This report -- commissioned by the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) -- provides an overview of research into good practice in blended learning in technical and vocational education and training (TVET) and the competencies teachers need to teach in digital learning environments. It provides background for the development of digital competency…

High-quality digital learning offers potential economic and social advantages but also could easily lead to a widening gap between economically advanced and low-income countries. Within countries without suitable policy, it could also generate increasing inequity between the rich, who can afford the technology, and the poor, who will not be able…

During 2019-21, the Ministry of General Education in Zambia piloted an open and innovative schooling (OIS) programme. It used an e-learning model that involved developing and sharing curriculum-based open educational resources (OER) to supplement other teaching and learning processes. The resources could be accessed through both online and offline…

The benefits and facilities of online learning at school level all over the world were not fully realised until the COVID-19 pandemic forced educational institutions to explore the possibilities of teaching-learning through online measures. During the lockdown due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Open Schooling (OS) using online learning as a method of…

The Commonwealth Digital Education Leadership Training in Action (C-DELTA) is a long-term programme of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) to promote a digital education environment in Commonwealth Member Nations. This concept paper proposes a holistic approach to conceptualising digital education leadership. The C-DELTA programme will provide a…

This is the first book to survey the region's use of educational media and summarise the experiences of different Commonwealth Asian countries in one collection. It includes a review of the key issues, country studies, research reviews and several case studies on harnessing technologies for distance-learning initiatives. The book is designed to…

Prepared for presentation at the 15th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers, in Edinburgh, Scotland, this report describes a proposal, created by the Commonwealth of Learning at the request by the Commonwealth Ministers of Education, to explore the creation of a virtual university to support higher education in small states. A Technical…

Assuring the quality of education provision is a fundamental aspect of gaining and maintaining credibility for programmes, institutions and national systems of higher education worldwide. Despite a long and generally successful track record, open and distance learning (ODL) is still required to prove that the quality of student learning is at…

Ideological arguments are made for open learning, economic ones for distance education. If it can produce similar results to those of conventional education at a lower cost, then distance education has a powerful appeal. With increasing demand for access to educational opportunities at all levels, and often decreasing budgets in real terms for…

Both of these "Surveys of policy and practice" were conducted on behalf of COL by the South African Institute for Distance Education (SAIDE) as part of COL's partnership agreement with the Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) Working Group on Distance Education and Open Learning. The first report identifies…