ASEAN

The Japan Social Development Fund has provided support through the World Bank to implement this regional program that will include national pilot programs in four countries: Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam. World Links, an international NGO with extensive experience in developing local capacity to integrate ICTs into education, has been granted funds to administer the ASEAN SchoolNet program.

The principal objective of the ASEAN SchoolNet project is to help disadvantaged youth in ASEAN countries develop the knowledge, skills and experience they need to participate in the global knowledge economy.

This project will provide hardware, software and teacher training to selected schools in four ASEAN countries as a means to explore and demonstrate sustainable solutions for mobilizing the necessary technologies, training, and educational resources to improve teaching and learning outcomes.

Working through the ASEAN SchoolNet, this project seeks to provide underprivileged schools in Southeast Asia with a most innovative, cost-effective and sustainable means of improving students information reasoning and technology skills and increasing access to information and global educational resources. World Links will work with e-ASEAN and participating ministries of education to identify those schools most in need for participation in this pilot.

Schools were chosen in consultation with parents via their parent-teacher associations. Schools that fit certain criteria (socio-economic or geographic, as well as technological eligibility, such as having a phone line and electricity) are invited to apply for the World Links program. As part of their application, school directors need to indicate they have met with their Parent-Teacher Association and explained the Program, as well as obtained the Association’s commitment to contribute to the Program’s sustainability.

Ministries of Education will benefit from the lessons learned from the pilot and will be the driver behind any national decisions made regarding the program.  Local communities surrounding the schools will be expected to benefit from the interventions and to participate in the decisions regarding future adoption and/or expansion. The schools are expected to reach out to the local communities to provide services (e.g. computer literacy training) and gain experience, as well as to incorporate community concerns into their collaborative Internet projects.

Finally, World Links will work to establish the most beneficial partnerships for the schools with other key stakeholders such as local NGOs involved in education, technology, youth, etc., the local private sector, bilateral and international development agencies involved in the promotion of ICT and education. In addition, the project will work closely with the e-ASEAN Task Force, a transnational coordinating body for IT-related initiatives in the ASEAN region, to help integrate the country initiatives throughout Southeast Asia.

Our Village is an online community of teachers, students, education policymakers and managers, and anyone interested in harnessing new technologies to enhance teaching and learning.  New technologies have contributed to making us more aware of just how connected we are to each other, no matter where we are or how we live.  Our Village Projects attempt to discover, describe, understand, and make a difference in this global village we live in.  These Projects are framed by a question, an issue, a problem, or an event of global significance that is approached from a local perspective.  By making connections between local perspectives — comparing and contrasting ideas, experiences, and contexts—Our Village Projects provide both insights into the complexity of the world we live in and our place in it, as well as an opportunity for us to take an active part in shaping that world for the better.

http://ourvillage.world-links.org