Skills development through lifelong learning

Hello everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are joining us from. A warm greetings from the Commonwealth of Learning and welcome to the PCF11 plus beyond the forum webinar series. In September 2025, the Commonwealth of Learning successfully hosted and convened the 11th Pan Commonwealth Forum on open learning in Gabberon, Botswana. Building on uh the rich dialogue and scholarship of that particular forum, this webinar series extends the conversation behind beyond the conference, creating space for ongoing exchange, reflection and collaboration. PCF11 plus brings together selected papers aligned with the forum's themes and others uh and offers a platform for uh authors particularly those who are not able to join us in person in Gabberon to share their insights with global audience. The series amplifies diverse voices and perspectives on transforming education and training through openness, innovation and inclusion. following our first webinar in November 2025 on changing mindsets for inclusive open education and our second uh webinar in January 2026 on gender technology and innovation in open education. We are delighted to welcome you to this third webinar in the series together with Dr. Shantel, we are pleased to host you today uh in this particular session under the sub theme skills development for lifelong learning and here we are focusing on research papers submitted under the sub theme three of uh the forum uh featuring work by uh skills development experts from across uh the commonwealth in Jamaica uh Malaysia and Kenya. Today's webinar explores critical issues at the intersection of generative AI, digitalization, quality and assessment in technical and vocational education and training. We look forward to an engaging exchange of ideas that will inform practice policy and future research. Once again uh on behalf of uh myself uh Dr. Shantal Mo and uh the commonwealth of learning fraterity. We thank you very much for being part of this uh continuing conversation. I now kindly invite my colleague uh Dr. Shantel to take us through the next session. Kendley. >> Hey, thank you so very much, Robert. And it's really a pleasure on behalf of the Commonwealth of Learning to welcome you all to this webinar, the third in the series, and we know that you're going to have an amazing time engaging with the presentations from our participants. Just want to recognize the support of the group from the Commonwealth of Learning who makes this webinar possible. want to acknowledge the director of education Dr. Tony Maize, the director of skills, Dr. Jotsna um Joyce Naja, as well as the program assistant, Miss Yanni Chin. And so we just want to thank you so very much for your support. Today's webinar indeed is about um open pathways, flexible futures, skills development through lifelong learning. And so we just want to just before we introduce you to the speakers to note that we are going to be using this format. Um following our remarks each of the speakers will present for roughly 10 to 12 minutes and immediately after each speaker's presentation we will open the floor for questions and answers. And if you have questions during the presentation, please feel free to drop them in the chat and we will certainly take each of those questions as soon as the presenter wraps up. Um after the presentations, we are going to have a moment when we um do a recap and a reflection around the three presentations synthesizing and responding to how it goes. So that's the format that we will be taking. And so now I want to take this moment to introduce you to each of the speakers. Our first speaker this morning is Dr. Marc Amande. Um she certainly is the senior director at the heart national training agency in Jamaica. She oversees the development of labor marketdriven programs and advances blended learning at the heart trust institution. She has been responsible for organizing leadership programs for TVAT principles and teachers and she has served as the UNESCO Univa cluster coordinator for the Caribbean. And of course, we know that she's actively involved in presentations and seminars and conferences on effective learning in TVET because of her leading role in the area. We have our second presenter um Joseph Aroma Arena Mari who is an education technical solutions expert at the Kenya school of TVET specializing in open distance and e-learning data governance and applied data science and he has led multistakeholder initiatives in TVET systems including policy development quality assurance me and in e-learning and digital learning platforms. For Joseph, his work focuses on strengthening institutional capacity and translating policy into practice technology enabled solutions for scalable highquality education delivery across diverse public contexts. And our third speaker for the this webinar is Jonathan Kival. Um Jonathan JSK as he says he can be called is a seasoned digital learning expert and leader in higher education administration with over 20 years of experience and as program manager at Asia-Pacific University's digital learning hub. He leads educational technology implementations that transform teaching and learning. And so through his curriculum design workshops and hand on hands-on training he builds the capacity of educators to leverage technology around AI so as to enrich students engagement in teaching and learning. Jonathan currently is a candidate in PhD studies researching the future of digital learning. So at this moment without any further ado we are going to intro in um allow our first presenter to go ahead and to share her presentation. So Dr. Marcia Ro Monday over to you. Thank you. Thank you so much Dr. Shantel. I want to say a pleasant good morning to everyone from Jamaica. It's a nice sunny morning here. Thanks for this opportunity to just share with you as you're doing something that's in of interest to all of us blended learning. Um so what is driving my interest? It's my own experience as a lecturer and instructor delivering blended learning programs. I'm also as was said leading the flexible online portfolio. It is a part of my job and we try to find ways every day of how we can do it better. How can we build the capacity of our instructors, our teachers and how can we really engage our trainees, our students? We also I also wanted to hear the voices of our students. Many times we read about blended learning and we hear about it but it is not from the students perspective. So I've started there with a a a definition of blended learning. I will not go through it. I'm cognizant that I only have 10 minutes. But it's really about customizing pace, place, and mode of learning. We also have a policy here where I work on flexible learning. And I'm sure you know what that is. It's really a combination of active engaged learning online with active engagement offline. Finding different ways to reach our traineees or students. So it's really about flexibility and it's about synchronous and asynchronous learning where in in in the asynchronous the students they go at their own pace. the