The Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa programme: preparing for implementation

Ann Floyd
The Open University (UKOU)

Mohan Menon
Commonwealth of Learning

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     Last modified: October 17, 2006
     Presentation date: 11/02/2006 4:15 PM in NT Ortanique
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Abstract
The Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa programme (TESSA) is developing a bank of innovative open content materials to support school-based teacher education at primary/basic level. It therefore contributes to the MDG of universal primary education. It is a consortium of nine African universities, together with the Commonwealth of Learning, the African Virtual University, the BBC World Service Trust, and the OU UK.

Preparing good materials is not enough of itself. There are many examples of good ODL materials being prepared and then not being used. TESSA is therefore paying particular attention to implementation issues. The consortium's ambition is that TESSA materials will be used by many thousands of teachers in large-scale school-based professional development programmes.

This session will outline the ways in which the consortium and its individual African members are preparing for large-scale implementation, and some of the issues that are arising. These include ownership and academic approval, versioning materials to local contexts, the fit of the materials with others in the same programmes, planning learner support, and assessment strategies.

The session will have a substantial interactive component, so that some of these issues can be explored by participants and experiences and insights shared.