India/Action Plan

Work in progress, expect frequent changes. Help and feedback is welcome. See discussion page.

Read, revise, take up ….it is open to all….

BACKGROUND

WikiEducator is a community project working collaboratively with the Free Culture Movement towards a free version of the education curriculum by 2015. The project focuses on building capacity in the use of Mediawiki and related free software technologies for mass-collaboration in the authoring of free content, developing free content for use in schools, polytechnics, universities, vocational education institutions and informal education settings, facilitating the establishment of community networks and collaboration with existing free content initiatives in education, fostering new technologies that will widen access and improve quality and reduce the cost associated with providing education, primarily through the use of free content.

The entire project is divided into three phases, viz,

i. Establishing foundations (May 2006 - Dec 2007)

ii. Scaling up free content development (Jan 2008 - Dec 2008)

iii. Sustainable implementation of free content in education (Jan 2009 - )

(Ref: http://wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:About )

Through a process of self organization, the WikiEducator projects provides the community the freedom to determine the kinds of projects, structures and communication mechanisms for WikiEducator. The WikiEducator also provides facility for the ccountries to organise themselves into one or more national WikiEducator Teams.

One of the hardest challenges in the Education Sector is mainintaining a world standard for education curriculum/ syllabi. Since the curriculum of different Universities and academic bodies are very much different to one another, even for science subjects, free content and open e-learning tools find it difficult to attract universal usage. Thus sincere efforts of the talented volunteers in this field are not made use of in the intended way. The solution for this is maintaining a world standard for Education Curriculam.

As a pilot phase towards consolidation and maintaining a world standard of curriculum, consolidation of a standard curriculum in India is proposed on this page. A progressively developing Draft Action Plan for the same is given below.

OBJECTIVES

1. Enlist standard categories of education curriculum.
2. Workout detailed syllubus with concept of uniform standard of education and update/revise the syllubus periodically with the active invovement of other prominent educational boards/bodies, institutions and experts inside and outside the country.
3. Explore the possibilities of other educational boards/bodies following WikiEducator syllubus for curriculum planning so that the works of the WikiEducator teams and communities will always be a boon to the student and teacher communities.
4. Relate the standard curriculum with the activities of other WikiEducator Teams for the content development, technology development etc.
5. After piloting the idea of a Common Standard Education Curriculam for Inida, the idea may be taken up to a larger perspective of a Common Standard Curriculam for Common Wealth Countries and there after institution of a World Standard of Education Curriculum Certification.

TARGET GROUP

Students, Teachers, Parents, Educational Boards/Bodies and Governments

OUTCOMES

• Motivated, efficient and satisfied teacher and student communities.
• Popularisation of standardized free curriculum.

OUTPUTS

1. A formal online organizational setup for preparation and revision of a free, standardized and recognized version of online curriculum is in place.
2. A free, standardized and recognized version of online curriculum is developed.
3. An effective online medium for connecting the activities of different wikieducator teams is developed.
4. WikiEducator curriculum is recognized as a world standard for curriculum

ACTION PLAN

Sl No.	Out put ref:	Activities	Responsibility	Milestones/ Indicators	Time Frame	Time Frame
					Activity Start	Activity Completion
1		Launching of a Country page for India	Volunteers	A country page www.wikieducator.org/India is launched	16 Oct 2007	20 Oct 2007
2		connecting various WikiEducator country teams, prominent Educational Boards/Bodies, Institutions, Experts and Volunteers to WikiEducator-India project and completion of the foundation of the project by and preparation of a standardized index of courses.	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions, WikiEducator Ambassadors and other Volunteers	Standardized Index of Courses is published on the above website
3		Formation of an Interim online Governing body	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions, Interim online Governing Body, WikiEducator Ambassadors and other Volunteers	In interim online governing body for WikiEducator-India Project assumes charge of the coordination of activities
4		Preparation of detailed syllabus for each course by conducting separate online discussions, workshops, establishing connection with the curriculum committees of Universities/Education Boards etc for different categories of education	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions, Interim online Governing Body WikiEducator Ambassadors and other Volunteers.	Draft detailed syllabi for all the courses in the Index are published.
5		Formation of online academic boards for different categories of education which can meet online by including participants from the above workshops/ online discussions and other experts/representatives of institutions	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions,Interim online Governing Body, WikiEducator Ambassadors and other Volunteers.	Academic boards for each category of education starts functioning
6		Validation of the detailed syllabus by the academic boards by obtaining comments on the draft syllabus internationally, comparison, detailed analysis etc	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions,Interim Governing Body, Academic Boards
7		Publishing of the detailed syllabus for content Development and popularisation among various academic organizations that are in charge of preparation/ revision of syllabus	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions,Interim Governing Body, Academic Boards, WikiEducator Ambassadors	Detailed Syllabus is published
8		Preparation of Organization Structure, Rules of business etc for regular Governing Body and Academic Boards in accordance with the first year experience	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions, Interim Governing Body, Academic Boards, WikiEducator Ambassadors and other Volunteers	Organization Structure and Rules of business for Governing Body and Academic Boards
9		Regular Governing Body and Academic Boards commence functioning	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions, Interim Governing Body, Academic Boards
10		Regular monitoring and updating	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions, Regular Governing Body, Academic Boards
11		Encouraging the formation of country teams	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions, Regular Governing Body, Academic Boards
12		Encouraging content development through various Country Teams	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions, Regular Governing Body, Academic Boards, other Country Teams
13		Design regular validation mechanism for content being developed	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions, Regular Governing Body, Academic Boards, other Country Teams
14		Popularise the use of WikiEducator Syllabus for Education	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions, Regular Governing Body, Academic Boards, other Country Teams
15		Initiate procedures for recognition of WikiEducator syllabus for various courses as world standard for Syllabus	COL, Partner Organizations/ Institutions, Regular Governing Body, Academic Boards, other Country Teams

Risks

1. People may question the very idea of standard syllabus/ curriculum by the reason that curriculum is relative to time and place.
2. Some Universities/ Education Boards may oppose the idea since they want to be different from others.

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