synchronous we actually engage the instructor or the lecturer live. These are some of the platforms that we use when we talk about online learning. We have the zoom, we have Google classroom, school logic, cisco netcad, socratic the mood of course which is what we are currently using now. We also use Microsoft Teams, Cisco, WebEx and we have an internal model but we also have an external one. So this study was done last year and it was guided by really to get the perspectives from our learners about their attitudes to online learning. How do they generally feel about it? um are they do they think they're learning effectively and what are some recommendations for how we can strengthen engagement and we looked at 83 TV students they are all doing TVET related courses they were from five institutions ranging from ages 70 to 60 both males and females we had 60% males and 40% females. And they were involved in a variety of technical and vocational programs. And these are just some of the programs that we offer here at the heart and SDA Trust. um system administration, data operations, housekeeping, commercial food preparations, general accounting, electrical installation, general construction, network support. And you all know the benefits of online learning and what the literature is saying about that. And very importantly to us is the importance of inclusion. trying to reach those in the rural areas, trying to reach those who are working and find it difficult to navigate traffic, especially in Kingston, to get to classes, and also meeting those with special education needs. We last um last month we had what was known as a flexible learning week where we did a number of activities to get by in and to promote flexible learning at our institutions. And this is just one of the flyers that we sent out. And the part of the engagement when we talk about flexible learning is the social presence, the presence of the instructors. And we also talk about the importance of cognitive presence and a teaching present in order to promote engagement. The areas of engagement as we look at flexible learning, it's the engagement with the course, engagement with peers, engagement with instructors, with the entire program, with the community, and of course the efficacy of the technology. So as it relates to this study, it was a mixed methods approach. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used. The quantitative was an online survey just eliciting general feedback. And then we had a focus group with those who um said they will participate in the focus group session. And that was to delve deeper in the responses coming out of the survey. And we asked what mode of learning do you prefer? And 86% said we prefer face to face. 13% said we we like online. And these are some responses from students. Nila is saying I learn online but I prefer face to face. I get a good understanding. Joan said, "I prefer face to face. I'm a visual learner and I feel connected with my teacher." Jane said, "However, I like online. It gives me flexibility. I'm able to work and study and I'm able to do so in my own time at 2:00 and 3:00. So, in the morning." So when these responses show that they really prefer face-to-face learning and but however there is the recognition that online learning is a current feature of our educational landscape. Now we asked them about synchronous and asynchronous learning and 82% said they prefer synchronous learning where they can engage with their instructors. So this focus on synchronous learning seems to support their preference for online learning because it provides them with an opportunity they said to engage with their teacher and their facilitator. And I think that this is supports the focus on the social aspect and strengthening that in the online environment. It is said and I got a a a citation there that there's a positive relationship between social presence and how individuals behave and interact in an online learning environment. Then another question was asked, do you learn effectively in an online environment? They said, I get distracted by by social media and surfing the internet when I am in an online class. And we had 35% who said yes I do get distracted while 27% disagreed and 36% of them were neutral. These are some of the ways they said that we engage when we are in the online environment. We type in the chat. We have discussion with other students. We have discussions with our teachers. We get involved in group projects. We have polls. We have quizzes. We watch videos. We do um group work, gamification. And we have one and one discussions. Now we also see that demonstrations figure very much so. 52.6% 6% said that in an online environment we are also involved in demonstrations which shows that this can support this methodology in TVET because in TVET we do a lot of um demonstrations. So it is possible to be involved in demonstrations when online. This is what one student had to say about online engagement. I had a challenge where computer class was concerned. I am a person who learns by doing things and computer is not something she said that's designed for online learning even if it's online. The theory section should be online but the facetoface should be for practicals. Also, the lack of communication and empathy from the instructor made me feel like I wasn't worth the effort and I was basically to go out and learn on my own. So, this can be an experience which is not positive that can take place in an online environment. Some of the challenges that affect engagement are like poor Wi-Fi connection. Many of them also have an environment that's not very suitable for learning at home. There are times when there are power outages and a myriad of other distractions. Some said they get involved with um taking care of the children. So they do have challenges that cause them to be distracted. We also did another survey and this was among students and instructors and we looked at 4,52 students where they talked about the workload in an online environment. They believed that the online course workload appeared to be more than that of the face-to-face and 60% of them agreed with the statement that it is f it's more and 31% strongly disagreed 9% were neutral when it came on to that. So their perspective says being a firsttime user and not being computer literate was my challenge. So make it easy for me. For example, for persons like me who are beginners, put an introduction so on how to navigate the platform, how to go around so that I can find my way around smoothly. Another said, "My preference in online. However, this module was done blended. My belief is that fully online would help me achieve more by reducing my commute." And I said that earlier. And another said about online, "Yes, I would recommend this method of learning to other learners because it's convenience, it's information, it's accessible, and I find it easier to complete assignments." So we can see where the perspectives vary but among that is that they still believe that at the online environment is an environment where they can successfully learn at their own pace