E-Conference Summary
From The 5th East African Telecentre Leaders Forum
Dear Colleagues,
This mail tries to summarize the e-conference discussion and it becomes a better platform for the concrete discussion in the EATLF which will decide on the overall route to take. It has tried to identify answers for the raised questions and identifying the unanswered questions. Feel free to forward any contribution to us and thanks a lot for your heart felt contributions towards the success of this discussion.
Who are the target groups?
Network leaders thought the academy would cater for Telecentre practitioners including; Telecentre Staff, upcoming and existing Telecentre managers, Steering committees(those involved in decision making), staff, Volunteers, Network leaders and Telecentre users but the group can enlarge as long as need arises . Other target beneficiaries include; Policy makers, service providers and development organizations.
What needs to be done?
Need to identify minimum education levels in selecting trainees- suggestion for not below ordinary education was highlighted. Identifying institutional partnerships with a central physical academy somewhere in the world. Identifying training needs that train all to be effective in their multi-dimensional roles as Telecentre practitioners.
What are the roles of national networks?
The Telecentre networks would retain substantial work; mobilize Telecentre practitioners to train and provide mentoring support etc. Networks will have a key role in interesting other institutions to endorse in their regions. Telecentre networks in each country/sub-region can be taken advantage of in acting like branches for an African academy.
Should it be national, regional, continental or a global
academy?Would also like it to serve the whole of Africa -taking advantage of Telecentre networks in each country/sub-region. Regional and country Academies can be there and have an African one at Continental level. But others think it should be on a regional level like South, North, East and West Africa. Thinking of LAC, kind of projects should be thinking in a regional model. The first country in Latin America that is initiating this process is Colombia with a powerful organization, Colorado. Adapting the Peru style where Interests is to work from a national context but in a regional alliance can also be considered.
How will certification be done?
Certification will be key. We need institutions that will happily 'slap' their weight on this program in addition to telecentre.org and other partners. Certificates will be linked to employability, and then the market value for these will be high no matter whether these are international or national or even sub-national. For want of such a global academy, at this point in time the regional and the national ones areinvolved in certifying the learners. Suggestions that kicking off certification at a more localized level may be helpful. Thus we could have a regional or national accreditation/certification system for a start and ensure that all programmes offered at the academy are top class and conform to actual Telecentre needs. If certification is through established external national, regional and global bodies, then the academy will have to set very high standards to conform to the requirements of these certifying authorities. Having owned institute putting its name on a certificate can be great for regional academy. Links like www.theingots.org, were recommended for certification since they are having positive responses and bodies like UK accredited Awarding Body endorsed by the Sector Skills Councilfor IT and telecommunications were advised.With all this advice thoughts for such certificates to be awarded by telecentre.org but neither a University nor IT institutions are there.
Who else needs to be involved?
Curriculum adaptation process often requires an academy partner with experience in handling distance learning at the same time non-formal educational curriculum. Do the Telecentre leaders from Africa subscribe to this trend? If yes, who could be classified as academy partners in Africa?If not, what are the alternative suggestions to curriculum development process? Network leaders agreed that consultants especially those coming from organizations that are already offering professional certification should be engaged in, in order to standardize the curriculum to purpose. Relevant training institutions and key development institutions on the matter like UNESCO, IDRC, UNDP, British council, education Regulatory institutions in the region and other regional Telecentre academies e.g. India, Spain and Philippines should be engaged gradually and strategically in order to add value to the academy. Existing higher learning institutions that already exist with physical facilities and are offering courses in the same line to develop tailor made programs in collaboration with the curriculumdevelopment team for a course targeting our audience. The Telecentre community needs to take advantage of various distance/online training education programs. And also to involve the government and private sector because the thousands of Telecentre of the government could find in the Telecentre Academy one of their capacity building components for their Telecentre coordinators, and benefit the community with quality services. Also work with the small enterprises in rural zones, because they are the owners of connectivity.
Will the academy run on line or off line?
The answer really relies upon the local conditions, the bandwidth, the afford ability parameters. Hence, it depends on several factors that govern the connectivity, the distance learning spread of the academy partner, etc. Delivery approach:- On line and off line methodologies would be ideal combined.- Creation of virtual Tutor -trainee relationship will be idealTrainees need to have an opportunity to meet face-to-face and remotely consult. The participants will however have to get online at some point. Working online will also reduce the cost of start up and operation. It will make it easy to go to scale with minimal costs... Pete promised to offer some hours of volunteer mentoring on using online video tools, for example, but is little use to someone preparing materials to offer a paid-for service in Eastern Uganda
What and where are the training content and resources that are readily accessible in Africa?
