Cambridge Outlook
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Outlook Issue 6 (1324Kb)
Regenerating education provision in the Maldives
The 2004 Tsunami caused widespread devatation to many parts of South Asia. Thousands of schools were damaged or destroyed. CIE has been working with the Maldives Ministry of Education on a UNICEF-funded regeneration project, which offered an opportunity to revolutionise teaching across the 200 inhabited islands of the Maldives archipelago.
The focus of the reconstruction is on virtual learning. CIE is delivering online teacher training tools including online courses, discussion groups, a web-based Virtual Learning Environment and a Teacher Resource website. These will help develop teaching skills, and are available through 20 new regional Teacher Resource Centres set up by UNICEF and the Ministry. CIE is working closely with the Ministry′s Educational Development Centre (EDC), which will use these online tools to deliver curriculum support and training.
Virtual learning technology has great potential in the Maldives as the geography of the country makes face-to-face training slow and expensive to deliver.
When the project is complete, CIE will hand the Virtual Learning Environment and Teacher Resource website to the EDC. This will realise the project′s ultimate goal: a long-term, sustainable solution to training and supporting teachers, tailor-made for the Maldives.
"This project will have a profound impact in terms of lowering the cost of in-service teacher training and raising access to high quality educational resources online, and throughout the Maldives archipelago. Child-friendly education is just gaining force in the Maldives and this initiative will allow us to scale it up to the national level."
Ken Maskall
UNICEF Representative for the Maldives
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