and in their own time. So we went ahead and asked what are some recommendations for how this engagement can be strengthened and this is from the point of view of the learners. They are saying you we need to utilize a platform that is simple, accessible, easy to navigate. The teacher needs to develop a bond with the students online. even though you may have students with different personalities and different styles of learning. Another said the lessons should be more interactive so nobody feels left out. They also mentioned artificial intelligence and guiding them with a list of prompts, organizing notes and videos in groups, using games to get them excited. They mentioned the need for improving internet connection. So the conclusion is that we really need to have some capacity building exercise for our teachers and instructors so that they can effectively engage our students in an online environment. Thank you very much. Over to you Dr. more. >> Thank you so very much um Dr. Ro Amande and at this time we really want to engage some more with your presentation. So the floor is open for questions from the from the general audience. You can please go ahead post your questions in the chat or if you would prefer you can raise your hand and we will enable so that you can you know speak your question. And in the interim, just looking at the chat, we see that um um Tony has proposed an area for consideration saying that even in full-time face-to-face courses, we expect a lot of self-study in preparation and also for assessment. And therefore in the blended environment the courses need to be so structured carefully in fact so that we can make the best use of both um aspects of face to face and online. All right so thanks for that um in >> thank you. >> All right Howard Howard hand um I see Howard's hand. So Howard go right ahead and note your comment or question. >> Morning. Good morning. uh pleasure for being here. Thank you very much uh Dr. Mund for the sort of comprehensive presentation and the research. I am really impressed with the um future of our education in TVET. However, I have a question. I'm trying to remember if I if I probably overlook or underlook um the aspect of assessments um online for practical students in practical situation. For example, let's say we're doing um commercial food preparation. Is there any information you gather out of this study that um would guide us to provide online assessment practically for like a food prep? Um let me give you a scenario like in COVID when nobody could have come out and we were doing the program could we do a is there any information that came out for an assessment to be done while they are doing practically they are being assessed online that's that's the question I don't know >> okay Dr. Harvey, we did not ask that specific question in the study but it but videos came out as one way in which we can engage the students and so practical assessments can be done through videos. They can you know video themselves doing the practical assessment and then they can upload it to a particular space. I think we also use simulators a lot and they're asking for these tools to be integrated in the online environment. So the simulators could also assess assist and the students themselves talked about AI and AI is being integrated in assessment. So we need to um have sessions for the facilitator to show how AI can be integrated in the assessments to give realtime um feedback. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. >> Okay, there's another comment uh in the session uh maybe in the chat section. uh uh what was the distribution of the trainees by status among those who preferred face toface versus blended learning that is a question from Carlton Wellington Dr. Secondly, >> cartoon 86% said they prefer face to face. 86% preferred face toface uh um learning in a face-to-face environment. The remainder said they prefer online. >> Okay. Thank you. There's another question from uh Ambrose Moduri. for technical training in our activates uh online platform struggle to replicate workshops and field-based learning with simulation and videos not fully substituting a real world practice with tools and equipment uh think uh how can uh we bypass this challenge Dr. I think we should embrace a blended learning approach when it comes on to TVET. So we do the theoretical courses online most of them do the ones that can be done and we arrange to meet them face to face for the demonstrations it it and the and the practicals. It doesn't mean however that the online environment cannot facilitate the practical sessions. Yes, the the videos may not um be the same but they if they are so organized they can be effective. >> Okay. Uh because of time maybe uh we can sum it up and maybe I can say a word or two based on the presentation as we welcome the next presenter. Uh so thank you very much for the presentation and uh uh the common of learning we conducted a research study in 2021 on uh uh blended learning and uh the findings of that particular research uh enabled us to uh come up with two documents. One was the competency standards for blended TVET and a skill set for a blended TVET trainer and uh based on it we've been able to support uh capacity and capability building of TV practitioners across the commonwealth using a program we Christian uh blended delivery of uh blended blended delivery of TVET and uh one of the aspects that uh comes to mind is the approach that can be used where cognitive aspects can be online and the practical aspects can be covered uh at the workshops and the laboratories. We also look at a scenario where we have uh maybe uh text uh we have audio video, we have simulations, then uh online simulations and then simulators at the workshops and laboratories. Then you go to the actual uh workshops and this uh ideally reduces uh the cost of the training programs. Uh enhances uh interactivity that you aptly talked about and also engagement and ultimately uh the quality of learning outcomes are relevant and those uh that industry urgently maybe are nicely desire for. In terms of the last question by uh Howard Harvey, I noted you talked about simulations uh virtual labs uh is also a key aspect uh that we've been able to support our partners with and uh also the use of e portfolios where one can be able to uh have their reflections and artifacts that can be used during uh competency based assessments. uh you also talked about AI and uh something that uh comes to mind is that uh the future of work is about uh collaborations and is about uh how do we use AI to as a tool and also as a companion in our learning processes. So it's important that we reflect on how machine learning, how robotics and generative AI can be harnessed with human intelligence to come up with what we call collective intelligence. And uh in terms of assessments, this is uh I think the way forward. How do we assess cons collective intelligence and not only human intelligence because that is how the world of work is going to be. So thank you very much. Uh back to uh Dr. Shantel kindly for the next presenter. Thank you so very