The Hindu Business Line : NextGen project for teachers in Asia-Pacific region

UNESCO also plans to organise a `deans' forum' on ICT and organise curriculum development workshops and capacity building programmes for instructors

Recently in Siem Reap Cambodia India is one of the countries from Asia forming part of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation's (UNESCO) Next Generation of Teachers (NextGen) Project.

Dr Sheldon Shaeffer, Director, Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education, UNESCO told Business Line that the NextGen Project is about pre-service training for teachers in the Asia-Pacific region. The project, which is supported by Microsoft as part of its `partners in learning' programme, is intended to help Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) in the Asia-Pacific region prepare the next generation of teachers to use technologies for teaching and learning. The programme will prepare teachers who leave a TEI to use information and communication technologies (ICT) in their classrooms depending on the infrastructure available, he added.

At the moment, UNESCO is in the process of doing a situation and needs analysis of TEIs in the Asia-Pacific region. This analysis is intended to determine the extent to which ICT have been integrated into the education in TEIs, Dr Shaeffer said In India, the organisation is on the verge of launching this situation analysis, he added. UNESCO also plans to organise a `deans' forum' on ICT and organise curriculum development workshops and capacity building programmes for instructors in TEIs.

Meanwhile, the organisation is also working on measures to promote use of ICT in non-formal education through community learning centres and community multi-media centres, and has developed an information clearinghouse to support research and sharing of experiences and knowledge on ICT in education.

On the cards is an `Innovative Practices Project' to collect and document innovative experiences about the use of ICT in education, Dr Shaeffer said. This project is still being developed and the idea is to create an online repository of best practices, he said.