The Open Schools Program is a joint project of the Open Institute and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport of the Royal Government of Cambodia, who are working together to use ICT to improve the quality of education.

Vision

We envision a society which - by embracing technology - opens the doors to accelerated economic development.

As part of this future, we work towards an educational system that:

• Effectively uses ICT to improve the quality of education.
• Produces graduates who have a global view of ICT and the necessary basic skills to access the job market in a knowledge-based society

Mission

The Open School Program is committed to ensure the development of all the necessary tools required to improve the quality of education through the use of ICT, including the necessary plans, computer programs in Khmer language, curricula, distance learning methodology, training materials, and technology for sustainability. The Program will also making certain that teachers receives the necessary training and support.

Goals

The main goal of the Women's Empowerment for Social Change Program is to promote gender equality in a society in which women can exercise their rights in a balanced way and can build competence to become self-sufficient, with improved women's participation in social, economic and political life.

To support the goal, the Women's Program implements four main program activities that include the Women's web portal, Information and Communication Technologies - ICT - training, Women's Forum and Gender and ICT research. The program activities are well interrelated in order to lobby for regulations and policies that are supportive of women equality, to provide information about women's issues to women and women's organizations, and to promote synergies among organizations working with women, and Information and Communication Technologies - ICT - as a skill that empowers women.

The Women's Program is implemented under a clear pressing needs of:

• Having a centralized place where it is easy to find information in Khmer that is necessary to women's organizations or to any Cambodian women interested on asserting their rights, including updated information on what each Cambodian organization working on women's issues is doing.
• Tools for facilitating communication among organizations which work on women's issues, ensuring that this communication (in Khmer) adds to the pool on information that is already being offered, producing useful discussion and synergies between organizations.
• Skills for sharing information, discussing and coordinating through electronic means.
• Awareness on how ICT can be used to empower women in general and to increase the impact of existing programs of women's organizations.

Target Groups:

The Open Learning (E-Learning) Program is a joint program between the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport and the Open Institute. We implement this program to support and promote the use of e-learning in Cambodian educational system as we believe that e-learning is one among key factors to improve the quality of education and widening access to educational opportunities.

This program will be of great benefits for higher educational institutions and adult training centers that are considering to use e-learning or in a planning process to start e-learning or will use e-learning at one point in the future as means to deliver their educational programs. Higher educational institutions and adult training centers cannot implement e-learning strategically and sustainable without having core human resources who understand about e-learning operation and management. That is why building competence in e-learning know-how for them is the first and most important step.

This program was started in 2007 for two main reasons:

• A part of the Cambodian population interested on raising its professional level through education does not have access to formal education or vocational training because of their physical location or working hours.
• Even if e-learning can be a solution for a part of this population, educational institutions cannot sustain their e-learning programs unless they have qualified human resources, appropriate technology solution and practical experience through collaboratively guided cooperation.

Goals

The main goal of the Open Learning program is to empower educational institutions on the design, implement and manage distance education programs through e-learning by: