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Introduction

There is now an irreversible trend among countries in Asia and the Pacific to transform their teaching force and educational staff into technology literate and skilled workers. In almost all countries in the region (even among emerging countries), teachers in primary, secondary and tertiary levels, are being trained in the use of information and communication technologies in education in varying degrees and scope.

In summary, these teacher training programmes on ICT are being initiated:

  • with a wide variety of objectives ranging from supporting the broader development goals of creating a workforce equipped for the knowledge society and knowledge economy, to promoting educational reforms and revolutionizing teaching and learning processes;
  • through the sponsorship of multiple parties, with many emerging/developing countries largely funded by outside donor agencies, while the more developed nations are receiving substantial Government allocations;
  • through ready-made prototype training models, contents and modalities provided by sponsoring agencies though modified and adapted by receiving countries;
  • with the apparent tendency for curriculum contents to be more oriented towards basic computer literacy for the emerging/developing countries, while the more advanced countries are following a more integrated ICT and pedagogy approach (although this can also depend on the donor agency mandates and thrusts no matter what the development level of a country is);
  • with priority attention being given to training secondary level teachers in charge of selected subjects and with the gradual inclusion of principals and administrators in the training scheme, as well as pre-service teacher training gaining ground;
  • through a nationwide approach for the more advanced countries and those receiving substantial outside funding; and limited numbers of pilot schools, but in various parts of the countries for the less developed countries;
  • with mostly using face-to-face and very limited online mode of delivery; and
  • few projects sharing their training contents and resources through the Internet.

Objectives of inventory

To learn from these experiences as well as benefit from existing training resources, UNESCO undertook an initial inventory of professional development and teacher training programmes on ICT from selected countries in Asia and the Pacific. The inventory looked into the implementing bodies, sponsorship, objectives, recipients of training, geographical coverage, scope and level of training, curriculum course contents, modules and training materials developed, methodologies, and mode of delivery. Data and information culled and analytically synthesized from this inventory will hopefully:

  • provide policy makers and administrators/managers with information in formulating their teacher training programmes on ICT for education;
  • assist the trainers in selecting and trying out/adapting existing training curriculum and existing materials, rather than trying to re-invent the wheel;
  • avoid pitfalls and weaknesses in existing programmes; and
  • assist teachers in identifying and accessing the wealth of training resources that are already available and ready to use.

This inventory is still in the embryonic phase - the initial information collected will be used to launch a database of teacher training programmes on ICTs in the region, to be made searchable online. This is an ongoing project which will see a continuous expansion and updating of the database as all countries in the region begin to perceive the importance of contributing in its updating. The end goal is to benefit countries in the region in improving their teacher training activities on ICT.

Sources of information
The main sources of information in this inventory are the administered questionnaires submitted by selected countries through personal contacts and correspondences, as well as limited Internet searches followed up by correspondence to complete missing information. To extract information that was more or less common to all teacher training programmes for purposes of comparison, an inventory form was developed.

While all, if not most, of the items in the administered questionnaires were completed, the Internet searches had many gaps in information required. Therefore, to reconcile the different degrees of information provided from the two sources, the analysis below focused on those common items which received substantive responses from both sources and left out items which had scant or uneven information. For example, the initial wish to compile the actual training modules was abandoned simply because they were not readily available and accessible on the Internet and many of them were in the national languages.

The owners were also reluctant to share the information because of policy limitations and copyright issues. Instead, the analysis focused on merely reviewing the training contents based on the topical outlines derived from the training curricula as these were easier to access.

It was also found that such outlines provided information adequate enough to indicate in which areas teachers are being trained, and so provide useful directions to policy makers, managers and practitioners.

More thorough searching on the Internet may unearth further websites that carry descriptions of teacher training programmes in the region, but for the initial analysis, large teacher training projects funded by corporations such as Intel, Coca Cola, IBM, Nokia and international organizations like World Bank, World Links, Bellanet, UNDP, Japanese Funds, and several U.S.-based institutions were selected owing to their dominant and accessible presence on the Internet, as well as because the information given is in English.

Additional effort will also be made to gather information from other countries not included in the inventory directly from governmental officials responsible for training teachers. The information they provide will then be translated in order to draw more concise information of the programmes.

Therefore, while the analysis provided here is neither complete or exhaustive, it provides a sound basis in understanding what initiatives already exist in the region.

Geographic Range of the Inventory
The information provided and synthesized here is from:

A) Individual countries

Afghanistan
• UNESCO Computer Training Centre for MOE (questionnaire)

Australia
• Victorian Department of Education and Training and IBM (Internet)
• South Eastern Regional Computer Training Centre, Victoria, Australia (Internet)

Indonesia
• State University of Jakarta and other provincial universities (questionnaire)
Korea, South
• KERIS (questionnaire)

Mongolia
• Ministry of Science Technology Education and Culture and JICA (questionnaire)
• Education Research Institute (questionnaire)

Pakistan
• National Institute Planning and Administration, Quetta (questionnaire)
• Ministry of Education and Intel (questionnaire)

Philippines
• Coca Cola Edventure (Internet)

Singapore
• Instructional Science Academic Group, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University (Internet)

Viet Nam
• Center of information Technology and MOE (questionnaire)
• National Institute of Educational Sciences (questionnaire)

 

B. Regional or inter-country ICT projects on teacher training

 

C. A few online teacher training programmes from the United States and Canada were also looked into in terms of their training curriculum only as they provide good models either in delivery mode or more integrated ICT-pedagogy approach.