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The Department of Education has contracted SAIDE to provide services to the NEPAD Education Office in the field of distance teacher education. In providing these services, SAIDE will draw upon the wide range of competencies available within the organization to undertake successfully the various tasks required of NEPAD Education. Tony Mays provides more detail:
These competencies include:
- Conducting overviews/mappings of teacher education/distance education interventions,
- Designing and co-ordinating research processes,
- Conducting field research,
- Developing in consultative processes:
- Strategic interventions,
- Detailed operational plans and costings,
- Standards-setting for teacher education,
- Curriculum design and development,
- Co-ordinating materials development,
- Capacity development in all aspects of distance education (systems design, governance, curriculum design, programme design, materials design and development, programme and course coordination, tutoring, all aspects of assessment),
- Designing and implementing quality assurance systems.
The initiative will focus on the following two areas in 2006/2007:
- A strategic review of NEPAD's contribution to Distance Teacher Education on the continent and development of, and support to, future plans.
- The development of an easily accessible, focused database of resources on Teacher Education, with emphasis on distance education, for decision-makers and practitioners.
In respect of the above, SAIDE will perform the following tasks in the year 2006-7:
Strategic Review and Future Plans
- Conduct a comparative review of NEPAD achievements in the field of Teacher Development with achievements made in other areas of NEPAD activity with a view to identifying enabling and constraining factors. The review will be conducted through an analysis of documentation and interviews with key stakeholders, and will cover the three levels of operation: continental, regional and country level. Attention will be given to the roles expected of regional bodies such as SADC, ECOWAS and ECCAS.
- Conduct a desktop review of regional or continental Teacher Development initiatives in Africa that are using distance education methods with a view to:
- mapping activities and initiatives to reduce the risk of unnecessary duplication;
- identifying research reports based on practice that might be useful source studies for teacher development practitioners. It will be necessary to continually update this information as new projects come to light.
- Taking into account the review, develop a revised/new plan for NEPAD Distance Teacher Education Development.
Thereafter:
- Support the implementation of the plans referred to above, including monitoring their implementation and attempting to overcome any barriers that emerge.
Database of Resources
- Finalise a proposal for a database of resources on teacher distance education and its link to the NEPAD web-site. The proposal will clarify purpose, target audience, structure, accessibility and sustainability.
- Identify and source seminal research reports on the use of distance education for teacher development in Africa and obtain the necessary permissions to append these to the database.
- Complete an analysis of available research and identify gaps in the knowledge base. Where possible approach existing projects/institutions to help fill these gaps based on the work they are already engaged with and as identified by the (ongoing) review described above of distance teacher developments. Where necessary, assist with the development of research plans to address these gaps. This will be an ongoing activity.
SAIDE will provide a quarterly report to the Department of Education and NEPAD on progress thus far, as well as a projection of work for the next quarter. |
