Resumen de Research and Development of a Costing Toolkit for Distance, Flexible and ICT-Based Education for Teacher Development in Africa
Costing distance-education programmes is a key aspect of capacity building in many parts of the world. This paper reports on a research and development project to produce a new costing tool for Distance, Flexible and ICT-based Education (DFICTE) for teacher development in Sub-Saharan Africa along with its associated support documentation. Working with case study institutions in Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania, programme cost data were collected and systematised to create examples for a computer-based costing tool that enables those interested in introducing DFICTE to model their proposal at either the macro level (such as staff in ministries or NGO field officers) or more detailed micro level (such as would be required for a particular institution). Using a research framework of semi-structured interviews and detailed document analyises, the case studies followed a common format of questions and key points to construct a database of DFICTE costs for five teacher education programmes which users of the costing tool can draw on for illustrative example figures. The developed case studies are also presented with supplementary planning information in both English and French. The research revealed the following key issues: many programmes consist of a large number of very small courses; each small course is assessed by a range of methods sometimes leading to a costly and heavy overall assessment burden on the participating teachers; tracking of a participating teacher’s progress is often difficult as teachers take study breaks making the collection of fees and the projection of income and expenditure problematic.