much. Um I see that Carlton your hand is up. However, Carlton will just um ask you to speak at the end when we do our reflections so that we can move on to the second speaker this morning. Thank you so much. All right. So I now welcome our second speaker um Mr. Joseph Orina McCori to go ahead share his slides and take away the presentation for us. Thanks Joseph. Thank you. Uh good morning, good afternoon, good evening everyone. Thank you for joining this session so that uh we can look at practical solutions uh from the PCF11 conference that happened last year. Now last year we conducted uh research on barriers to accredititation of online learning programs in Kenyan TV institution. So this study was done by Joseph Arena Makuri from the Kenya school of TVET and Dr. Ed Turno, the chief executive officer, Pña School of TET. And um in the study, we looked at uh the context and the current state. We looked at the various barriers uh to accreditation and u we got some findings that we're going to see in this presentation. Uh in in summary, we we say that Kenya's civate institutions face a significant barriers to accrediting online and distance e-learning programs with uh only one institution currently holding official accredititation out of over 2,000 registered in initutions. Um the target audience for this study was TET institutional principles and academic directors uh TVET governance committees and boards national and county government TV coordinators and TVA as the um regulatory authority. So what was the research foundation? Um from the 190 TVET staff who responded to our survey, we picked up on infrastructure deficits, technical support shortages, uh digital skills and training gaps, learning platform gaps, and policy issues. And uh we have come up with a a policy brief and that is what we are presenting today on this webinar series uh because it is dubbed on the practical bit after research. How do we convert the findings to practical actions? So this policy brief distills practical strategies for Tivet principles to operationalize requirements and guidelines of 2023 within the institutional contexts and um the suggestions are of international alignments UNESCO open learning standards commonwealth of learning frameworks and IETA requirements. Now we look at uh the context that is the OD challenge in the Kenyan TV and and like we have mentioned we have over 2,000 TV institutions in Kenya and only one is um was accredited by the time we were doing the research. Um so what is uh the implementation gap uh that was discovered is that uh we have infrastructure constraints. We have unclear budget allocations and we have insufficient uh technical support. And why then are we doing a brief is because we want to respond to the gap by offering concrete stepwise guidance grounded in international best practices uh Kenya regulatory requirements evidencebased institutional and readiness factors and uh maybe to explain further is to say that as much as this one is a Kenyan scenario. From our desk review of various researches across the continent, we realize that uh most of the African countries are struggling with the same challenges as as as Kenya. So what are the five critical barriers to accreditation? So from u the research findings we found that 51% of institutions they reported partial and unreliable internet only 49% are fully stable connectivity required for synchronous online teaching outages interrupted uh learning delivery and in rural areas. Number two was on learning platforms whereby 41% of institutions lack access to a learning management system uh which is mandatory for teta accredititation. Then uh number three is technical support shortages. Most institutions were reported uh uh uh insufficient dedicated technical support during online classes leaving both uh trainers and learners without troubleshooting assistance. Then number four I chose on policy clarity issues. So while 72% of staff were aware of TEATA accredititation guidelines, many reported that policies lacked usable implementation guidance, worked examples or simple checklists. Then finally uh number five is digital skills and training gaps. Although 79% had received audit training, 21% had not. Moreover, training was often theoretical rather than practical, limiting confidence in platform I use. So, regionally, these barriers are not quite unique to Kenya. They align with documented challenges across subsaharan Africa and other uh low resource uh settings. So, so what then can we do? Um, as the people affected by these barriers, number one, we have to have a strategy on infrastructure and technology. We have to look at human capital and digital skills. We have to focus on policy clarification and institutional alignment. And we have to also check on learner support and instructional design in uh infrastructure and technology. Um we have to look for practical solutions on internet connectivity uh backup power systems uh like solar everybody's going greening. So uh we also look at a common learning management system maybe a national learning management system and also uh create vendor partnerships in human capacity and digital skills. We have to build trainer and staff competence in order pedagogy and platform management. So we realize that uh we have several partners. The common of learning is doing quite a lot in terms of capacity development of um its partners and this will indeed help uh countries um implement audit. Then uh we have policy clarifications and institutional alignments. We suggest that TETA translates the ordered requirements into institution specific operational policy. They can come up with a simplified guide on how to implement each of the requirements. Instead of having a standard that is written in a technical language, they can be able to create a policy operational policy document which will be easily understood by the TV institutions. Then uh we said pillar number four we do learner support and instructional design and uh we realized that uh having all the infrastructure having all the human capacity and digital skills and uh complying with the policy requirements is not enough. you you saw from the previous uh research findings that uh some of the students dropped out of school because they were not given uh pedagogical support from the facilitators. So they felt that they are not valued and that's why learner support and instructional design is very important in breaking the barriers. So for pillar one and two um the suggestions are clear. We say that we need to conduct uh tech audit. We need to secure some budget for critical infrastructure. Then we need to establish fender partnerships so that we can uh make it possible to provide hardware and software for learning. Uh we need to create a sustainability plan. So we need to as after acquiring all that we need to have a plan on how we are going to be sustainable. Should we charge some fees? Should we um engage partners on a long term? Uh so these are things that we need to consider. Then uh number two is on human capacity and digital skills. We are saying that uh institutions need to hire or