Participating in the ongoing global revolution in education

Can latest achievement in global education influence VET Kazakhstan? I do not know, but, I think, it makes sense to monitor latest tendencies and 2. reflect on ongoing issues in Kazakhstan.
The ongoing issue in VET Kazakhstan is that several hundrets of new teching materials will be purchased within the the State Investment Program. The question one might raise: how this ongoing process is aligned to the task of modernizing? Can it be made more efficient, cheaper and with a better input on learning outcomes, when we consider new developments?

And here is the new event: Flat world Knowledge, world's first publisher of commercial open-source college textbooks, received $8 million in venture capital. It wants to revolutionize the 8 billion US textbook market. Flat World's textbooks are written by well-paid, world-class authors. The new is the businss model: enter a mass market and charge for what the client is ready to pay. This will give a further push to the Open Source Movement.

What could it mean to VET Kazakhstan? Here is my wish list:
1. Publish the tender and the results on the internet. Today this is not the case. Lack of transparency increases transaction cost.
2. Require to put the content on the Internet as well. This can be done free-of-charge, required minimal efforts
3. Qualify the developers to use free-of-charge interactive web 2.0 elements, for example wikis, for improved peer review, better cooperation and communication.

Potential outcomes: higher-quality textbooks, which have better access by the community

Involved risks: existing tradition in copyrights, access to the internet, subject matter experts are notappropriate qualified for the internet.

Arguments against such an approach are: organizational culture, which avoids sharing and transparent decision-making; vested interests; ignorance; probably the most important factor is lack of knowledge about the possibility of the internet and open content

Google You Tube university

Apple started, now Google follows up: it started youtube edu a video-university. It is still focused on American universities. But, the idea is clear, it is easy, it does not require captial investment:
set-up an inventive system and promote a similar approach to Kazakh educational institutes.
Expected benefit: promoting a modern approach to teaching and sharing, identifying and disseminating best experienece, provding a diverse and high-quality educational resources to the students, raising awareness for the quality of teaching and deep integration of technology to improve educational outcomes.

Success factor: leadership commitment.
Apple announced today that it is expending its services, covering now all kind of knowledge, from museum trous to college lectures. I checked the service, listing to the lecture from Paul Collier about the Bottom Billion, an exciting book about the potential and the limits of aid in our days. 

Discussion at "The Economist" (The search of smart concepts 2)

The economist started its first(!) online discussion with the following statement: This house believes the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media addes little to the quality of most education.

The results are sumarized in the picture. Most probably, if England, which has a leading position in E-Learning, comes up with these statement and results, the issue for an emergent economy like Kazakhstan is a clear yes. However, the discussion and the arguments are - to my knowledge - the richest resources for arguing and thinking on the issue.

The following statements seem me important:

• “The practical task facing ministers of education is to expand access to quality education as economically as possible. They want the same outcomes as Adam Smith's pin factory: higher volume, consistent quality, lower cost.”

• “Technology has underperformed because it is usually applied to help the teacher teach rather than to help the learner learn. The successful examples of technology involve the creation of learning systems that create a rich environment around the learner. Too often technology is simply used to pretty up teaching yet, as many contributors have noted, technology may increase the reach of a poor teacher but it will not improve the quality of their teaching.”

The limiting factor is education system and educational paradigm. This is true in developing countries; this is even truer in countries with less resources, capacities and experience for innovation.

1. Technology should clearly point what should be improved “instead of a vague assumption that technology will enhance teaching.”

2. Technology is better used to create new learning systems.

3. There is a quest for the magic medium, the ultimate technology that will revolutionize education. The task is to use them to create a world where education of quality is abundantly available. (The proposition's opening remarks).

As for now, examples prove that technology can ensure a quantum leap, but these examples are much limited to generalize and to make policy recommendation. The search continues…

The search of a smart concept for introduction learning technologies

A simple question. Which kind of school do you prefer for your kid: one with good teachers and a high reputation within the community or one which uses extensively education technology? This question, asked by a senior official from a donor organization, is rhetorical: of course, quality of teachers is more important than the availability of hardware, software and content.
Does this make the point? Is introducing ICT too costly in countries like Kazakhstan? Is the performance improving in learning outputs too low to put scare resources on it, when basic needs such as facilities, decent salaries for teachers and basic supply on teachning materis are not covered? Is playing around with the latest gizmos of technology a luxury, middle-income countries cannot and should not afford?
Again, these are rhetoric questions. Overwhelming anecdotic evidence confirm a similar perception of officials from the Ministry of Education and donor organizations. No experiments with unknown phenomena. Uzbekistan has a record of putting a new VET school in even the most distant village. The "National Program of modernization of VET 2008 - 2012" from the Kazakh Ministry of Education assigns more than 70 % of the 500 million USD program to construction, the planning of the World Bank allocate less than 1 % of available ressources.
But this also means that there is a gap between official rhetoric about the need of educational technology for a globalized, knowledge-oriented and competitive workforce and practice. Is it too early in VET to start competing within the emerging global education space? I do not know.
May-be the paradox of ICT-introduction in middle income countries might be formulated in the following way: ICT is increasingly a necessity, but top-down hierarchies do have great problems to understand and to ensure efficiency. Performance improvements are extremely difficult to plan and to measure. As management capacities are limited, construction is easier to handle than change programmes.
As the current discussion proces proves, the problem for the developed world is similar, even if there is an active community and capacities for change, the link between labour market and technology is much more close, market force and institutional infrastructure is much more sophisticated.
Maybe the issue is about concepts, strategies and design? Starting from this posting I would like to start a search for smart concepts on introducing educational technologies as a catalyst of change. I will appreciate any support and feedback on this issue. Thank you for your consideration.

The power of facts: and what?

I participated at a conference at the West-Kazakhstan Agriculture Technical University in Uralsk with my standard presentation about the challenges we are facing. The perception seemed to be nice. The next question is - as asked by Mr. Anderson from AMEC: so what? We understand that there is a challenge. The world around is moving faster and faster. We do not mind to participate. But how? Mr. Anderson asks for smart solutions. But even smart solutions need money, an infrastructure, management capacity etc. There should be an active response