of flourishing south-south collaboration.

Fourth, I detect that our talk about technology at this Forum has treated it less as a novelty that gives interesting possibilities for the delivery of ODL and more as an integral part of our practice.

Finally, phenomena like cross-border education and open educational resources, which were hardly mentioned in Dunedin, are now at the centre of debates. You have taken many copies of the publications on GATS and Cross-Border that we brought with us.

 
Let me now shift the focus forward to the road to London. What are the issues that should be on our minds as we move forward from PCF4 to PCF5?

An issue of over-riding importance is to keep the focus on ODL for access. There is a Chinese curse: 'may you achieve your fondest wish'. For years we have wanted the theory and practices of ODL to impact on teaching and learning in conventional settings. Suddenly, through eLearning, that is happening massively. The problem is that in some countries those with expertise in ODL are now spending their time beefing up a cottage-industry approach to teaching and learning on campus instead of taking education off campus to those who need it most. The empire is striking back - we must resist.

We need that expertise to keep open learning open. Are our open universities in danger of reaching a plateau and being content with their present reach into the population instead of striving to get costs down and head for the bottom of the pyramid? Will we have to wait for the private sector to take on that challenge?

In my opening remarks I talked about open educational resources. We have certainly advanced the thinking on OERs at the this meeting and we were delighted that the UK Open University did the international launch of its new OER programmes, OpenLearn and Tessa at this Forum. As Andy Lane said at the launch, 'we don't know where this will lead us'. That is the sign of a true innovation.

 
This is also true of our Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth. Don't blame me for the name, the Ministers chose it in 2000. The VUSSC is really a collaborative network in support of local institutions in the small states, not a new institution. But the international collaborative development of learning materials on line on our WikiEducator is a genuine innovation and we do not know where it will lead either.

 
Our first course development boot camp in Mauritius in August this year created a Diaspora of online course developers from scratch. Going back to my comment about the need for more research, we are excited by the idea that the University of London will create a mirror site for Wiki-Educator as a laboratory for research on the use of social software in learning for development. This would be a WikiResearcher to complement WikiEducator.

 
Some of our most heated discussions were about the difference between open and not-so-open content, between free and non-free licences. There is a genuine and healthy tension here. The impact of open educational resources on the business models of education, particularly of open universities, is an open question. As Professor Lane said, we don't know where this will lead us. But since it may have the potential to transform the cost structures of ODL we urgently require more research and development on the systems aspects of OERs.

Far from splitting into warring camps with each disputing the purity of the other's openness we must rather broaden the community of practice around OERs so that we can change educational paradigms at all levels.

This is closely related to our good sessions about copyright and I express warm thanks to WIPO for sponsoring a session here. Delegates formed new networks around copyright, you learned about the '3-step test' to aid access to copyrighted materials, and you are now familiar with the debate about the non-commercial restriction under Creative Commons Licences. You learned that developing countries need to focus on issues of digital rights management if they are to foster access to knowledge. COL will continue to focus on these issues in order to cut the costs of education and remove barriers to learning.

This is all exotic but important stuff. Let me move now to some of the very basic links between learning and development that were discussed here, starting with rural development.

 
First, I understand that the model behind the Lifelong Learning for Farmers programme in India, Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia has now proved that it is relevant to other developing countries. The challenge that emerged is to convince development agencies that mobilising communities and investing in building cognitive and structural social capital is worthwhile. Basically, as I noted on Tuesday, how do we get all the players: researchers; educational institutions and extension units to see rural communities as partners, not beneficiaries of our greater wisdom.

For COL the challenge is to go beyond projects and create a phenomenon of rapid self-replication so that the model spreads spontaneously from village to village, increasing prosperity as it does so. For ODL institutions the challenge is to extend their rich experience of non-formal education for the benefit of disadvantaged rural communities and to reorient their policies, systems and structures to foster interactive learning for development.

You pointed to another challenge of scaling up in discussions of the use of media - or rather media empowerment. Those of you who have come across it find that COL's approach to the MDGs for Health, which is to empower people with media to develop their own health messages, is working effectively. It is having an impact on improving health and reducing disease, notably malaria and HIV. The challenge is to scale this up so that more NGOs in more countries can benefit. How can we scale this up? Can we even talk of doing it on a mass scale?

 
Closely related again are programmes that relate learning as closely as possible to improved livelihoods. You noted the connection between self-respect and education, the difficulties of overcoming rural isolation and the need for collaboration to overcome the problems of small or distributed communities.

 
There was a debate about the use of public-private partnerships for technical and vocational education and training across the Commonwealth. You noted that there is an increasing demand here in the Caribbean for training youth in TVET and training TVET trainers. In Asia the Bangladesh Open University and the Allama Iqbal Open University are seeking to increase their links with NGOs for livelihood programmes. Similar discussions for the ECOWAS region of West Africa took place here too, whilst Papua New Guinea intends to play a greater role in PATVET, the Pacific Association of TVET.

Open schooling sits between the non-formal and formal systems. The conference confirmed our impression that this is a very hot topic right now. India's National Institute for Open Schooling has had a tremendous influence on developments around the world, which COL has been proud to facilitate. It was a special pleasure for me, last evening, to confer the honorary fellowship of COL on Father Kunnunkal, who was the originator of open schooling at scale.

 
The gradual achievement of Universal Primary Education creates a tidal wave of children looking for secondary education that governments simply cannot provide by conventional means because they lack both teachers and buildings. Alternative methods of schooling are also essential for marginalised groups such as nomads, street children and AIDS orphans.

Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria and Jamaica are just some of the countries that are implementing open schooling, either across the whole curriculum or for specific courses. Open schooling is supplementing traditional schooling at all levels, form basic education through to 'A' Levels. Interest in the delivery of technical and vocational courses through open schooling is increasing sharply because learners want more training in skills for livelihoods.

Media for open schooling tend, rightly to be rather traditional, because that is what is available. Radio continues to be a successful medium and computers are gradually coming into the system. At the local level open schools need to be carefully planned and the proponents of open schooling will need to show more research evidence of their effectiveness before the international community accords them the importance they deserve.

Another key application of ODL is teacher education, both pre- and in-service. The conference found that students are responding well to the use of ODL and blended learning, which is opening up access to the profession and proving the point I made in my introductory remarks. The learning challenge is so enormous that traditional approaches are not up to the task. We need new approaches for expanding learning that can be used at scale to deliver good quality at low cost.

The success of ODL programmes in this area requires that they be based on a good model of teacher education, that programme development and planning be done competently - especially as far as student support and assessment systems are concerned. In this respect the TESSA programme being launched by an African and international consortium seems particularly promising.

I understand the approach called Situated Learning Design that has been piloted in Sri Lanka attracted much interest. This is an attempt to ensure that teacher education is set firmly in the teachers' context and encourages reflective practice.

 
Coming back again to the importance of models, we now have a number of examples of Consortia for Teacher Education in different parts of the Commonwealth, such as South Asia and West Africa. It is time to compare the models being used, ask what works and what doesn't, and use the most successful model in creating future consortia.

I said on Tuesday that technology would never be far from our discussions and I remarked earlier that our attitude to technology is more mature and much less 'gee-whiz' than it was even two years ago.

I also said that because of its timing the people at this Forum were uniquely equipped to take forward the debate about mLearning. I think we have done that. In the light of our discussions here I have renamed mLearning as mMotivation. Students see their cell phones as part of their persons and like to use them. When their ODL institution uses them for communication it motivates them by making them feel included. So far applications are mostly for information and administrative updates - but we all know that getting those noticed is very important.

eLearning, on the other hand is a very big topic, especially if, as many do outside this conference, you simply use it as a modern term for ODL. I have already asked if, through eLearning, the empire of traditional education is striking back by diverting our energies to the use of technology in classrooms. Assuming we can avert this danger, you emphasised the importance of focusing on learning rather than technology in developing programmes. Electronic feedback is powerful but information about it needs to be more widely shared. Given all the hype that surrounded eLearning it is refreshing that one session showed great interest in what went wrong in the cases presented.

I conclude from the reports that you are confident that you can use eLearning effectively once the infrastructure permits it. Participation in the development of eLearning materials collaboratively for the VUSSC project has been a very empowering experience for those who have taken part so far.

Our forum theme has been Achieving Development Goals: Innovation, Learning, Collaboration and Foundations. Many discussions came back to the importance of foundations.

In my introduction I suggested a Russian doll as a metaphor for the various contexts that we have to consider in creating and offering technology-mediated learning. Sometimes those contexts embed one inside the other, sometimes we address them side by side. Foundations are in the embedded category and many of you, particularly those who are relatively new in ODL found it helpful to have the fundamentals re-affirmed through some of the problem-solving workshops.

One foundation at the core of the Russian doll is instructional design. We have been very gratified by the enthusiastic welcome that you have given to COL's Instructional Design Template. I am sorry that we did not bring enough physical copies with us to satisfy the demand, but you can find it on your COL CD. This is but one of the ways that COL tries to help the ODL community of practice and we appreciate your feedback about other tools that we should work on with you.

Learner support is another foundation of ODL. Some were surprised that there were few sessions devoted to this. Does that mean the importance of learner support is so deeply embedded in our thinking that we have less need to discuss it, or do other meetings, like the Cambridge conference, fully address the need? Those would be dangerous assumptions and learner support ought to receive more attention in the London programme, something that Roger Mills, who will be involved in its design, is eminently qualified to ensure.

The same goes to a lesser extent for administration and logistics, although there were some fruitful discussions here on the challenge of transforming a conventional educational institution for dual mode operation. This is a very important area since much of the development of ODL in the coming years will be through dual-mode provision, yet organising an institution to deliver effectively both in classrooms and at a distance is notoriously difficult to achieve.

The positive interpretation of this aspect of the programme structure is that this Forum has been less concerned to explore all aspects of conventional ODL and more focussed on the new challenges of learning for development. With the possible exception of some of the Dakar goals, the development goals that have formed the backdrop to our meeting challenge our organisations to operate in new ways.

 
We are finding that it is not easy to apply the principles of instructional design and learner support within these new approaches, which are often community led. Nevertheless, the growing worldwide community of practice of ODL and technology-mediated learning is probably better equipped than any other to address these challenges as Penina Mlama argued yesterday in the case of gender. I am sure that we all intend to maintain the focus on Learning for Development on the Road to London.

   
I am indebted to my colleagues for many of these insights. I have sometimes expressed the conclusions of the conference in the dry language of development but at the end of the day we are talking about human beings and, in Winston Cox's quotation from John Stuart Mill two days ago, 'the perfection of our nature'.

 
In this respect it was my colleague Karen Speirs, editor of COL's Newsletter Connections, who summed it up best. When I asked her at the Banquet last evening what had impressed her about the conference she said simply:

"It is the enduring spirit of hope and the appetite for learning against all odds".

And when I turned to our colleague from Samoa, Ioana Chan Mow, who was sitting next to me she said:

"There is real capacity building going on here".

Those are not bad epitaphs for PCF4. Thank you all for being the Fourth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning over the last few days. I hope you recognised something of yourselves in the remarks that I have made. That is my take on PCF4.

 
Have a good trip on the road to London! I look forward to seeing you at PCF5