Ideas about the Academy, taking advantage of the vast amount of training materials that already exist, and the experiences of the many needs assessments and studies that have also been done, rather than starting again from scratch which would slow everything up. Pete Cranston, where he says, "The process of learning is more important than the products such as training materials or technologies used. There are lots of materials already available that could be adapted and used." Would it be possible to have the same course everywhere for at least quite a lot of topics, but that the levels of human resources, technical conditions to do e-learning, pedagogical traditions, etc, do vary widely so such courses would need to be very carefully prepared and piloted. Yes, we don't need manuals alone. Invest as well in a process that engages trainees to learn from experiences and apply specific skills - check in with someone how it's all going and have an opportunity to re-use it differently. It's a continuous learning in practice.
Curriculum adaptation process often requires an academy partner
with experience in handling distance learning at the same time non-formal educational curriculum. Do the Telecentre leaders from Africa subscribe to this trend? If yes, who could be classified as academy partners in Africa? If not, what are the alternative suggestions to curriculum development process?The simplest idea would be to create a curriculum commons site for Telecentre networks (within the tc.org community site, perhaps)? - Where we not only share curriculum, but discuss methodologies, effectiveness, and share knowledge on best practices, etc.... We wish to study Microsoft's model of their digital literacy courses in detail while considering a path for the global Telecentre academy with national and regional chapters attached to the same.Participants subscribe to the idea of having partnerships with institutions handling distance learning at the same time non- formal educational curriculum but on different perspectives like: - One way to achieve this is to negotiate with an institute of choice with a curriculum in hand. Provide assurance of delivery approach, get them involved if possible and ensure quality etc.
Do the leaders have any suggestion for piloting the curriculum?
Should it be done at a national level? or at a regional level? What are the pros and cons? The courses and materials can be shared across the countries but the models that have worked elsewhere might not really work for Africa say because of the challenges most of the communities face. Talking about this, connectivity bubbles in my mind as an obstacle to a virtual academy and real time efficient and effective e-learning. E-Courses are good enough: they provide a framework (syllabus) for learning, they can be adapted - and they are freely available. The Telecentre cookbook is another. One participant thinks that course contents should also be developed by a team that has worked with the Telecentre before or more familiar with the Telecentre activities. More still, he thinks the course content should be user friendly and not too academic; practical's should be emphasized to enable the participants benefit more.
Working time lineSupporting the online option for the academy
relates with working timeline. This is because for adult training, the online training offers a possibility to join the class at each one's convenience time. But there must be a strict calendar for fulfilling provided assignments. One participant gives an example of how this can work; I have a little experience as an online learner and tutor, we are given weekly tasks. I do understand there is a big issue concerning the social interaction when class participants are just in front their computers at hundreds kilometers one from another we try to solve this by a weekly chat session.
What will be the ethics?
The ethics of the academy remains unclear but one participant thinks that terms in payment of fees should be reasonable to all. From the staff exchange meeting, network leaders concurred that there is need to combine participation and examination results as a basis for evaluating the trainees. Participation may be automated or based on the training center feedback. Ultimately specific percentages on which the evaluation is based should be communicated to the participants. The examination and platform on which the academy runs should meet the internationally accepted education standards and principles.
Language concerns
Concerns about language to be used in the academies remain a serious debate for the EATLF participants to brainstorm on seriously but views like:-peaking about standardizing courses, reminds us not to forget that it involves ranslating everything into at least 4 languages if we are to leave out Spanish, wahili, etc - French, Arabic, Portuguese and English - and this has quite erious cost and training implications. ut at what ever cost it seems this "academy" or network of academies will have to be multilingual.
About the course materials -
People will have to look at the UNESCO CMC manual; How to Get Started and Keep Going, which seems more practical and less country-based than the previous Telecentre Cookbook. It's not a course training manual but a general introduction. And also the Multimedia Training Kit, the materials available at ITO, and the UNESCO Open Training Platform (I think that's the name) which has training resources on all sorts of things,not just ICT. Thoughts that the Microsoft Digital Literacy course is better than the Unlimited Potential curriculum, partly because it's not so big. f the training program is built using a competency based approach achieving a certain "standard" on the referential but the actual training modules, etc. can (and must) be dapted to local realities.
More on certification and curriculum adaption
Ideas that for an Academy to be an Academy with recognized certification it is essential for the courses to be identical and to have an identical standard wherever they are given are there. This means that providing materials centrally that can then be adapted locally doesn't work because you can never be sure that the certificate means the same thing from one region to the next or one trainer to the next. This is fairly easy to doing purely technical courses such as CISCO or Computer Driving License, but less easy in what we are calling the "soft subjects".
Another respondent thinks that it would be possible to develop a course and certification programme to do with the management skills that Telecentre managers need, and get it accredited by one of the UK certification bodies. here is at least one other option, which is to connect with a UK university department. www.fahamu.org, for example, works with the University of Oxford extra-mural department in its management training for NGOs programme. That could robably also be explored.
There are African Universities that also offer similar flexible schemes, and who might be interested in adapting a business or management scheme to suit the needs of Telecentre leaders. astly Meddie suggests that:-there are many organizations that we can use but first the Telecentre Academy has to start.
unanswered questions?*When will the first product be launched?
Can we enlist all those "good enough" materials for a quick review?
