“Mindset change is essential for digitalisation in education.” This was the message from an inter-ministerial webinar organised by @COL4D. Chaired by the Hon. Justin Valentin, Minister of Education, Seychelles, and joined by senior officials from the Ministry of Education, Guyana, as panellists, the webinar saw the participation of several experts from countries in the Caribbean, Indian Ocean Region and sub-Saharan Africa. The panellists, including Professor Peter Scott, President of COL @peter_scott, dwelt in depth on three critical questions:
1. How are we expanding education beyond traditional campuses?
2. How can we make online learning fair and affordable for everyone?
3. What have we learned from rolling out educational technology to large numbers of students?
The panellists posited that:
• There was clarity in what online or technology-assisted learning does;
o It is not meant to displace the teacher and the curricula;
o It is more an infusion and a means rather than an end in itself; and
• There are significant limitations in digital infrastructure availability in most countries. There is also notable progress.
Professor Scott gave examples from Pacific Island countries, where significant challenges in the availability and access of technology are being overcome with teacher training and sensitization of officials. The Guyana team gave examples of how technology-enabled learning was gradually getting mainstreamed in the country.
The panellists agreed that implementing digitalisation in education also posed serious risks. Minister Valentin gave examples of how limited access to bandwidth was posing challenges to learners living in resource-limited areas. A cooperative approach to detecting and mitigating risks was proposed. The Minister, as well as senior officials, thanked COL for its support in enabling technology infusion in learning in their countries.
Also discussed was how a regional cooperative framework on micro-credentials would facilitate countries' bridging of informal and formal learning within and across boundaries. The Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC) framework has been helpful in the past and can be modernised with a dedicated digitalisation group.
PLEASE NOTE: On 25 September 2024, there will be another webinar of a similar nature for the Pacific region. Stay tuned for more details.
#CHOGM2024 #Resilience #DigitalisationInEducation #MindsetChange #OnlineLearning #InclusiveEducation #TechnologyInEducation #TeacherTraining #MicroCredentials #COL4D #PacificIslandsEducation #VUSSC
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Skill development is a matter of priority in many countries in the Pacific. There is an articulated need to enhance the quality of Technical and Vocation Education and Training (TVET). @COL4D with its Pacific regional centre, PACFOLD at the University of the South Pacific, has pioneered the development of a Pacific TVET Toolkit meant to address this challenge.
As part of this innovation in educational technology, the online TVET toolkit for the Pacific is improving the efficiency of training materials development by bringing together e-learning modules, case studies, research articles, and templates – with the aim of growing and increasing the skills of TVET practitioners in the Pacific region. There are country coordinators for the TVET toolkit in Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
Recently, COL, in collaboration with PACFOLD, hosted a regional workshop on the design of micro-credentials aligned to the Pacific TVET Online Toolkit. Full story here: www.col.org/news/regional-workshop-underway-in-pacific-on-design-of-micro-credentials-for-tvet/
#CHOGM2024 #Resilience #ODFL #TVET #MFAT #MFATNZ #pacfold #COL4D #openlearning #distancelearning #FlexibleLearning #ODFL #Fiji #Kiribati #Nauru #papuanewguinea #samoa #solomonislands #Tonga #Tuvalu #Vanuatu
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Read: @COL4D’s Empowering Women and Girls (EWG) @EWG_23 project is partnering with the Society for the Protection and Rights of Children (SPARC) @SPARCPK and BEDARI @BedariPakistan to provide skills training in a hybrid mode to more than 20,000 women and girls to create sustainable livelihoods.
The project, with funding from Global Affairs Canada (GAC) @GAC_Corporate, is designed to alleviate poverty while promoting gender equality in rural, remote, and disadvantaged communities in the Khushab, Bhakkar, Multan, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, and Islamabad districts over the next three years. Furthermore, 5,000 men and boys will be actively engaged in various training interventions to ensure that they have the potential to promote gender equality in their communities and help contribute to changing discriminatory social norms.
COL initiated the EWG project with GAC in 2023 with the goal of improving the realisation of human rights for women and girls from disadvantaged communities in selected areas of five Commonwealth member states, including Pakistan.
#CHOGM2024 #Resilience #EmpoweringWomen #GenderEquality #SustainableLivelihoods #SkillsTraining #WomenEmpowerment #GirlsEducation #PovertyAlleviation #CommunityDevelopment #HybridTraining #RuralDevelopment #GlobalAffairsCanada #COL4D #SPARC #BedariPakistan #HumanRights #SocialNormChange #DisadvantagedCommunities #PakistanDevelopment #InclusiveSociety
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