Open schooling in Malawi and Mozambique
Recently, COL began organising and supporting new open schooling content development in two sub-Saharan African countries — Malawi and Mozambique.
Both countries are long-term partners of COL’s Open Schooling initiative having been involved in the development of lessonlevel content piloted through COL’s Aptus device, as reported in a recently published Social Return on Investment study and available online from the OER & Digital Public Goods (DPG) Library. However, the content as currently constituted, assumes mediation by a teacher, whether face-to-face or online. Moreover, countries are realising the need to offer more occupational or vocational subjects to out-of-school youths. There was a need therefore to revisit both what should be offered and how it should be offered.
In response, COL provided a course design and development consultant to facilitate the discussion and practical application related to curriculum mapping, activity-based course design, as well as discovering and using open educational resources while promoting gender equality in content development. Participants from each country were also provided with an introduction to Moodle — an open-source LMS — and will continue to be provided with online assistance as they work towards completion of their courses.
In summary, the content developed for students involved in open schooling provision can also be used to support the education system more widely; for example, learners in day schools who need additional support.
