One of the world’s technology giants and the world’s first inter-governmental organizations in education partner
The UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE-UNESCO) in partnership with Google is organizing an International Forum on ‘
Adopting an ICT Perspective to Education and Learning’ in New Delhi, India 31 October – 4 November 2016.
“Technology gives us a fair chance at providing every world citizen with quality and relevant education and learning, while improving resource efficiency gains,” says Dr. Marope, Director, IBE-UNESCO. “What better partnership than this? We bring the world’s best educational expertise, while Google brings the world’s best technological know-how to address the most daunting challenges of global education today.”
For ICT in education to be successful, real-life practice is essential. With this in mind, this Forum was designed to be very different from traditional conferences, where there is more talk and less hands-on activities. It will showcase best practice applications of ICT in education with activities, for example,
Google Chromebooks and ePathshala, a mobile platform for accessing digital books and other resources. Site visits will be made to
CIET-NERT to showcase digital content creation and Sanskriti School that uses Google Apps for Education. With a user led approach, countries like India, Lithuania, Mauritius, Oman and South Africa will present their own case-studies in innovative and engaging ways.
Mr. Godana, who manages IBE’s Education System Quality and Learning (ESQL) Program, confirms, “It is vital that the forum increases participants’ competence to integrate ICT into curriculum, teaching, learning and assessment. Participants must better understand the ICT tools and methods available that will enable innovations to improve access, quality, equity and inclusion in education. ICT should not be stand-alone, it must be integrated into all aspects of the education system.”
IBE-UNESCO supports countries’ efforts both through direct technical assistance, but also by providing platforms to share experiences and best practices from around the world and build country capacity to harness technology to improve their education and learning systems. The Forum is part of IBE-UNESCO's multi-pronged approach to strengthen education and learning systems for sustained improvement of education quality, relevance, equity, inclusion and resource efficiency.
The Forum is organized in collaboration with the
UNESCO International Institute of Technology for Education (IITE) in Moscow, the
National Council for Education Research and Training (NCERT) in New Delhi and the
Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India (MHRD-GOI). Participating countries include Azerbaijan, Botswana, Egypt, Gabon, India, Lithuania, Oman, Seychelles, South Africa and Swaziland. Experts from Mauritius, Brazil and the United States are also participating. Google is contributing significantly not only financially, but also by providing experts to facilitate different Forum sessions. Three Ministers of Education will also attend: India (the host), South Africa (a keynote speaker) and Swaziland.
IBE-UNESCO, in partnership with
Google, supports 10 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East to strengthen their education systems by harnessing the potential of technology to improve access to, quality and equity of education, as well as effective management of education systems. This forum is one of the IBE-Google efforts to achieve long-lasting changes in the way technology is employed.
Watch this: GEQAF-II implementation video: Professor Behera, CIET-NCERT, New Delhi
