Tuesday, February 26, 2013

African Golden Cat: Jacques, living in the U.S., but from the Democratic Republic of Congo, writes "I wanted to catch up with you regarding a possibility of sponsoring 10 student from our junior college in the DRC."



Hi Scott, 

I hope all is well with you and I wanted to catch up with you regarding a possibility of sponsoring 10 student from our junior college in the DRC.

Jacques

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 Hi Jacques, 

Thanks for getting back to me, and what a great idea! I enjoyed your Q&A in November 2012 at the little Canyon School after the showing of the film "Crisis in the Congo," which you'll also find here at the WUaS, DRC, wiki, Subject page, and which is also the beginning of Democratice Republic of Congo universities and schools -http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo#Select_Video_and_Audio. 

Sponsorship for online World University and School of DRC students in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) could mean that WUaS begins to focus developing an online 

a)

b)

in some DRC languages, as well as open, wiki schools in DRC languages, for people-to-people teaching (e.g. via smartphone, web cameras), as well as for open educational resources as it emerges. WUaS may eventually network with 


for OLPC computers and also eventually develop fiber-optic broadband ourselves in various countries (as part of WUaS's mission). 


WUaS plans to focus on developing English diplomas and degrees first, then degrees and diplomas in U.N. languages (French, Arabic, Russian, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese), and then other languages, especially in DRC / African languages, such as Lingala, Kikongo, Swahili, Tshiluba, for people-to-people teaching, even for people who are illiterate via handheld, smartphone video. 

What languages do these DRC junior college students speak? Where in the DRC do they live? Do they have broadband and internet video access?

Let me know in writing your answers to some of these questions, perhaps before we speak on the phone.

Best regards, 
Scott





On Tue, Feb 26, 2013 at 1:20 PM, Congo Bolingo <jacques@congobolingo.org> wrote:
Hi Scott, 

I hope all is well with you and I wanted to catch up with you regarding a possibility of sponsoring 10 student from our junior college in the DRC.

Please feel free to call this evening after 5:30pm.

Thank you

Jacques Ibula



On Jan 31, 2013, at 7:50 PM, Scott MacLeod <worlduniversityandschool@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Jacques, 

Thanks for your recent posting. Here's an email I sent to Rena about education in the DRC. I'm curious about your thoughts about this. Do you happen to know the DRC blogger on the WUaS Congo page?


Hi R, 

Thanks for your question about educational resources on CD for the DRC.


World University and School is coming along in baby steps, and we'd like to matriculate our first, Creative Commons' licensed, MIT OCW-centric, undergraduate degree class, in English, in the autumn of 2014 (applying this autumn). 

Thanks so much for forwarding information about WUaS to the US lead for Congo Education work (of the Orinda-Lafayette Presbyterian Congo Team, or Friends of the Congo?)! 

What languages do you think would be most fruitful for educational resources in the DRC as these resources grow? WUaS is planning for all languages eventually, but, after college degree programs in English, starting with UN languages, and possibly Portuguese and Swahili, two lingua francas of Africa, early on, and eventually moving much MIT OCW into these languages at the high school/I.B., undergraduate/BA and graduate levels/Ph.D. And WUaS will plan for both handheld devices (relatively inexpensive) and CD and printable ones (see the "navigation section" at the WUaS Congo page), but I wasn't able to find any online, educational resources for the Congo on the web when I just looked. And WUaS would very much like to invite Congolese to become stakeholders and initiators in this WUaS, MIT-centric, WUaS process ... and to simply start teaching to the web at WUaS, in non-French languages. 

I did find this in Wikipedia, suggesting Belgium and resources in French would be something to build on: 
(In 2001 the literacy rate was estimated to be 67.2% (80.9% male and 54.1% female).[68] The education system in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is governed by three government ministries: the Ministère de l'Enseignement Primaire, Secondaire et Professionnel (MEPSP), the Ministère de l'Enseignement Supérieur et Universitaire (MESU) and the Ministère des Affaires Sociales (MAS). The educational system in the DRC is similar to that of Belgium. In 2002, there were over 19,000 primary schools serving 160,000 students; and 8,000 secondary schools serving 110,000 students. Primary education is free and compulsory (Article 43 of the 2005 Congolese Constitution).[69]
Gross enrollment ratios are based on the number of students formally registered in primary school and therefore do not necessarily reflect actual school attendance.[70] In 2000, 65 percent of children ages 10 to 14 years were attending school.[70] As a result of the 6-year civil war, over 5.2 million children in the country receive no education.[70])


Presently WUaS's pages are places where we can all add open, online resources we know of, and even create them by starting a wiki, subject page -http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/SUBJECT_TEMPLATE - or teaching to our web camera.  We can also create other, new pages. 

WUaS's Congo, and related, pages (e.g. languages ,etc.) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo - are wiki and thus open. As Congolese and other people learn of this, and as the WUaS wiki improves (we're moving soon probably to a new Wikidata wiki), resources on this page will grow. Perhaps a Sal Khan of Congolese educational resources in Congolese languages will emerge. 

And perhaps J.I. might have some insight in to developing such resources. 

Best, 
Scott




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