Curriculum Commons initiative

This Curriculum Common site has been developed to build capacity of telecentre operators.

Telecentre Academy Open Learning Platform is offered to you as the ‘curriculum commons site’ - an online repository and library of curriculum and training material created in order to encourage the use, re-use, translation and adaptation of training resources for telecentres across the world.

telecentre.org, in one of its efforts towards improving the quality and standard of grassroots knowledge workers announced the telecentre.org academy : Curriculum Commons Grant on July 29, 2008 of INR 50 lakh (USD 125,000). The announcement was made by Smt D Purandeswari, Minister of State for Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India at the inaugural address of the eINDIA 2008 conference in New Delhi. A collaborative social investment program, initiated by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Microsoft Corporation Pvt Ltd and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), telecentre.org is committed to help empower poor.

Over 30 proposals from four continents were received, which were shortlisted by an expert committee that included Karishma Kiri of Microsoft, Maria Teresa Camba of Commission on ICT, Philippines, Kiringai Kamau of VACID Africa, Kenya and Basheerhamad Shadrach of telecentre.org. Thirteen organizations were chosen to receive fifteen awards, from seven countries across the globe. The winners were contracted for a period between 3-5 months, to complete their work.

Brief Profile of Winners

  1. Accessing e-Governance Services - 4C, Hungary: The objective of the proposed curriculum is to empower the telecentre managers in accessing the various e-Government services. It aims to provide a simple step-by-step guide to reach the masses.
  2. Knowledge Management for Community Development - Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication, Philippines: The proposed curriculum is titled as 'Knowledge Management for Community Development'. The interactive self-learning multimedia curriculum aims to assist telecentre managers in understanding the knowledge management and different ways of integrating people, knowledge process and technology into a community knowledge system.
  3. Curriculum Development for Thaitelecentre.org - Center for Communication Development and Knowledge Management (CCDKM), Thailand: The proposed activities of the curriculum developed by CCDKM include understanding the training needs of telecentre managers/ operators and developing the curriculum for Thaitelecentre.org academy.
  4. Basic IT Hardware Maintenance - Centro de Informatica da Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (CIUEM), Mozambique: The objective of the proposed curriculum titled 'Basic Preventive and Curative Maintenance Techniques for Community ICT Practitioners' is to educate the telecentre managers to increase the efficiency and durability of IT hardware through the preventive and regular maintenance procedures.
  5. ICT for Social Entrepreneurship - Comet Media Foundation, India: The proposed curriculum aims to develop the contents on Science and Information Technology, Visual Communication and Design, Social perspectives and Entrepreneurship. The curriculum will be used for a one-year diploma course on ICT4SE (ICT for Social Entrepreneurship).
  6. Vocational Skills on Mobile Phone Repairing, etc. - Datamation Foundation, India: The proposed interactive and self-learning curriculum aims to help telecentre managers in vocational skills on Mobile Repairing, Candle Making and Mehndi (Henna) and Stationary items production. The content will be in English, Hindi and Bangla.
  7. Joomla Training - Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka: The project aims to prepare Joomla training material in the local language Sinhala. The entire training module will be based on the Moodle virtual learning environment.
  8. Telecentre Management - Egypt ICT Trust Fund, Egypt: The main objective of the proposed curriculum to enhance the project management capacity, enhance ICT skills and produce state-of-the-art content for telecentres' management.
  9. ICT based Agricultural Extension - Faculty of Information and Communication Studies (FICS) and University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU), Philippines: The objective of the proposed curriculum is to 'Train the Trainers on ICT based Agricultural Extension and Community Development' applications. The proposed curriculum will be divided into seven different modules ranging from Agricultural Extension to Social Capital Formation and ICT4D.
  10. Entrepreneurship and Legal Literacy - Friday Solutions Private Limited, India: The proposed curriculum aims to increase the understanding of telecentre managers on entrepreneurship, legal literacy for rural population and leveraging the Internet for employment generation.
  11. Telemedicine - Humaclin Healthcare Private Limited and SATHI, India: The proposed curriculum aims to assist telecentre managers in operating the telemedicine system in his/her telecentre. Apart from this, the curriculum will help them to enhance soft skills to communicate with the villagers and the consulting doctor.
  12. e-Learning - ICT Agency of Sri Lanka and School of Computing, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka: The proposed curriculum aims to develop an e-Learning, Evaluation and Accreditation services guide in English and local languages to increase the ICT literacy among the rural population.
  13. Healthy Lifestyle - Rural Development Institute, India: The proposed interactive self-learning curriculum on Healthy Lifestyle will include modules on Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health, Nutrition, General Health, Livelihoods, Rights and Entitlement. Each module will have a game to learn and understand the subject with ease.