Annual Report, part 2: National Center News
Open Learning Exchange is working with groups in a number of countries that would like to establish local OLEs and be part of the global effort to support universal basic education. The OLE Annual Report for 2007 highlighted progress by two of these centers:
OLE Nepal: The Center now has a fulltime staff of six, plus several volunteers who seem to work almost full-time to help develop OLE. OLE Nepal ahs a formal Memorandum of Understanding with the Nepali Department of Education to conduct a pilot project during 2008 on the impact of using XO laptop computers in a rural school setting. OLE Nepal has strong leadership and a great sense of energy, and its experiences will be invaluable to other Centers as they start up.
OLE China: A broad-based group has taken first steps toward establishing a national OLE for China, starting with meetings this past October and continuing with discussions with OLE founder Richard Rowe in January 2008 in Beijing. The national Ministry of Education has indicated strong support for the project, and has agreed in principle to provide OLE with digital versions of its complete line of k-12 textbooks and curricula! The Center has an initial Board of Directors and an Executive Director.
We will be sharing news soon about OLE initiatives in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Ghana, India, Canada and other countries. The potential level of interest in joining OLE and creating local Centers far exceeds our current ability to respond. This is a good problem that you can help us solve.
