Education 2010: Where Do We Go from Here?
Worldwide today, one out of every six people is illiterate – a crisis of mounting consequence for global peace and well being. An unacceptably high number of children around the world still are not getting quality basic education – with only five years to go until the 2015 Millennium Development Goal for primary schooling for children everywhere. A root cause of this tragedy is that teachers are often isolated and alone, left in front of classrooms without the tools and support they need. This is where Open Learning Exchange seeks to make a difference.
OLE is mobilizing educational innovators in developing countries to help teachers and administrators adapt new low-cost learning tools and online content to meet their children’s needs.
In 2009, OLE continued to hone its strategy to help countries achieve Quality Universal Basic Education (QUBE). Its three pillars are:
- OLE Centers function as catalysts with their governments. National governments have the main responsibility to provide QUBE, but they need help to know what works best. OLE Centers in developing countries demonstrate scalable educational innovations, document their effectiveness and then work with governments and other partners to provide the improvements to all children.
- OLE advances quality in education. Its approach to learning integrates the three elements essential to any significant improvement: people, content and technology.
- OLE is a global network. It helps connect social entrepreneurs across countries so they can spread their ideas and share their successes and failures with colleagues.
By the end of 2009, OLE International had helped establish OLE Centers in Nepal, Rwanda, Ghana, Namibia, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Bolivia and Mexico.
Leaders of OLE Centers met for the first time late last year, at a Global Assembly in Kathmandu, where OLE Nepal also demonstrated the QUBE strategy in action. The Center is managing a pilot with One Laptop per Child for math, Nepali language, and English instruction for nearly 2,000 students in 26 schools. Its team works directly with government staff to create these digital learning materials and train teachers to use them. A full impact analysis is in progress, with preliminary anecdotal evidence of increased student attendance, interest, and understanding. Negotiations are under way for the government to expand the program across the country.
Importantly, as with all of OLEs resources, these course modules will also be free and open over the Internet for anyone to download, translate and localize for their teachers and students.
OLE has made its progress to date with support from Oxfam America, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Open Society Institute, Danish IT Society, governments and private foundations and individuals. It is also working in tandem with the UN, the World Bank and other important groups toward the UN’s Millennium Development Goal for education (MDG 2).
In 2010, OLE will build on progress to date with steps including the following:
- The Billion Kids Library of open, basic curricula is expected to go online in early 2010.
- International panels are now being assembled to identify learning tools and other educational resources for each core QUBE theme (such as “understanding the rights and responsibilities of every human being”).
- A formal impact evaluation of OLE Nepal’s current implementation in Nepali schools will be completed in 2010.
- OLE Rwanda will deploy its first primary school resources in early 2010.
Last summer, OLE CEO Richard Rowe elaborated his theory of change in the current state of global education in an essay posted jointly by UNESCO and InfoDev. “Our biggest challenge is to align and balance the three key components of change – content, technology and people. When that is done, the UN’s Second Millennium Development Goal and Quality Basic Education for all will become much more than a dream. … We will be on a path that will make it possible,” he said at the time.
Today, “given OLE’s progress in 2009 on the global OLE network, individual OLE Center startups, new partnerships, and open access to learning tools, we see 2010 as a watershed year for OLE, with hope for new momentum in global education,” he said.
