Commonwealth of Learning

Last updated

Commonwealth of Learning
AbbreviationCOL
Founded1987;37 years ago (1987)
Type Intergovernmental organisation
PurposeTo help member states and institutions to use distance learning and technologies for expanding access to education and training
Headquarters Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
Membership
The 54 member states of the Commonwealth of Nations
President and Chief Executive Officer
Professor Peter Scott
Parent organisation
 The Commonwealth
Website www.col.org

The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is an intergovernmental organisation of The Commonwealth headquartered in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. [1] Working collaboratively with governmental and nongovernmental organizations and other institutions in the Commonwealth, as well as with international development agencies, COL has the mandate to promote the use of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies. [2] [3] The Board of Governors is chaired by Professor Narend Baijnath, former chief executive officer, Council on Higher Education, South Africa.

Contents

History

COL was founded at the 1987 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and inaugurated in 1988. [4] Its title is a phrase used by philosopher John Locke to describe the body of knowledge developed over time by scientists and other thinkers, for the benefit of all people. [5] At the time of its founding, COL focused on promoting economic development by providing education and teaching skills.

In 2012, Professor Asha Kanwar was appointed the president and chief executive officer of COL. [6]

In 2015, COL created a six-year strategic plan to align itself with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically SDG4, which work to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning for all by 2030. The Strategic Plan for 2021-2027 was developed against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this Plan, COL has reinvigorated its mandate to provide access to learning opportunities to those in need, making use of distance education and technologies. The 2021-2027 Strategic Plan also re-animates COL's various roles as enabler, capacity builder and catalyst for educational development.

COL hosts a triennial Pan-Commonwealth Forum (PCF) on Open Learning where its Excellence in Distance Education Awards (EDEA) are presented. The Ninth Pan-Commonwealth Forum (PCF9), co-hosted with The Open University, United Kingdom was held at BT Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh, Scotland on 9–12 September 2019. The Forum brought together 541 policy makers, practitioners and thought leaders from 61 countries. The resulting Edinburgh Statement summarised the collective actions necessary to significantly accelerate progress towards the aim and targets of SDG4.

Funding

Financial support for COL's core operations is provided by Commonwealth governments on a voluntary basis, with primary funding renewed every three years. COL also receives additional contributions from other development sources and provides fee-for-service distance education and open learning course delivery and training for various international agencies.

COL's major financial contributors include Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa and the United Kingdom, all of which have representatives on COL's Board of Governors.

Initiatives

Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC) [7] is a network of small countries that work collaboratively to expand access to and improve the quality of post-secondary education in their countries. Commonwealth Online Learning University (col.university) is an online learning university working collaboratively with the universities in the Commonwealth.

Related Research Articles

Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via mail. Distance education is a technology-mediated modality and has evolved with the evolution of technologies such as video conferencing, TV, and the Internet. Today, it usually involves online education and the learning is usually mediated by some form of technology. A distance learning program can either be completely a remote learning, or a combination of both online learning and traditional offline classroom instruction. Other modalities include distance learning with complementary virtual environment or teaching in virtual environment (e-learning).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Athabasca University</span> Distance education university in Alberta, Canada

Athabasca University (AU) is a Canadian public research university that primarily operates through online distance education. Founded in 1970, it is one of four comprehensive academic and research universities in Alberta, and was the first Canadian university to specialize in distance education.

The Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan (CSFP) is an international programme under which Commonwealth governments offer scholarships and fellowships to citizens of other Commonwealth countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African Peer Review Mechanism</span>

The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) is a mutually agreed instrument voluntarily acceded to by the member states of the African Union (AU) as a self-monitoring mechanism. It was founded in 2003.

The Commonwealth Foundation (CF) is an intergovernmental organisation that was established by the Commonwealth Heads of Government in 1966, a year after its sister organisation, the Commonwealth Secretariat. The Foundation is located at Marlborough House in London, a former royal palace which was assigned for the use of these Commonwealth institutions by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the former Head of the Commonwealth. As the Commonwealth agency for civil society, the Foundation is funded by 49 member states to support participatory governance through its programmes. The Foundation provides resources, grants and access to platforms to encourage better engagement between civil society and institutions of governance. Membership of the Commonwealth Foundation is voluntary and is separate from membership of the Commonwealth of Nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indira Gandhi National Open University</span> Indian public university

Indira Gandhi National Open University, known as IGNOU, is a public research university located at Maidan Garhi, New Delhi, India. Named after the former Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi, the university was established in 1985 with a budget of ₹20 million, after the Parliament of India passed the Indira Gandhi National Open University Act, 1985. IGNOU is run by the central government of India, and with a total active enrollment of over 4 million students, it is the largest university in the world.

