Open Learning ExchangeUniversal Basic Education 2015

OLE Nepal is instituting a new leadership training program to advance its use of ICT and open educational resources in classrooms across the country. Headmasters and Parent Teacher Association chairs were among the educators and community leaders being brought into the program as the school year began in Nepal in April.

“Although most headmasters we have worked with are committed and have good intentions, most of them have not been trained specifically to have the leadership skills necessary to reach out to teachers and motivate them in adapting completely novel teaching-learning concepts that integrate ICT into daily pedagogy,” according to OLE Nepal.

Lesson plans, professional development, and incentive structures are among the tools being emphasized. As for the rationale behind the new program: “We view the hardware and the content it contains as resources. The teachers are still the main agents in the delivery process. Therefore, the impact of the project will be hugely influenced by whether or not teachers ‘buy into’ the new approach and are motivated enough to use these resources to best effect. Good leadership is essential to making this happen.”

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OLE Ghana, with support from UNESCO’s cluster office in Accra, convened a cross-section of Ghana’s education sector in May to discuss how to advance quality universal basic education (QUBE) in the country. A report (ole_ghana_report) on the sessions confirms a commitment to education for development, a fear that the goals of education for all by 2015 will be difficult to reach, and a need to position Ghana to use a range of new technologies in education, among other steps to redouble its efforts.

OLE Ghana Director Kofi Essien (pictured here) is setting up an online forum to continue working on the matter. “Clearly the feedback from the discussions indicates that there are still a lot more questions to be asked and issues to be discussed,” the report says. “The discussions also underscore the need for all educational stakeholders in building common synergies and working together to execute the country’s QUBE agenda.”

OLE Senior Program Officer Shannon Taylor examined the potential of Open Educational Resources (OER) to deliver quality education in the developing world – and, in particular, in Namibia – in her recent thesis for a master’s degree in sustainable international development from Brandeis University’s Heller School of Social Policy and Management. Taylor has been coordinating a related feasibility study that UNESCO commissioned to OLE in Namibia. She received her degree in May.

In her thesis, Taylor concluded:

“… An OER approach exhibits great potential in addressing the challenges to quality of education in developing countries. However, further research is needed to determine if it will have the desired outcomes on student achievement and teacher development. While many enabling factors exist in Namibia to promote implementation of this approach, Namibia and other developing countries still face significant constraints in implementing such approaches such as equity of technology, internet access, reliability and speed, the culture of teaching and learning, and questions of sustainability and funding.

To implement such approaches successfully, significant attention must be paid to cultivating a participatory education system and new approaches to teaching and learning that move away from the top down method where the teacher is viewed as a deliverer of knowledge and the student as the recipient. Many countries at a policy level promote a learner centered approach. However, this does not often translate to actual practice in the classroom.

Furthermore, much more needs to be done to incorporate teachers in the decision making and building of the education process. Both of these are significant undertakings that will require substantial time and investment; however, countries like Namibia with large educational challenges in terms of equity and quality but with a strong commitment to innovation exhibit great potential for adopting and implementing and OER approach to education to address these challenges.”

The second annual OLE General Assembly, to be held on October 11-15 in Kigali, Rwanda, will explore what is known, what needs to be known and how we can know about scalable approaches to achieving Quality Universal Basic Education for marginalized children around the world.

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