World Links, with funding from the Japan Social Development Fund and the World Bank began a large scale teacher professional development project in four of the ASEAN countries. The countries with current projects include the Philippines and Cambodia with an expansion to Laos and Vietnam in 2007.
The mission of this project is to develop the knowledge, skills and experience students need to get jobs in the global economy. More broadly, the project aims to provide schools in the ASEAN region with sustainable solutions for mobilizing the necessary technologies, training, and educational resources to improve teaching and learning outcomes. The countries of ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) have expressed a keen interest in promoting Information and Communication Technology (ICT) competencies among their populations.
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 has worked with e-ASEAN and participating ministries of education to identify those schools most in need for participation in this pilot. The aim of this project is to contribute to narrowing the digital divide through promoting the effective use of ICTs in teaching and learning in poor schools in the targeted countries that would otherwise remain behind. It provides participating schools with global best practices in training, technology, educational resources, and evaluation tools to enable them prepare disadvantaged youth for a new economy. World Links has developed and tested these tools with experts from around the world over the past six years. Since the ASEAN Schoolnet will be a pilot effort undertaken simultaneously in four Southeast Asian countries, each country will be able to learn from the experience of others and modify the initiative in its country to fit its own needs and priorities.
Click here for an example of a World Links Teacher Professional Development workshop.