designate an ODLE coordinator and most of our institutions in Kenya are implementing this. They they have designated an Odel coordinator then uh they should be able to establish a trainer development pathway. So they should uh plan for a course for its trainers so that we are able to capacity build our facilitators. Then uh we should also invest in technical support infrastructure. So things like uh help desk, things like uh a 24-hour uh desk phone that could not be very expensive and the facilitators will be available to help the students. Then u they should consider creating incentives for continuous learning like gaining CPDs for registration of the facilitators uh who are teaching within the institutions. on pillar three and pillar four policy and learner support. You're saying that uh should develop an institutional model policy at least a template a fivepage document that clarifies on program a transition timeline learner support mechanisms roles and responsibilities uh monitoring and evaluation quality assurance processes assessment methods and budget and resource allocation. So and that we should also align with the TEA standards not just accreditation standard they also have a content development standard assessment standard and all that so that we are able to align with the regulator then uh we should also be able to engage stakeholders in co-creation. So we can consider the concept of for creation like uh we can be able to create a course the facilitators can create a course and once we generate income we can be able to share uh the income from uh the courses that we offer out there then uh we should simplify uh dissemination of policy. Um yes and uh then pillar number four on learner support and instructional design we are suggesting that we should establish learner support services at the academic staff level at the technical staff staff level and the pastoral support and uh pastoral support is whereby we are able to do regular checkings check mental health awareness inclusion of learners with disability and also provide accessibility resources like screen uh reader uh video captions alternative assessment formats. We also suggest that we design competence aligned courses also pilot and iterate. So potting will be able to um help us check on the inconsistencies of our implementation of blended learning and then we adjust and pilot again until we get it right. Then again we are suggesting that we should leverage on open educational resources uh so that we can be able to get good quality instructional design materials for the various courses. Now uh because um financial support was one of the major issues we proposed an a 18month implementation road map for institutions so that uh by the 18th month we can be able to have institutions accredited. So the institutions are willing to offer e-learning and but now accreditation is a challenge and uh that's why we are proposing an implementation road map that um will help them take a journey that they will follow up to the end and have a solid um or a proper implementation of that leads to accreditation. So we are saying that in the first three months we should do diagnostics and planning. Uh here we will do technology audit uh gap analysis, budget development and um we recruit the coordinator then we have suggested the responsibility. Then number two we develop policies kindly request that you try to summarize because of time kindly. Thank you. >> Okay. Okay. Then we are saying that uh um we have policy uh development, infrastructure development for 3 to 9, trainer capacity development up to 12 months and then we pilot programs and then uh refine uh the quality refinement and quality assurance and then we perform accreditation in the 18th month. Um so the budget considerations we have given there what each institution will require. Of course we are going to share this presentation so that we can uh read from uh from there. Then u finally uh we have identified pitfalls that we need to avoid. So the first one is technology first thinking. Uh so we are saying you look at um the end user before the technology trainer as a one-off event. So we should think of continuous professional development for e-learning. Then number three neglecting learner support we should avoid that then underestimating costs. We should do proper costing and then um submitting too early also isolating the order initiative. We should avoid all that. Then uh in conclusion we are saying accrediting online and distance e-learning programs is achievable for motivated instructional leaders committed to sustained investment in infrastructure, human capacity, clear policy and learner support. So thank you very much and uh back to you. >> Okay, thank you so much Joseph for your presentation. We now open the floor for comments, questions. We see a comment in the chat from Tony that it responds to your presentation really resonates well um because with with him in terms of his experience before joining call and he says that in South Africa ODL provision requires meeting all the same requirements as for face toface but also additional evidence of capacity to devel to deliver centralized support and assessment as well as copies of students learning materials. All right. So all of that had to happen in order for accreditation. There is another comment from Ambrose saying you know great insights and that in Kenya's TVET there is need to have a contextualized framework in place to operationalize ODL and beef up infrastructure through use of sustainable approaches and Samuel says that um as a question can TV come up with a common LMS platform for all TV institutions in Kenya so your response Joseph to those comments and question >> indeed um we say that uh in technology it's how you adapt it is not it will not come to give you solutions so we have to first change our mindset then we can be able to adapt to technology there are those people for example in artificial intelligence I think that artificial intelligence is coming to take up jobs. It is coming to disrupt implementations. But uh there are others who say that AI is making us more efficient. So my comment is that we need to adapt technology uh instead of thinking that technology is going to solve the solutions itself. >> Okay. Thank you. And one more question from John regarding the input of government in helping to address the resource gap in ODL in Kenya. Yeah. >> Yeah. So for the Kenyan government uh really especially in the TV sector the government has put a lot of support especially maybe at the Kenya school of TVET it has established a data center to cost most of the TVET institutions and uh regularly it is doing capacity development and that's why there is a national center for TVET and Uh on top of that there was a presidential working party report in 2022 that uh suggested that the there should be a national open TV system and you can see all those initiatives supporting open learning in TET. >> Okay. Thanks. And so we have one more question from David or comment. So David we allow you now to just quickly raise your question or comment. Go ahead, David. Just