Connected Community Learning Centres

This article from UNESCO Bangkok describes the reasons to connect community learning centres (CLCs) into functional social networks to connect teachers and students across regions through information and communication technology (ICT).

"Community learning centre (CLC) is a local space to provide various learning programmes with the support of the government, NGOs, and private sectors.  Those programmes include literacy, post-literacy, income generation, life skill, and basic education.  The purpose of CLC is to empower individuals and promote community development.  In Asia and Pacific, there are more than 100,000 CLCs and similar education centres.  Its number has been constantly increasing. 

Currently, most of CLCs are operated independently and get information from the government or head offices. Since CLCs are located geographically far from each other, communications among CLCs are weak and less frequent. Social networks could easily help this situation by getting CLCs connected horizontally.

Social connections among CLCs would bring about three good advantages.  First of all, CLCs will share useful information among themselves in the country and across countries. Innovative methodologies of literacy, income generation for poverty reduction, community development, and new affordable technologies will spread through rapidly at the grass root level.  An approach of income generation created in a village in Thailand can be replicated on the next day in a village in Indonesia and Pakistan.

Secondly, social connection among CLC can get more people familiarised with activities of CLCs. The accountability and transparency of CLC can be enhanced by posting information on activities, staff, learners and finance....  When the government would like to send information or documents to all CLCs, it is also easy and quick. This could be a paradigm shift of educational management information system (EMIS), which used to be totally a centralized system.

Thirdly, when social networks come to have financial functions, people could send direct support to empower the underprivileged children and people at CLCs. Moreover, cultural art crafts and any goods produced by people at CLCs could be sold efficiently ...online. Generating income is one of the most effective ways to reduce the poverty in the rural areas. In 2012, a pilot activity was started with support of the Ministry of Education, Thailand to connect 100 CLCs in Facebook."