Vanuatu Universal Access Policy Training Workshop

Vanuatu Universal Access Policy Training Workshop

  • 1:15 a.m.

A component of a larger initiative led by the Telecommunications & Radiocommunications Regular (TRR) in Vanuatu. It consisted in the design and conducting of a training workshop for over 60 participants from 20 schools.

Project Details

Name of assignment or project: Vanuatu Universal Access Policy Training Workshop
Year: 2015
Location: Vanuatu
Client: Telecommunications & Radiocommunications Regular (TRR), Ministry of Education
Main project features: design of a training workshop for school supervisors, principals, zone curriculum advisers and teachers, training for the adoption of technology into schools and communities
Positions held: Trainer, MIS Expert,
Activities performed: designed workshop, conducted workshop, specific training included educational resources research and curriculum mapping, local content creation, information and data management, internet and basic applications usage and monitoring and evaluation, formed a community of practice

Report Restricted Access

Executive Summary

As stated in Telecommunications & Radiocommunications Regular (TRR) documentation, Vanuatu has liberalised its telecommunications market in 2008. One of the policies of the Government is the Universal Access Policy (UAP). This policy aims to provide telecommunications internet services into rural and un-served areas that are not commercially viable for operators to provide telecommunications services. As a means of expanding demand for the furtherance of Vanuatu’s development goals, TRR has embarked on three pilot programs. One of them, Tablets for Students (TFS), will make 7 inch Android tablets available to students in 7 schools located throughout Vanuatu. Another, the Computer Lab/Internet Community Centre programme, is designed to assist with the installation of computer labs in 15 schools across the country.

Integral to the success of these programmes is the ability of teachers and other key stakeholders to understand the technical capabilities, requirements, strengths and limitations of the computing resources they have at hand, of the internet in general and most importantly of the professional community of practice which they collectively comprise.

Executive of the Training Workshop

One week was allocated to the training. A Needs Assessment conducted prior to the workshop (in full report) indicated that most of the participants only had basic digital and ICT skills. The challenge was to design a package that ensured the supervisors of the CLICC and TFS facilities came away with the full set of essential operating, administration and maintenance skills, but also to explore the significant collections of educational resources provided on the servers, and the local content tools. The teachers and ZCAs should be:

  • (1) Inspired Introduced to the concepts and rationales, be presented with relevant examples that contextualise their learning and suggest pathways for ICT integration;
  • (2) Challenged to make connections with their teaching needs, the curriculum and teaching methods that will deliver the resources into the learning environment, and to promote the aims of the UAP by sharing access and resources with the community;
  • (3) Socialised into the world of “creative collaboration” not least so that the learning can be reinforced and extended after the short week of face to face training, and secondly to encourage “reflective practice”.
  • (4) Upskilled with the essential set of technical administration skills.

Shown below the managing director of Ahapi IT Solutions Johnnhy Arnhambat, the local ICT partner for this project.

Because the team of consultants were awarded both the gateway server and training contracts, these two interrelated needs have been delivered as an integrated package. The training is essentially blended, as it combines the short week of face to face training with a complete set of online training resources and community of practice. The package consists of:

  • A gateway server with resources and tools as explained above;
  • A school and community portal with User Management providing access to the library, applications and the Internet
  • A training package delivered as a distance learning course, with all modules presented in an online learning management system using the Moodle platform. A worksheet-driven approach ensures that the training is suitable for self-study and for cascading the training.
  • A Community of Practice (CoP) website and email group, integrated into the Moodle website.

Summary of Outcomes

The training workshop went ahead as planned with 63 participants from 19 schools. All subjects were covered, with perhaps the exception of the multimedia training. Provision has been made for the latter through the community of practice, with self-learning worksheets and email-based mentoring by the Ahapi team. The two international consultants, Ghislain Hachey and David Leeming, leading the workshop.

All the sessions are evaluated by the participants (self-assessments). In addition, there is an active email group with additional feedback. The feedback is generally very positive and constructive, and indicates that the training outcomes were very successful in all the four aspirational areas above. The CoP is very active with over 400 emails so far, and several on-going threads being discussed. A detailed summary is provided in the report.

Recommendations were invited by TRR. The team suggests a few areas for consideration. Firstly, we recommended that ongoing mentoring via the CoP is supported. Many of the participants have recommended refresher training. We point out a need for monitoring and formative evaluation. This requires formulation of an objectives framework for (1) sustainable operation, (2) ICT education integration and (3) wider UAP related social-economic outcomes. It also suggests a need for research to better understand the determinants and constraints. Finally, an opportunity arises to partner with UNESCO in the development of a Vanuatu themed curriculum resource concerning indigenous knowledge - an excellent opportunity to contextualise and consolidate skills acquired in the workshop, and strengthen the UAP community.