Linda Marie Harasim, is a "leading teacher, scholar and speaker on the theories and practices of online education, contributing knowledge, technologies, and practices to the field of technology-enabled learning," is a pioneer leading theorist of online education. She is a professor emerita in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Her six books and hundreds of articles about Computer-supported collaborative learning have been acknowledged as seminal works in the field.

In the history of virtual learning environments, the 1990s was a time of growth, primarily due to the advent of the affordable computer and of the Internet.

The Commonwealth Youth Programme, also known as CYP, is an international development agency working with young people between the ages of 15 and 29. Part of the Commonwealth Secretariat, CYP is active in the Commonwealth's 54 member countries. CYP has a head office in London with four centres in Africa, Asia, Caribbean and Pacific. Currently there are Four Regional Directors and 16 programme officers plus support staff are working there.

Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU) is an open distance education university in Zimbabwe. Established in 1999, ZOU is the only distance education university in the country. Student enrollment at ZOU has been growing steadily from the time of its formation and in terms of enrollment it is the largest university in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe Open University has seven faculties under which the academic programmes are conducted.

The Forum of Federations is an international organization based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It develops and shares comparative expertise on the practice of federal and decentralized governance through a global network. The Forum and its partners comprise a global network on federalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East Africa University</span> Non-profit university in Eastern Africa

East Africa University (EAU) is a non-for-profit institution university in the autonomous Puntland state in northeastern Somalia, as well as in neighbouring Somaliland. Founded in the commercial capital of Bosaso, it has additional branches in Buhodle, Galdogob, Galkayo, Garowe, Qardho and Erigavo. The college offers courses in seven core departments including: Medicine, engineering, veterinary, Business Admin, Sharia studies, It also operates distance learning center.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pan-Atlantic University</span> Private university in Lagos, Nigeria

Pan-Atlantic University is a private, non-profit educational institution in Lekki, Lagos State.

The African Virtual University (AVU) is a pan-African effort to create an open and affordable distance learning institution to serve the African continent. The AVU began in 1997 as a project of the World Bank and later developed into an autonomous institution after it was handed over to African governments in 2003. Over the program's lifetime, critics have questioned its efficacy as well as its neocolonial aspects.

Open educational resources (OER) are learning materials that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. OER policies are adopted by governments, institutions or organisations in support of the creation and use of open content, specifically open educational resources (OER), and related open educational practices.

This outline of open educational resources provides a way of navigating concepts and topics in relation to the open educational resources (OER) movement.

Speranza Ndege is a Kenyan educator, environmentalist, trainer and consultant who currently serves a senior lecturer and director of the Institute of Open, Distance and e-Learning (ODeL) at the University of Embu. She is known for her work in higher education e-learning, distance learning and information and communications technology (ICT). Her work includes founding the first higher education online programs in Kenya. Ndege's work has subsequently impacted the development of e-learning higher education throughout East Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services</span>

The African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS), is an African organization for strengthening Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services (AEAS) in Africa. It operates within the framework of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), a venture of the African Union in the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). AFAAS is an autonomous subsidiary of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA).

Open educational resources in Canada are the various initiatives related to open education, open educational resources (OER), open pedagogies (OEP), open educational practices (OEP), and open scholarship that are established nationally and provincially across Canadian K-12 and higher education sectors, and where Canadian based inititatives extend to international collaborations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sustainable Development Goals and Nigeria</span> Set of 17 global development goals defined by the United Nations for the year 2030

Sustainable Development Goals and Nigeria is about how Nigeria is implementing the Sustainable Development Goals within the thirty-six states and its Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) consist of seventeen global goals designed as a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all". Each of the 17 goals is expected to be achieved by 2030 in every country around the world.

References

  1. ↑ "Commonwealth of Learning". The Canadian Encyclopedia.
  2. ↑ Human Rights Advocacy in the Commonwealth -- A User's Handbook (2005). CHRI. p. 8. ISBN   978-81-88205-19-6.
  3. ↑ "COL is Enhancing Education in Nigeria, Africa through ODL". This Day Live, January 2018.
  4. ↑ Commonwealth Currents. Commonwealth Secretariat. 1983.
  5. ↑ Walmsley, Peter (2003). Locke's Essay and the Rhetoric of Science. Bucknell University Press. pp. 17, 159. ISBN   978-0-8387-5543-3.
  6. ↑ Chaudhury, Dipanjan Roy (5 April 2018). "Why it makes sense for India to leverage relationship with Commonwealth nations". The Economic Times.
  7. ↑ Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.