unmute and go ahead. All right. So, having a little challenge, it seems. So, um I would want to just have one comment or suggestion, Joseph, around the one TV institution that already has institutional um accredititation approval. I'm wondering how can that institution be used as a case and model um to even guide the other 2,000 or 1,999 you know to move towards accreditation. Um just wondered if you thought about using them especially as Robert talked about the future of skills and work is about collaboration. Maybe what I can say is that >> maybe Joseph before you come in I wanted to clarify something on uh this study was conducted last year I think before PCF11. Uh so far uh the TV regulatory body has accredited around four of them and uh they uh currently uh going on with uh plans to accredit uh all the national poly technical and uh also four special needs TV institutions. So over the next one year that has been the target. So please proceed Joseph. >> Yeah. So I just wanted to just reiterate on what you have said because the the first quarter of this year we were doing training and supporting the national poly techchnic through a call initiative and teta on accreditation of these institutions. So we expect that by the end of the year we have 34 accredited. >> Hey thank you so much Joseph for responding. Um Robert over to you to offer insights as we wrap up this presentation section. Yeah. >> Okay. Thank you very much. So uh maybe Commonwealth of Learning has been supporting an initiative aimed at uh enhancing the quality and standards of uh blended TV across the Commonwealth and uh in Africa because that's where this is uh contextualized. Kenya's uh commonwealth of learning has been supporting uh the national board for technical education and training in Nigeria and uh TV regulatory body in Zambia and also the TV regulatory body in Kenya to put in mechanisms and frameworks to enhance quality and uh uh standards and uh accredititation tools were developed and they are being implemented and we are glad that uh this paper actually uh tries to address issues of collaborative practice and the recommendations are very much in uh uh uh they're in line with uh our thinking and we are glad that uh other practitioners across the commonwealth will also think of adopting the same and uh I also wanted to uh think about uh the uh one of the recommendations he talked about having an accreditation course or uh a policy document and I think uh the TV regulatory body is already working on that and uh it should be ready by the end of uh June. Thank you very much Shantel. >> Hey, thank you Robert and um really interesting presentation from Joseph as being um you know commented on in the chat. There are around two questions or comments [clears throat] Joseph for you to just respond to in the chat and if there's time at the end you can speak to them. All right. So we now invite our third presenter for the morning or afternoon, evening, night, whatever the case is to do his presentation. So over to you Jonath Jonathan JSK. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Uh good day to everyone. I think it's a blessing to go last. So I get kind of get to wrap up everything. It's good that we heard from two research studies. Um what I want to share with you today is actually an experience. So I want to say thank you to the Commonwealth of Learning for giving us this platform to showcase the amazing work done by over 60 participants from more than 11 countries and the facilitators from the digital learning hub at the Asia Pas University. Yeah. Um what today's presentation is about is um focusing on an actual blended learning program. And why I say actual is because the training itself was to create master champions in blended learning using AI and we modeled the training uh in a blended learning approach where we had online classes, we had self-arning, we also had face toface. Um so the presentation will cover six core areas introduction and the core problems the project planning and approach the architecture etc. Let me just walk you through this. Uh we start with the gap instructional misalignment. So in Tibet generally the concern is that um asynchronous delivery is not really possible um because we need and we heard from some of the comments this evening from some of the presenters that you need that handson experience um so that that creates an instructional misalignment and the other things are also time constraints and expertise gaps. So based on this we worked on a blueprint. Basically the plan and the mandate by the commonwealth of learning was for us to equip educators with generative AI uh so that they can use it in their course development in their learning design and to administer this process. Um so this was scaled to a number of uh master champions across 11 commonwealth countries and some of the things that we found uh from that if you look at the table here it's a comparison between traditional manual design of content and AI augmented core design with AI and the instructor or the TA practitioner um content creation itself of was accelerated 30% to 40% faster. Um I think the other thing that really took center stage was the scenarios. when when when Tet trainers are trying to create scenarios in different industries, um coming up with authentic scenarios is a challenge and normally they rely on textbooks and very generic examples. But with the aid of AI, I think we managed to create scenarios that were highly localized, specific to a particular fault and and this enabled them to uh come up with assessments that were also authentic because these assessments are then mapped to the practical outcomes. So it um it transformed the role of the educator from just a creator to a curator and pedagogical valuator of content. So how how did we do this? How did we architect this is by integrating a human core design human and AI co-design mechanism where we look at the outcome of the KET competency and use AI to create that or or transform that into smart measurable learning or training outcomes and based on this training outcomes content was then developed uh based on the content assessment was designed thus maintaining the instructional alignment needed and templates for prompting were provided so that people could actually trainers could actually verify the alignment uh and also use AI to provide personalized contextualized feedback to the learner. However, uh as always the case, the human has to be in the loop. So, this is just an example of how we train the 66 participants uh not just to use AI to create content, but also to become the human filter in between uh the generation and the final output that's presented as the TET cost material. um simply because any AI development requires a strict human in the loop safeguard. So we want the human to prevent all this hallucination and etc. Uh the next slide basically basically just gives us a picture of how widespread this training was. We had um the numbers are arbitrary. We started out with 48. We ended up with 66. We had 40 who finally completed the uh rigorous training components and we came