Course writers' workshop on Certificate Programme on Community Radio Technology- December 18-21,2012

New Delhi: 31/12/2012: To take forward the development of the Certificate Programme on Community Radio Technology, CEMCA organised a four-day course writers’ workshop at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi from 18-21 December 2012. The workshop began on a high note with a simple inaugural in the presence of Professor Asha Kanwar, President and CEO and Vice President  Mr.Vis Naidoo of Commonwealth of Learning, Dr. Sanjaya Mishra, Director, CEMCA  and  Mr. Subramanian, CMD, Broadcast Engineering Consultants India Ltd (BECIL) -- the technical content partners for this programme.  Dr. Mishra highlighted the need for providing learning opportunities for people in the informal sector by providing quality inputs for just-in-time learning.  Mr. Subnramanian reaffirmed the support of BECIL to the programme through a resource pool of technical experts to ensure good quality learning materials.  Mr. Vis Naidoo underscored the importance of technical and vocational skill development initiatives not only in India but also other parts of the region and the world describing these as the bedrock of social and economic development. Appreciating the presence of wealth of expertise present at the table, he said that this course would set a model for how distance education could be used for developing skills around the Commonwealth. In her Presidential address, Professor Kanwar traced the history of COL and it evolution  from a distance and open learning for higher education into its current mandate as  an organisation committed to “Learning for Development”, making learning accessible, affordable and available to one and all.  She highlighted the importance of COL Instructional Design template that helps structure learning according to the principles of pedagogy, capturing interests of a wide range of people with different learning styles. She urged the content development group to look at the Open Educational Resources already available and build these into the course.

Over four days, the Expert team of writers, guided by Instructional design and ODL experts Professors  Santosh Panda and   C.R.K. Murthy finalised the course contents, templates and also the deliverables and timeframe. The training sessions were interactive to help the participant experts gather the basics of writing distance learning materials.