The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning/distance education knowledge, resources and technologies. COL is helping developing nations improve access to quality education and training.
The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of more than 50 independent sovereign states, which provide support to each other, and work together toward international goals. Bringing together some 1.7 billion people of many faiths, races, languages, traditions and levels of economic development, the Commonwealth represents almost one-third of the world's population
COL 's core operations are financed by voluntary pledges of funds from Commonwealth governments.
It is hosted in Canada by the Government of Canada with headquarters located in the Province of British Columbia. Its six major voluntary funding contributors - currently Canada, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa and the United Kingdom - each have a seat on COL's Board of Governors.
COL also partners with donor and recipient Governments and agencies on specific projects and works co-operatively with several national and international development agencies and banks, including not only Commonwealth agencies but also members of the UN System (UNESCO, WHO, UNICEF, UNIFEM, UNDP and the World Bank), national and regional distance education associations and industry.
Programme Activity
In the 2009–2012 triennium, COL will pursue eight initiatives in two sectors:
Education
- Open schooling
- Teacher education
- Higher education
- Virtual University for the Small States of the Commonwealth
Livelihoods & Health
- Skills development
- Learning for farming
- Healthy communities
- Integrating eLearning
The cross-cutting themes of gender, quality and appropriate technology are pervasive throughout the programme.
Services
COL can help with:
- Development of educational policies
- National and regional fora
- Teacher training programmes
- Literacy and livelihood/skills training
- Rural development, agricultural education and environmental management
- Programmes for orphaned and vulnerable children
- Quality assurance and institutional capacity-building
- Training of distance educators
- Educational technology applications
- Non-formal and health education
- Facilitating multi-provider delivery consortia
- E-learning
COL offers (SERVICES):
- Internship and attachment programmes
- Start-up guides and training manuals
- Knowledge resources and publications
- Web and Internet services
- Commonwealth-wide materials licensing
- Course delivery and design for international organisations (fee-for-service)