from countries as far spread as Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Samoa, Jamaica etc. and even the disciplines that were represented in this six-monthlong project as you can see on the screen automotive technology, electrical systems, construction, entrepreneurship. We even had somebody who was into baking as a as a technical and vocational skill. So these trainers were then trained on how to u code. Okay. So they progress from foundational concepts to actually being able to generate highly specific competent prompts that then develop lesson plans. So they moved from foundational concepts until you could see them writing prompts for lesson plans in in changing engine oil to network fiber termination, solar installation of solar panels and internet of things. [clears throat] A lot of fields were covered and I think um the proof of the pudding actually is in in the testing right. So when when these trainers after undergoing six months of training were was put forth to create this content in their own mood LMS sites, uh some of the scores that came out were very impressive for people who had never really created asynchronous content, never really designed blended learning. Uh some of the scores that came out were really really encouraging. Um I think for the trainers themselves what stood out was the amount of time saving that they managed to get. They managed to save time. They could create their courses within um less than 30 to 40% of time saved and also the ability to create uh authentic scenarios. As I mentioned earlier, the constraint always in TVX is uh simulation requires expensive lab setup etc. But when you put in this constraints and have AI support you in designing the scenarios then you actually get to generate really hyperrealistic and localized contextualized sometimes even contextualized to the level of who the learner is personally. Um and and that's one of the things that I think really excited the trainees in the program. So the fundamental shift that we saw from the beginning of the project in January 2025 uh to as it came to a close in June July 2025 was that the the trainer the TET trainer was moving from an educator who is normally exhausted by manual content creation and formatting and he's just frazzled to an educator who became a master curator of content using AI. But the key thing that was was drilled into the trainee throughout the process was that AI is not going to replace the educator. It just elevates them. But you must be in control. You must be the master of the process. Uh and you must validate the outputs. And moving forward, I think uh as part of the training, we also had a session where these trainers spoke to the national TV agency directors and leaders. Um I think moving forward a few things need to be put into place such as policies uh practice aspects where institutions or governments need to invest in in AI environments AI sandboxes where people can practice these things in a safe environment and of course research will lead to more improvements and one of the questions that keeps coming up is how do we handle assessments and I think the research is heading towards that. So I'd like to just wrap up uh by saying that technology scales the access but these master trainer champions that were created they are going to be the ones who scale quality. I looked through some of the names in the attendance today and some of them are here. Uh hats off to you. You are the guys who are going to scale the quality and and create a TV ecosystem that is resilient, responsive and ready for the future. So, thank you from the Asia Pacific University with digital learning hub. Uh, if you want to go into more details, I know I rushed through this because of the 10-minute timeline and also because we're four minutes over time, but if you want more information on this project, what happened, who were the participants, what they took away from this, uh, please feel free to uh, contact us via the QR code or the URL listed on the screen. Thank you. >> Thank you, Jonathan. >> Back to you, Dr. Just on time. Perfect timing. Appreciate it. So, we open now the >> space for questions and comments from the audience. And so, um, Carrie is asking, um, if the did the participants design graded assessments as well? They designed assessments. Yes. >> Okay. >> They designed assessments. Um they designed assessments. We didn't get to the part where they would implement these assessments on the ground with their students. Um but but we we empowered them that they would now be able to do it in real practice in their institutions. and uh and and and some of this actually addresses even the questions that participants had for the earlier presenters on how you could assess uh physical hands-on assessments and how do you do it virtually. Um so I think uh Dr. Malo Masia answered earlier that you could use video videos one way but I think in our discussions with the participants we also said that um some of these competencies may not necessarily need to be assessed by a practical session. A high order multiplechoice question sometimes gives you the response that you need instead of a full-fledged practical demonstration. So it's very much uh contextualized to the topic or subject being taught. >> Okay. Thank you for responding and we will now ask Howard to go ahead and share his comment or question. >> Oh yes. Thank you. Thank you very much Jonathan. Good job. Good job. I just have one key question. I notice you use the term pedagogy. Uh I am wondering if it's a general use for educ TV education or are um you are focusing on children because my if I can remember my I learned it meaning pedigot to focus on children. So I'm wondering if you're just using it the term pedagogy generally >> generally very generally very generally as in the art of teaching and learning >> as okay thanks. We have focused uh types of teaching for like like we have the blooms taxonomy for general academics. We have the solo tax for but I'm just using it in the generic context. >> Okay. Fine. Thanks. >> Thanks. One more comment from Tony saying that yes G generative AI can help a lot but ultimately humans need to be accountable for quality. >> Totally agree. >> Totally agree. Totally agree. the the AI is a enabler. The AI sometimes is a leveler. It levels the field for people who do not have access to certain things. But ultimately the human is the one in control of the AI. Uh and and and ultimately AI is just a tool. >> It is just a tool. So just with any other computerbased tool which depends on input and output um the way you prompt it the way you engage with it has a major effect on the output. I think many people are familiar with this term garbage in garbage out right so uh just like that it's a tool and and that's why the training I think even uh s Joseph earlier said one of the main things that you need is training you need you need practitioners to be trained in how to prompt in how to use the AI as a teaching and learning partner >> okay thank you so much Jonathan so we have heard from our three presenters today we have heard from Dr. Marcia