Ross Shaw 
The “Open Educational Resources in the Commonwealth 2016” report is now available online at http://oasis.col.org/handle/11599/2441. This study was conducted as part of the OER for Skills Development project of COL, supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The objective of the study was to collect baseline data from Commonwealth institutions with respect to the … Read more
An interesting perspective on the new SDGs from the Development Policy Blog Here is an excerpt: It’s been widely reported that the process of tortured negotiations essentially turned into what political scientists call “logrolling”: everyone voted for everyone else’s proposal to garner support for their own pet causes. The result is the current unwieldy framework … Read more
The whole development community is talking about the new development goals post-2015. The UN Eminent Persons Group led by David Cameron, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, consulted governments, organisations, institutions UN agencies, CSOs, major corporations and individuals to provide perspectives and ideas on the post-2015 development agenda. The outcome of their work resulted … Read more
The 2015 DAC Peer Review of the New Zealand Aid Programme is out today. It’s a balanced report and contains a lot the Aid Programme can, and should, be pleased about. The Peer Review also offers plenty for the Aid Programme to improve on. I can’t cover everything here, so I draw out what I … Read more
The Economist Intelligence Unit conducted global surveys of senior business executives, teachers and students to investigate the extent to which the skills taught in education systems around the world are changing, and whether they meet the needs of employers and society more widely. As technology becomes more pervasive, traditional trades disappear and the world of … Read more
The authors ask, ‘What would it take to unleash the potential of TVET systems?’. In response, an integrated analytical approach is proposed through which economic growth, social equity and sustainability perspectives can be strategically combined so as to address contemporary policy concerns such as youth unemployment, gender disparities and climate change. Policy-makers and other stakeholders … Read more
Distance and flexible learning is particularly challenging in the island nations of the Pacific – so when TVET stakeholders in Kiribati wanted to develop a strategy for outer-island programme delivery, they called on COL for support. Pacific distance learning expert Mr. Brian Sayer, based in Honiara, Solomon Islands, facilitated a series of workshops bringing together … Read more
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) has been involved in the creation of TVET course materials with many of our partners over the years. They are available through the links below. Most are freely available as Open Educational Resources for download and adaption, but some may carry restrictive licenses. COL’s online institutional repository of publications and … Read more
Twenty six practitioners in TVET from 8 Pacific countries met in Tonga to discuss how national priorities could be met through ODFL in TVET. The participants came from Ministries, NGOs, FBOs and TVET institutions throughout the region. It was designed to work through a process of considering the issues involved in introducing more flexible and … Read more
In response to requests from the small island states of the Pacific region, COL, working in partnership with the Pacific Association of Technical, Vocational Education and Training (PATVET) produced a series of courses titled Basic Trades for Small Island Nations. This series provided the resources to teach people in remote communities the basic trade skills … Read more