eLearning Africa, May 2011, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
UNESCO-UNEVOC ICT in TVET summit
Commonwealth of Learning
Flexible Skills Development
Trudi van Wyk
Alison Mead Richardson
Education Specialists
COL’s Mission
To help Commonwealth governments and
institutions to expand the scope, scale and quality
of learning by using new approaches and
appropriate technologies
Strengths
20 year track record
strong leadership
partnerships with countries
COL Funding
Voluntary contributions from Ministries of Education
of member countries
Major contributors:
Canada
India
New Zealand
Nigeria
South Africa
United Kingdom
40/54
COL Programme Structure
Education
 Open schooling
 Teacher Education
 Higher Education
 VUSSC
Livelihoods & Health
 Skills Development
 Learning for Farmers
 Healthy Communities
 Integrated eLearning
COL Flexible Skills Development
Partnership with CAPA
Supporting development of skills in ICT in TVET
 Change management and organisational development
 Policy and strategy
 Technology
 Media & technology in TVET teaching
Characteristics of TVET in Africa
 Full-time, face-to-face programmes
 Pre-employment training for secondary achievers
 Small numbers benefit
 Many disadvantaged learners
ICT in TVET
 Necessary for expanded access
 Quality improvements
 Improved efficiency and increased income
 Greater ICT skills of teachers and staff
Why Flexible Skills Development?
We believe that the appropriate use of ICT can:
 help institutions to be more efficient
 Improve the teaching and learning experience
 Make it possible to offer new courses to new learners
 Increase access to TVSD
 Impact positively on skills training for the informal
economy
Why the informal sector?
Sub-Saharan Africa
• 60% of population is < 25years
• 90% of work is in the informal economy
• Governments are achieving great successes in EFA
Goal 2 – UPE
• Governments need support to address EFA Goal 3
and Goal 6
Education for All Goal 3
Ensuring that the learning
needs of all young people and
adults are met through
equitable access to
appropriate learning and
life-skills programmes
Education for All Goal 6
Improving all aspects of the
quality of education and
ensuring excellence so that
recognized and measurable
learning outcomes are achieved
by all, especially in literacy,
numeracy and essential life
skills
Overall purpose of FSD
 To increase access to skills
development
 Informal sector and other
disadvantaged learners
 To improve quality in TVSD
 To contribute to poverty
alleviation
FSD activities – progress
• Introductory workshops – Zambia, Kenya & Nigeria
• Identification of 10 key institutions – Baseline
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report
Online Community Learning Network
Online managers & policy makers’ training
Support for management of technical infrastructure
Online training for teachers in flexible approaches
FSD Key Institutions
Online TVET managers &
teacher training courses
 Educational social media platform
 Build a community of practice
 Resources
 Discussions
 Opportunity to share and provide evidence
 Institutional group spaces
flexibleskills@col.org
CLN – content focus
 Planning and policy making
 Organisational management and
change
 Technical infrastructure and
resources
 TVET teaching with technology
165 members
80 discussions
FSD activities to come
 Online teacher training
 Materials development training
 National policy workshops
 Course design for the informal sector workers
 TVET course materials
Monitoring & evaluation
 Important activity for COL and for CAPA
 Needed to document the process
 Formative evaluation
 Baseline study
 Institutions are partners in M&E
 Capacity building for M&E
Aiming for:
Development of flexible approaches, programmes
and teaching which enable us to give
The COL FaB stamp of approval!
Thank you
www.col.org
flexibleskills@col.org