Open Learning ExchangeUniversal Basic Education 2015

Two webcasts hosted by the World Bank highlight recent studies on:

1. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): A Study of Models of Affordable Computing for Schools in Developing Countries. This page gives you an overview of the presentations and links to several versions of the video. This video is the one they recommend using.
2. Low-cost ICT devices in Education: Hope, Hype and Heuristics. The overview page for this video is not working at the moment but you can open the video here.

You can also go here for a complete list of the World Bank’s Archived Webcasts of e-Development Seminars

Anyone who is involved in projects providing information and computer technology (ICT) solutions to schools in developing countries should know about these studies. At OLE we are interested in finding pathways that lead to Universal Basic Education (UBE) by 2015. While we strongly believe that ICT will play a vital role in achieving this goal, it is important to make sure that new educational models are developed that can realistically scale to reach every child in a given country with the level of support the government is willing and able to provide.

OLE Rwanda got a boost this summer when a senior government Minister added his support to the organization’s application for registration as a social benefit (not-for-profit) organization.

The Honorable Theoneste Mutsindashyaka, Minister of state in charge of Primary  and Secondary Education in the government of the Republic of Rwanda, wrote to the registering agency to express his support. He said, in part, “OLE Rwanda’s projects are aligned with the country’s Vision 2020 and add value to the achievement of universal basic education in Rwanda.” He noted that OLE Rwanda is cooperating with the Ministry of Education in “two important projects,

• Contextualization and localization of content for basic education,
• Digitization of the content to support and avail teaching and learning materials through the development of a Billion Kids’ National Digital Library.”

The Minister visited the OLE offices in Cambridge, MA this summer and tried out an early version of the Course Development Studio. He noted with interest that the software could be localized for Kinyarwanda, the official language of Rwanda, and said that this would vastly increase its importance for teachers throughout the country.

OLE welcomes its newest centre, OLE Rwanda. OLE Rwanda’s mission is to use Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) as a tool to trigger achieving quality Basic Education (in Rwanda, the first nine years of schooling) for all by 2015. Rwandan Universal Basic Education will benefit from free and open resources and successful educational models.

OLE Rwanda works in partnership with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Youth. The mission of OLE Rwanda is integrated in the Rwandan Education Sector Strategic plan 2006 - 2010 (ESSP) for basic Education. This plan also empowers young people to participate actively in the government’s poverty eradication programme (Vision 2020 Umurenge) through human capacity building projects.

OLE Rwanda has an impressive Board of Trustees led by Chairman Bizimana Muhebera. Chairman Muhebera is the Director of Library at the Kigali Institute of Education. Murinda Muzira Jacques is the new Executive Director for OLE Rwanda.

The first areas of concentration for OLE Rwanda will be the creating and describing digital content for the Rwandan education system so that it can be shared quickly and freely by teachers all over the country, and developing and deploying a peace building curriculum for basic education.