To read more about the purpose of this activity, click here.

 The task 

The hard work that you have been doing for your Minister has finally paid off. The Ministry of Education is calling together a group of stakeholders from your country, representing a wide range of vested interests related to distance education, further education and training, and the country's economy. As the chief planner of this distance education policy-making process, you will need to run this important consultative session. However, you believe that it is critical to bring some concrete proposals to the discussion, so that the meeting has something specific to focus on and discuss.

Your task, therefore, is to prepare a draft policy framework to present to the meeting. In doing this, you should aim to pull together the work you have already done in this online course, as well as the lessons that emerged from your workshop work in Mozambique.

 

 What you should read 

  To prepare for this activity, you might find it useful to browse through some examples of distance education and other policies. If you have not done so already, you could also read this critique of educational technology policy. Finally, if you have time, we suggest you look through a policy research document called Open Learning in General and Further Education and Training in South Africa. 

 What you need to do 

  1.  First, prepare a broad framework for your document. This will consist of a set of headings for the document. Remember to draw on the work you have done so far - and particularly our conversations in Mozambique - when compiling this framework. To do this, open a blank Word document and create your framework in this new file. Do remember though to save your work as you go along.

Note that we have not provided you an activity template for this activity, as we think it is important for you to construct this framework from scratch. People from different countries are likely to need different headings in their document, so it is not possible to create a generic template. If you are struggling, you might like to think back to the programme framework we created during the workshop in Mozambique to get ideas.

  1. At this point, you might like to share your proposed framework with your group. If so, attach your response to an e-mail to your group of peers. Click here to send an e-mail to the group with your proposed framework for this activity. Add any comments in the mail that you think are necessary to explain further the framework you have prepared. When you have completed your mail, send it to the group. 
  2. If you start receiving any proposed frameworks from others, take a look at these and compare them with your own. Do they provide you any new ideas? Do you have any comments you would like to share with your colleague? Feel free to reply to their inputs.
  3. When you have constructed an appropriate set of headings, you should then begin to prepare a document that could be presented as a draft policy framework to a meeting of key stakeholders. You will need to think carefully about what should go into this document. How much detail do you need? Should you answer every question, or should you simply prepare a framework for discussion? There are no 'right' answers to this - it will depend on the context of education in your country. As you are working on this, remember to keep saving your work.
  4. When you are ready, share this discussion document with your group by attaching your response to an e-mail to your group of peers. Click here to send an e-mail to the group with your response to this activity. Add any comments in the mail that you think are necessary to explain further the submission you have prepared. When you have completed your mail, send it to the group. 
  5. At this time, you should start receiving the responses of other members of the group. When you look through these responses, you might like to consider the following questions: How does this compare with what you did? Are there aspects of what others did that you think you could have incorporated in your document? If so, why? Your online mentor will also ask you further questions based on the inputs from the group. At any point, you can share any of your responses to these questions or any other observations with the rest of the group, either by pressing the Reply button on the e-mail or by clicking on this link (Share further comments on activity four with the group). 

 Estimated time 

We expect that this activity should take between 10 to 15 hours. We suggest you think of spending your time as follows (but remember this is only a guide):

  1. Undertaking further readings is likely to take you 2-4 hours.
  2. Preparing a document framework, as well as reading through frameworks circulated by others, is likely to take you 1-2 hours.
  3. Preparing your final document could take you as much as 4-6 hours.
  4. Reading other people's responses and engaging in ongoing discussion after you have completed the activity should last between 2-4 hours.

 On completion 

  To conclude the course, we would like you to read a brief reflection on activity four.