Caribbean Association for Distance and Open Learning

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The Caribbean Association for Distance and Open Learning (CARADOL) is a distance and open learning organisation founded for the member states of the Caribbean. The OBHE notes that CARADOL's establishment was fostered by the UNESCO/University of the West Indies' Caribbean Universities Project for Integrated Distance Education (CUPIDE), an initiative aimed at improving access to five universities in the region through the use of ICT.

A 2004 press release from UNESCO notes:

The vision of CARADOL is “to develop a learning society in the Caribbean through equity and access to quality education” and “to be an advocate for, and facilitator of the use of Open and Distance Learning as a means of transforming education in the Caribbean with particular reference to the concept of Lifelong Learning", and to serve as forum/platform for stakeholders to share experiences and have access to opportunities for continuing professionalism in Open and Distance Learning.

The article also adds:

CARADOL is the realization of recommendations made independently by both the Caribbean Association of Chief Education Officers and participants at a September 1999 regional conference held in Guyana entitled Promoting Quality, Pragmatism and Partnership in Distance Education Delivery, and further developed in the July 2000 conference on Distance Education in Small States held in Jamaica. It was felt that the time had come to establish a body that would promote distance education in the Caribbean and provide a platform through which stakeholders could continue to share experiences and have access to opportunities for continuing professional development in this field.

Participating institutions are (or were - it is hard to find information about CARADOL today):

• The University of the West Indies (UWI)
• University of Technology (UTech), Jamaica
• Aton de Kom University of Suriname (AdeKUS)
• University of Guyana (UG)
• University Quisqueya (UniQ), Haiti

Further support was received from the Distance Learning Secretariat (DLS) of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Tertiary Education in Trinidad and Tobago.

The CARADOL web site is unknown.

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