[Open-education] Kiron University, Germany - free courses for refugees

Fri Oct 9 08:02:19 UTC 2015

Hi all,

I can do that.

Later together with my colleague we will have an online discussion on 
OER and refugees in which Kiron (Vincent Zimmer) will take part 
(unfortunately it is only in German). Some of the key points can be 
covered in the blog post.

Best,
Markus

Am 08.10.15 um 22:43 schrieb Paul Bacsich Sero:
> /(Thanks to Rory McGreal via the OER-Forum for this new story in our 
> theme of online education for refugees.)/
> +++++++
> Kiron, a new largely online university with a campus in Berlin and 
> staffed by volunteers - https://kiron.university/ - plans to help 
> refugees continue their education - for free. It claims to have 
> partnered with more than 20 universities throughout the world in order 
> to offer a free, three-year programme that will grant students an 
> accredited degree.  All interested students have to do to qualify is 
> provide proof they have refugee status or have applied for it. Kiron 
> was founded in December 2014, by Markus Kressler and Vincent Zimmer.
> The program’s first year will offer German and English classes as well 
> as more general preparation courses. By the second year, students may 
> take more specified classes in one of five areas of interest, 
> including business, engineering and computer science. For their third 
> year, they can transfer to a partner university to complete their 
> degree – only at that point will students be required to present their 
> legal documents and school certificates. (Refugees often don't have 
> immediate access to these documents, which are required for entry to 
> most universities – though not to some open universities.) While the 
> courses are currently offered only in English, Kiron hopes to later 
> offer programs in both Arabic and French.
> In order to offset the cost of the classes, Kiron is crowdfunding 
> scholarships for the refugees. The institution has already raised 
> enough money to cover 138 scholarships, the website notes.
> +++++++
> Commentary....
> It could be argued that the above story is out of scope for our List 
> since the courses are not open in the strict sense, though free at the 
> point of use - but I took the view that the story was of sufficient 
> relevance to previous ones featured that our audience would want to 
> know about it, and maybe to discuss further possible variants of the 
> model.
> German-speaking countries are often viewed (e.g. in POERUP and other 
> overview reports) as late entrants into OER but in the wider area of 
> MOOCs and online Kiron is only one of several developments.
> Perhaps one of our German readers can do a blog posting for us on 
> either or both of these topics?
> Paul
> Paul Bacsich
> Coordinator, Open Education Working Group - 
> http://education.okfn.org/blog/
> Senior Consultant, SeroHE
> Audit trail.....
> -----Original Message-----
> From: rory
> Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2015 7:59 PM
> To: Open Educational Resources - an online discussion forum
> Subject: [OER] Kiron University Free courses from Germany
> FYI
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/online-university-for-refugees_5612c9e7e4b0dd85030cdefa
> Rory
> -- 
> Rory McGreal
> UNESCO/COL/ICDE Chair in OER
> Co-Editor IRRODL
> Athabasca University
>
>
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> open-education mailing list
> open-education at lists.okfn.org
> https://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-education

-- 
Dr. Markus Deimann
Akademischer Rat
FernUniversität in Hagen
Universitätsstr. 33 (KSW)
58084 Hagen
Tel: (02331) 987 - 4148
Markus.Deimann at FernUni-Hagen.de
Twitter: @mdeimann

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