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Search by Keywords: Advanced Search Download this Report Click here to download this report. Education at the Development Gateway AiDA - Projects dgMarket - Tenders dgCommunities – E-Learning Open Educational Resources About this Report 'Online Education: What Can It Deliver?' is a Special Report that convenes diverse perspectives on the outlook of online education and e-learning for development. Participating in this Special Report are our online communities focused on: Aid Effectiveness Capacity Development for MDGs Culture & Development Gender and Development Indigenous Issues Youth for Development Environment and Development Urban Development  Food Security HIV/AIDS Population and Reproductive Health Microfinance HIV/AIDS ICT for Development Indigenous Issues Iraq Knowledge Economy  Microfinance  Poverty E-Government Open Educational Resources Afghanistan Reconstruction   "Urban Environment: Sustainability and Security", a Special Report coming in June 2006 that addresses how the urban landscape in developing countries is becoming environmentally less secure. Become a Development Gateway member, and you will be notified of our upcoming reports. Sign-up! See previous Special Reports here. Special Report The requested resource (/editor/default/) is not available FROM OUR MEMBERS What would make online education more popular? If access to the Internet and lower cost were more widely available, how would online education be used in developing countries? The Development Gateway asked our members for ideas about what would make online education more popular. Niyati Joshi - India It is not very necessary that training be in local language. I think English is OK, but the examples you give must be from the local area, which helps in understanding the situation better. But there may be cases where examples from local places are not available. Ekanath Khatiwada – Nepal Basically, local content is important for online education. It can be classified as per the need of the users. The local community may need different material such as market information, agricultural extension, basic technical information and basic health education, etc. Students may require different reference material to complement their education. Job seekers require specific training courses. Of course most online courses are not recognized by local authorities. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a recognition process so that there will be credibility for online courses. Then the market for online education will expand. Radhakrishnan Puthenveetil – India Training in specific areas is important. The question is whether the syllabi would address it. As of now, apart from sending course material by post (which when replaced by online education, will be online material, or virtual class rooms), students who have registered for distance education are required to attend contact classes periodically within a given university or college chosen by the authorities sponsoring the distance education. The content of such classes could be bilingual if necessary, so that students who are not conversant in English can also benefit from the classes. Here again, the question is in what language the distance education is imparted by the authorities, and in a multi-lingual society such as India how the needs for different languages are addressed. Prabir Dutta – India Online education is only available in part of the country. Senior people are illiterate in ICT, something which hinders advancement. It is necessary to transfer some online course material into print media in local language. Jide Babalola - Nigeria There is fear that online education could be a scam or that it could end with certificates that are either inferior or not recognized by employers. NGOs should become involved in a campaign to popularize online education. Milton Nunez-Garces - Mexico To me it is very important that we get through the internet (e-education). The languages used should be the most popular of the region, i.e. Latin America: Spanish, English and Quechua (Aimara, in the south), or Portuguese for Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, etc. Robert Aucoin - Canada In the case of adults there is a need for their learning to be relevant to their daily lives; especially in a development context. While it might be nice to learn about 13th century literature, my experience has shown that the learning needs of these populations are more pressing including geographically specific agricultural practices, for example. "Developing drought resistant crops" would be a popular course in much of Africa, I suspect. Typically I have found adult learners want to be able to take what they have learned and immediately apply it either to their work or home lives. This is as true in North America as it is in developing countries. One course that I always though would generate a lot of interest in developing countries would be a course on how to apply for development/aid money. In the Canadian context there is a lot of pressure to have aid money applications come through the developing country (I suspect USAID and the World Bank are similar). And yet many of the people in the developing countries do not know how to write a good proposal. Nor do they usually know what the specific donor priorities are at any given time. Sally Lukwiya - Uganda Online education courses are available only from countries like the U.S. The certification is often not recognized in the Ugandan job market. I utilize e-mails from the Development Gateway to get informed. Rita Agboh - Benin I think training in specific areas might be more relevant. The local audiences can learn through the Internet only if they can read, at least in the main local languages. If Internet is accessible and affordable for everyone, local people who can read in local languages or another international language can truly benefit from on-line education, as some of them are ready to improve and increase their knowledge. And today, some can use their local language for everything just like we use classic or international languages. They can do accounting, write an essay, etc. That means local language experts aThe requested resource (/editor/default/) is not availablere needed. Jan Beniest - Kenya We are looking at learning materials in the areas of agriculture and natural resources management for the benefit of researchers and development specialists. Peer reviewed and high-quality resources. Evaluation of available resources is of great importance. The web is overloaded with irrelevant and poor quality materials that just about anybody can upload. We are looking at quality control and review mechanisms such as the ones used by Amazon, Microsoft, etc. Career development through short specialist training courses interest me. I am also very much interested in online learning resources and repositories that I can use to improve my learning. K P Madhu - India Local language and specific topic orientation can indeed make the online education environment accessible and useful to a wider range of people. But there is an issue of cost and benifit that we need to consider. There are of course, other parameters to consider when we are looking at localisation. For instance, suppose we have a course on Medicinal Plants. Is it equally useful to people in the Himalayan region, say in the state of Uttaranchal in India as it is in say Brunei? The flora available in these two places are so different! This is just an example where use of even the specific dialect of Hindi and Bahasa would not be enough even in dealing with a specific subject area. Anuradha Gupta - India Online course material should also be available in the local language along with English. It could even target preschoolers and primary children along with training in areas including the performing arts, technology and humanities. Face-to-face interactions with the targeted audience at least 3 to 4 times in a period of one year would ensure that this e-learning is permanent. John Rozzo - Mexico What is promoted is professional continuing education online, although greater opportunities exist for adult education, skill-building (computer skills, literacy/reading/writing, typing, etc.) and progressive communications (tech in NGOs). The requested resource (/editor/default/) is not available Email this page Sign-up Support Our Work From Our Members Almost 300 people answered the Development Gateway member survey about uses of online education as a development tool. Read their responses. How widely used is online education in your country? What would increase the credibility of online education in your country?   Multilateral Learning Online: Can It Solve the Education Crisis in Developing Countries? Bob Moon, Open University and Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA) Susan D'Antoni, Virtual Institute of the Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) Stewart Marshall, Distance Education Centre at the University of the West Indies, Barbados Read Wired Schools: Is High Internet Cost the Only Obstacle? C. Enrique Peláez Jarrín, Ecuadorian Consortium for Advanced Internet Development Sandra Aluoch, African Virtual University Read Private Sector: Funding ICT Innovations for Higher Education Roundtable from 2006 International Investment Forum for Private Higher Education Read Partners Global Events March 27-31: Innovating e-Learning 2006: Transforming Learning Experiences March 27-29 2006 International Conference on Distance Education, Oman April 24-30: Global Campaign for Education Global Action Week April 24-30: Education International GWA April 25-28: Digital Learning Asia 2006, Bangkok, Thailand May 24-26 1st International Conference on ICT for Development, Education & Training, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia June 14-17: European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN) Conference, Vienna, Austria ICEL 2006: The International Conference on e-Learning, Montreal, Quebec July 3-7: iEARN World Conference and Youth Summit, Netherlands

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