Open Learning ExchangeUniversal Basic Education 2015

OLE International today announced the creation of a series of international panels on what it has identified as the core themes of a quality basic education that should be universally available. We are actively seeking members from Asia, Africa and Latin America as well as from Europe and North America, who can contribute to the work of these panels.

What will the panels do? Each Panel will responsible for:
a) Determining the core resources concerning their theme that should be available to all children;
b) Identifying theme-related resources that are of high quality and are, or could become, openly accessible on OLE’s online Billion Kids Library;
c) Developing ways to fill the gaps in quality open resources concerning their theme that are needed;
d) Monitoring the accessibility of these resources throughout the world;
e) Advocating for universal access to quality educational resources concerning their core theme.

Such resources should emphasize and integrate both concepts and activities and should be open and free and in a form that is easily adaptable for the local conditions of a nation or region. OLE International will make the resources identified by these panels accessible through its online Billion Kids Library.

What panels are being developed now? Two Panels are currently under development:

Human Rights and Responsibilities. Emily Kraznor, former member of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, is organizing this panel.

Working with Conflict. Larry Dieringer, Executive Director of Educators for Social Responsibility, is organizing this panel.

What additional panels will be developed? OLE is seeking leadership and members for additional panels that will be organized concerning such core themes as: Nutrition, Food and Farming, Personal and Public Health, Environment, Entrepreneurship, Science and Technology, Community and Living Democracy, Art, Music and Culture, Numbers and Analysis, Reading and Inquiry, Oral and Written Creation.

What can I do? To indicate an interest in contributing to one or more of these panels and to ask for more information go to: OLE Panels

Boston, Massachusetts, December 7, 2009 – The first Global Assembly of the Open Learning Exchange (OLE) concluded last month in Kathmandu, Nepal, with a set of arrangements aimed at breaking down barriers to education for children in the developing world. Among the announcements at the Assembly were agreements for sharing educational tools among OLE Centers, plans for new national digital libraries, and partnerships with other pioneers in the field of educational content, technology, and implementation.

OLE is an emerging global network of social entrepreneurs establishing OLE Centers in developing countries. Under OLE’s Quality Universal Basic Education (QUBE) strategy, Centers work with partners in four essential areas to demonstrate learning innovations and bring them to scale. These are: effective courseware; teacher development; appropriate information and communication technologies (ICT); and government commitment.

Richard Rowe

OLE Nepal, a founding member of the network, hosted the OLE Assembly, demonstrating its Nepali-language digital library, interactive learning activities, government partnership for teacher training, and One Laptop per Child laptops now in use by nearly 2,000 children in 26 schools in Nepal. The global OLE Assembly included Center representatives and partners from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Announcements at the Assembly included the following:

• OLE Nepal offered to make its software and curriculum development work available for translation and adaptation throughout the OLE network.
• OLE International signed a content-sharing memorandum of understanding with the Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Research (RIVER), whose multigrade, multilevel learning approach is now used by nearly 8 million children in India and elsewhere.
• OLE International signed an MoU with e-Learning for Kids, a foundation based in the US and the Netherlands that provides quality online learning for reading, science, math and computers.
• The World Food Programme is discussing the expansion of an ad-hoc partnership with OLE Nepal to help reach isolated school children.
• Digital libraries are in planning in Ghana, Haiti, and Namibia.
• OLE Rwanda offered to host the 2010 Global OLE Assembly in Kigali.

“We have OLE Nepal to thank not only for hosting this successful Assembly but for showing us the way forward,” said OLE International CEO Richard Rowe. “Breakthroughs in low-cost technology and open source content are making it possible as never before to give children the quality education that is their basic human right. This is not merely theoretical; it is beginning to happen today in Nepal.”

ABOUT OLE INTERNATIONAL
OLE International (www.ole.org) helps connect and equip social entrepreneurs in OLE Centers around the world, enabling them to demonstrate educational innovations, document their effectiveness, and work with governments to scale them to reach all children. It is a US social benefit organization, based in Boston, Massachusetts.

CONTACT: Richard Rowe, OLE International, richard@ole.org.