um Mr. Joseph and Mr. Jonathan and now we are going to turn over to you Robert to you know bring closing insights and to tie up via reflection um on the presentations. Thanks. >> Okay thank you very much Jonathan. Thank you very much Dr. Shantal. Uh so uh I've looked at the comments and uh I think everyone is uh appreciating the three presentations uh very very key and uh what you're noting that these are actually practice papers uh based on uh what they actually working on which is uh what we are kindly advocating for at the common of learning. Uh on uh Jonathan's presentation I think the design of the project was uh done uh very well. I think we worked very closely with uh professor Abar from uh Asia-Pacific University of Science and Innovation and the whole team and uh basically the the project targeted uh our partners in 11 countries as Jonathan has indicated. We had around 72 practitioners uh registering and at the end of the day 52 were able to complete the first part of the training which was the online plus some practical work and this was uh a a good approach to blended uh training where we had group work and individual work being implemented and uh a team of around eight uh were able to go for internships uh in uh Malaysia and uh We are glad that the e portfolios that they generated uh demonstrate the competence and the capability that they acquired uh through the uh hands off hands-on work and job shadowing uh which is a very key aspect of uh practical work. uh they also conducted a survey as uh Jonathan has indicated and they conducted the brown bag series and uh had a webinar they did practically and advocated for uh the use of gener AI in TVET. I'm also glad that uh the team worked on a guide book on uh generative AI in TET and uh for the information maybe the team were here we submitted the draft guide book to our consultants uh who are ed currently uh peer reviewing not peer reviewing they're providing critical uh insights uh that will come back to the team for them to improve on it and it will be published uh we also are glad that uh Cascade training has been conducted as a result of the training conducted by APU. Uh Kenya at uh has conducted one uh cascade training. Mauritius is uh also uh doing uh great work and I've seen two of them in this uh forum. uh Samoa has also implemented and we're looking forward to other countries who are involved also to conduct their cascade training and uh given that it was a competency based outcome based uh kind of program they have not received their certificates yet we are awaiting the completion of the guide book so that they actually realize that they've earned a certificate based on the work that they have done based on the outcomes arising out of the work that has been done. So congratulations to the team who are involved in doing this and uh generally I think uh what has come out is uh that a lot of work is being done and a lot of support uh is also required uh of us and they're also doing a lot to support themselves and this is in line with our approach of uh policy regulation and collaborative uh practice uh to open TV. uh from the first uh presentation to the last one we note that in open TVET we look at uh three main aspects one is access and inclusivity and I think in uh Dr. Maria's presentation it came out uh very clearly where we look at increasing access uh to all including those who are marginalized those who are disenfranchised in one way or the other the women the girls and those who are living with disabilities. Uh the other aspect is on uh assistive technologies that also uh is key here. Uh the second aspect that we look at is on uh uh flexible and blended learning approaches and it has come out in nearly all the presentations. How do we use uh technology uh how do we harness on uh flexible and blended learning approaches and technologies to increase access to quality and affordable uh skills training. Uh the third one that we look at uh is on openness. How do we harness on open educational resources so that we can also have uh open registration, open learning, open assessments and so on and so forth. And all this is what we are looking uh at. And uh some of the pessimist and uh those who are skeptical about uh uh blended learning, you can realize that it is actually working in practice. uh from those who have implemented courses to the institutions uh who have been accredited and the uh also we look at the capacity and capability of those in policy and regulatory level they're now able to oversee implementation and those who at implementation level are also able to effectively and efficiently implement blended learning in adherence to uh uh national policies and uh uh strategies. So thank you very much uh on behalf of the commonwealth of learning. We are so grateful uh for those who have uh joined this uh session. I know we are a few minutes past the hour. I do appreciate our president uh professor Peter Scott and our management. Uh we have uh Dr. Yosna and Dr. Tony who are here. Uh my colleague uh Dr. Shantal and uh maybe I have another colleague uh Yanni who is also working behind the scenes to make everything work. We are so grateful for the support uh provided. We also have Kin who was also supporting us behind the scenes. We have their communication team who have also done a good job to uh to uh put us uh where we are and we're looking forward to the last webinar series that will be uh coming up uh later next month uh or uh June. Uh so uh we look forward to uh you joining the next session and uh we also uh wish to inform that we will be able to share a report on uh the webinar that has been conducted. So I do thank uh all the three presenters. Thank you very much uh for uh creating time to uh share your thoughts. Uh we look at uh blended approaches. The workshop in the forum in Botswana was in person. Here you are uh presenting it uh online and we look forward to maybe the next uh PCF to be a blended uh kind of workshop. So uh Shantal any closing remarks and go ahead. Thanks [clears throat] a lot, Robert. Just to wrap up because as Marc noted at the start about what engagement means in an online environment to have that combination of social, cognitive, and teaching presence. So in today's webinar, we certainly got the teaching presence from the three presenters and we're thankful for that. And we also got the cognitive presence because of the engagement, the comments, the um feedback from the um from the audience um on this webinar. And just to close out with the presence of the social factor, I just want to use a couple of the comments in the chat from you the participants you know commenting reflecting on how you have experienced the webinar and resoundingly comments are around being very competit um comprehensive and practical, great presentations, splendid, great insights and you know they're really thankful for the information shared. So on that note, just want to say thank you very much and Commonwealth of Learning remains open and available to build capacity to share knowledge and to continue the conversation beyond the forum. Thank you. [music]