Free online virtual ‘‘school’’ wins top award

By Bett Kipsang’

The burden of raising billions of dollars to meet the cost of education is by far huge for parents, governments and educational institutions. Worst is when the learning materials and tools are far from reach by the resources poor and marginalized local communities. To mitigate such a situation, a model of education ‘‘ALISON’’ (http://alison.com/) has been developed. It can save governments and educational institutions billions of dollars every year if adopted.

ALISON is the 2013 winner of the World Innovation Summit in Education (WISE) Awards. It is “A Creative Model of Open Education for a Global Economy” New York Times.

An email message entitled; ‘‘ALISON Wins Top Global Education Innovation Award’’ has been circulated to registered online students around Ng’arua Maarifa centre.

‘‘We are delighted to announce that ALISON has been chosen as one of the winners of 2013’’ ‘‘We would like to take this opportunity to thank you as a member of the ALISON free learning community for your support and promotion of what we do’’ the message read in part.

The Qatar Foundation sponsors WISE awards annually. It is one of the most prestigious awards in global education, awarded for "outstanding quality and exceptional impact on Education through innovation".

ALISON* is the world's leading free online learning resource for basic and essential workplace skills. It provides high-quality, engaging, interactive multimedia courseware for certification and standards-based learning.

ALISON’s mission is to enable anyone, anywhere, to educate themselves for free via interactive, self-paced multimedia. It is believed that through ALISON, the cost of access to high-quality education can be removed, thereby creating a more equitable and sustainable global society.

The online studies have been made possible with the believe that all certifiable or standards-based learning for every subject can be made available for free online. 

This is also in line with Article 26 of the United Nations Universal Declarations of Human Rights, which states, "Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free….., Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all…..., this become a reality with ALISON.

Since its launch in April 2007, ALISON has developed relationships with some of the largest and most prestigious institutions involved in promoting education and learning. With one million registered learners spread across nearly 200 countries worldwide, ALISON enjoys a global reputation for delivering quality education and training online. In 2011, over 50,000 people worldwide graduated at Certificate and Diploma courses with ALISON.

Word is spreading fast about the new facility that is making profound impact on people's lives and livelihoods around the world.