THE LUCENT / IYF / CYDF PARTNERSHIP 

The mission of the Lucent Technologies Foundation is to help young people, from early childhood through grade 12, prepare to meet the challenges of our changing global society. The Foundation is primarily focused on education. To maximize its impact, the Foundation targets specific issues and initiatives and has developed relationships with a number of grantees in the targeted fields of education and youth development. 

"Education is the key toward helping young people reach their highest potential and to become engaged citizens and productive members of the workforce and society."

 Chris Park - President, Lucent Technologies Foundation

Global Partnership for Promoting Children and Youth Development through Education and Learning in China 

With multi-year Lucent/IYF grants, CYDF has conducted or is conducting a series of programs under the name Global Partnership for Promoting Children and Youth Development through Education and Learning.  

Duration: 2002-2004

Long Distance Learning Program: This on-going program will establish two Hope primary schools in rural communities and convert them and four other Hope primary schools to Hope Net Schools, providing equipment, internet connection, and IT training to 60 teachers and 1,800 students. A computer classroom will be established at each school that includes a server, 30-40 workstations, software, internet connection and satellite receiver facilities. Teachers, students and community members will be able to obtain internet information and CETV (China Educational TV) broadcast programs transferred via the satellite. A web page will be designed to serve as a platform for students and teachers to exchange ideas and develop educational software. This program also includes a 2-day site visit of the headmasters and teachers to a model Hope Net School and a 3-day symposium on distance learning and Hope Net Schools development and sustainability.  

Duration: 2001-2002

Hope Net Schools Program: This program established six Hope Net Schools in rural communities, providing equipment, internet connection via CERNET and CETV  satellite wideband, and IT training to 12 teachers and 600 students. The six schools were located in Huailai of Hebei Province, Jinzhai of Anhui Province, Zengcheng of Guangdong Province, Xi'an of Shaanxi Province, Qingdao of Shandong Province, and Chengdu of Sichuan Province. A computer classroom was established at each school that includes a server, 15-30 workstations, software, internet connection and satellite receiver facilities. Teachers, students and community members were able to access materials, curricula and training information for education programs through two major websites: www.hoho.edu.cn and www.cuncun.net. 

Duration: 2000-2001

Education Technology Program: This program trained 80 teachers from middle schools in Beijing in the use of technology in the classroom, as well as create a specific curriculum for teaching IT at the middle school level.

The Traditional Culture Program: This program introduced traditional poems and the moral lessons that they teach as an extra curricular activity within the school system. The poetry was taught using non-traditional methods. Children were encouraged to express their own interpretations through drawing and acting. Also, the methods allowed for more interaction among teachers and students. This program also supported exchanges and other communications between a set of urban and rural students around the theme of traditional poetry recital.

The Happy Star River Program: This program gave children of Beijing the chance to stay on a rural farm and learn by doing what the life of a countryside farm family entails. The experiential program fostered like teamwork, goal setting and responsibility, which have been more difficult to teach in the environment of the "One Child Policy". It also provided critical income to poor rural families as well as the opportunity for rural youth to interact with and be exposed to the urban culture. 

Duration: 2000-2003

Besides the Hope school and long distance learning programs, Lucent and IYF have made commitment to the teacher training program of CYDF, which is also part of Project Hope. The purpose of this program is to help headmasters and teachers of Hope primary schools to enhance their knowledge for both teaching and education administration in theory and in practice. Particular emphasis has been paid to strengthening teachers' abilities to implement "capacity-oriented education" and to bridging the divide in educational quality between rural schools and urban schools.

 By December 2002, the fifth cycle of training ended in Project Hope's Shanghai-based teacher training center. So far altogether 471 headmasters/teachers have received training, who are from 361 Hope primary schools in 229 counties of 15 provinces. These 471 trainees currently teach 153,885 children in rural China. 120 more headmasters/teachers will be trained in March 2003.