Temas de investigación
- Microfinance and microcredit for education sustainable development
GUIDE Association - Global Universities in Distance Education, currently involved in the enhancement of distance education and training research activities, aims at encouraging cooperation actions for the dissemination and exploitation of the results achieved in the field of sustainable development, ethical finance and social economy at both local and global level. In this direction the Association intends to provide a greater understanding of the role played by microfinance and microcredit in “developed” and “developing” countries through the organization of activities that contribute to the rise of awareness about this matter.
Microfinance, considered nowadays as a compromise between social and financial aims, can contribute to the consolidation of sustainable educational and pedagogical projects, with particular reference, to the support of the new Information and Communication Technologies.
This approach will help to develop, in a flexible and multicultural way, the open-learning sector by promoting a new ethical approach to education and research in the field of distance learning and teaching models.
Through the analysis of the main needs of the developing countries and paying particular attention to some African and Middle Eastern areas, GUIDE intends to enhance a new awakening strategy for the adoption of financial instruments, such as Micro credit, smart cards and new modes of payment, intended to promote the e-inclusion and e-accessibility.
The detection of significant measures and financial tools to combat poverty and social exclusion represent one of the key points to favour a sustainable access to new technologies, to support and promote innovation in different fields of knowledge and research and to prevent the social costs linked to talent and ability dispersion.
According to the aims of the Millenium Development Goal and the International Year of Microcredit, GUIDE Association is working to realize projects that contribute to the diffusion of a fair culture and knowledge system. To effectively achieve this objective, GUIDE intends to adopt cooperative strategies for the promotion of a global university model for all institutions involved in e-learning and distance education implementation process.
In this framework, the new cooperation system between Institutions, Associations, Universities and public and private bodies which operate in the field of sustainable development, can contribute to increase awareness of the microcredit importance in supporting digital culture and international research networks and partnerships.
The life conditions of the less favoured countries could be improved thanks to the implementation of microcredit actions in the field of higher education, professional training and empowerment. As a matter of fact the transfer of know-how in favour of the educational system development in such regions, represents nowadays a key element to fight poverty and promote technological resources access and capacity building expertise.
To this purpose GUIDE Association proposal aims to involve all the organizations, institutions, and universities interested in sharing resources and innovative tools for the improvement of local development, educational system and vocational training.
In order to reach its goals the Association intends to:
- carry out training activities concerning microfinance and microcredit;
- support the development of educational projects by adopting microcredit strategies;
- encourage partnerships in favour of the sharing of tools and research outcomes;
- promote a suitable use of technologies to foster higher education access.
The first step in this direction has been taken through the organization of the Thematic Workshop African and Middle- Eastern area “New Trends and Challenges for Higher Education in Africa and Middle East” that took place the last 25 and 26 November at the International Convention Centre of Dubai (UAE).
The event was attended by 25 speakers representing more than 15 nationalities. They were invited to submit their presentations mainly addressing the proposed themes listed below:
- Introduction of ICT for e-inclusion and accessibility
- African and Middle-Eastern higher education systems and international standards
- The implementation of new technologies for social, cultural and economic development
- Partnership and cooperation actions for the transfer of know-how and technological resources
- Microcredit and microfinance for the achievement of sustainable development
- Microfinance networks: how to enhance networks building in order to improve local coordination and participation
The discussion raised from the two-days Meeting focused on three macro-topics:
- trengthening of local, regional and transnational cooperation
- Role of microfinance in fostering educational projects and access to ICT
- Improvement of quality standards in African and Middle-Eastern higher education systems
As a result of the analysis on the above-mentioned subjects the following conclusions could be drawn:
- The promotion of dialogue, interaction and mutual understanding at local, regional and international level could lead to greater cooperation and unity of purpose in regions which present a geo-strategic and political-economic setting highly complex
- Technological advances make it possible for people all over the world to access higher education
- The use of ICT can eliminate the obstacles that currently prohibit many people from participation in higher education
- Distance education and e-learning can reduce biases related to gender, class, race etc. that impact perceptions of performance
- Microfinance and microcredit represent valuable instruments in the strategy to decrease social gaps in developing countries and to provide equal access to education regardless of financial status
- The improvement of learning quality is important to create leaders able to participate actively in the shaping of Africa and Middle East’s future in a context of rapid and regional integration
Recommendations
- It should be improved the sharing of experiences, studies and expertise of people and institutions with different cultural, social, political and economic backgrounds
- It should be created a wide pool of knowledge, skills, values and experience through collaboration in highly specialized subjects of training in African and Middle-Eastern countries
- E-learning and distance education should be the more suitable modalities in overcoming physical barriers and social and cultural constraints
- Critical restrictions in developing successful microfinance programs such as the limited viability of microfinance institutions training and budget, the variety of training needs and the large number of people to be trained, should be attentively examined
- In providing learning courses, the creation of learning environments, the enhancement of the quality of “exiting” students and the elicitation of students discovery and construction of knowledge are the factors that should be mainly stressed
- Teachers should be primarily designers of learning methods and environments and should develop every student’s competencies by enriching the learning materials through the presentation of concepts in multiple modes of knowledge representations, i.e. textual, analytical and visual ones.
GUIDE Association role & task
GUIDE Association has to play a central role in:
- connecting different training systems and diverse social and educational contexts linking universities and individuals across cultural and geographic boundaries
- developing innovation capacity and strategic competences of disadvantaged areas
- offering strategic support to institutions for the implementation of projects, the constitution of networking and the evaluation and dissemination of outcomes and results
- supporting developing countries in the transition towards a knowledge-based society
- providing and organizing further meetings to develop cooperation and implement common projects
Attending Universities and Institutions
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