The original Regional Mekong Curriculum Initiative which began in December 2003 under the Oxfam America supported Mekong Learning Initiative (MLI) has become the core activity of a reformulated 3 year MLI program beginning in 2005. Background on the MLI's origins and objectives can be found here.

The following provides background on the reformulated MLI.

The Mekong Learning Initiative (MLI)

The MLI involves institutions from around the Mekong Basin that are different in levels of experience with social and natural science approaches to natural resource management, with field research, with teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level, with types of outreach roles, and in many other dimensions. Learning processes, cultures, and contexts also vary from one country to another. This diversity is at once a strength and a challenge. The linking potentials depend on ability for mutual sharing of experience and understanding of one another's learning contexts.

Many existing types of teaching and learning have limited impact. One-way classroom teaching is often less effective than a more interactive, hands-on approach with interesting visual materials. Activities such as study tours often have limited impact if they are limited to "show and tell" exercises rather than applied and engaged learning. Why are learning outcomes so uneven? MLI has the potential to reflect and draw on existing learning approaches and help facilitate their adaptation and application in new contexts.

There has been relatively little interaction and sharing among teachers and students from tertiary education institutions in the Mekong region. As a result, there are still limited opportunities for students to understand natural resource management issues in neighbouring countries or in their regional/basin-wide context.

There is a big gap between theory and application to familiar contexts. Case studies tend to be taken either from very local and familiar examples, or from outside the Mekong altogether. Critical and analytical tools and concepts are limited in their application due to the paucity of case studies from within the Mekong Region. At the same time, issues increasingly need to be understood in their (Mekong) regional context. While there are several regional centres with a Mekong focus at individual universities, links between them are limited and there are very few common learning opportunities, despite the plethora of non-academic regional organizations such as MRC, IUCN, Oxfam, TERRA and so on. MLI has the potential to develop case studies and translate them into relevant regional languages that will allow teachers and students to draw on more relevant examples and apply them in a field setting, and to link tertiary education to the substantial body of knowledge developed within regional agencies.

Policy support has been a longstanding goal of MLI, but with quite limited effect. Most effective has been the incidental involvement of local government officials with community-based learning projects, study tours and so on. There is a need to put the policy support objective into a more realistic timeframe, seeing it as a longer term outcome through student learning, emergent civil society networks and influences based on a new generation of tertiary-trained graduates, and building on incidental opportunities through study visits and other activities such as local government officers' enrolment in postgraduate courses and involvement in research. At the same time, better linkage between learning institutions and regional agencies such as MRC, ADB, NMCs, TERRA, OA, WWF, IUCN, SEARIN has the potential to create an interface between policy and locally-based learning on social aspects of natural resource management.

General Objectives of the Initiative:

The overall aim of a reformulated MLI is to use a linking and learning approach to facilitate reflection, sharing and new activities in support of a Mekong 'body of knowledge and practice' on the social science of natural resource management. Whilst the focus is on the social science of NRM, this is not to the exclusion of the natural science of NRM, and indeed supporting better linkages between the social and natural sciences is important. This is developed both within key educational institutions and through their involvement with community-based activity. The longer-term underlying aim is to support the emergence of livelihood-oriented approaches to natural resources and environmental management in line with social and ecological realities and civil society concerns. The program is shaped by approaches to teaching and learning about development that take sustainability, equity and rights as core values.

Key Specific Objectives:

- Reflect on learning contexts and approaches, particularly with reference to tertiary level students and teachers but also university/community/local government interface and others
- Share approaches to teaching and learning on the social science of natural resource management in the Mekong River Basin, including linkages between educational institutions and regional agencies
- Experiment with different approaches to teaching and learning on the social science of natural resource management in support of curriculum development in the Mekong Region

Funding Bodies:

The project is funded by Oxfam America and Open Society Institute

Facilitated and coordinated by:

Australian Mekong Resource Centre (AMRC)

Partners:

- Yunnan University (China)
- National University of Laos (Lao PDR)
- Chiangmai University (Thailand)
- Khon Kaen University (Thailand)
- Ubon Ratchathani University (Thailand)
- Royal University of Phnom Penh (Cambodia)
- Tay Nguyen University (Vietnam)
- Can Tho (Vietnam)