Peer learning with international impact

Professor Keith Topping's research and development work on Peer Learning - recently featured in the Discovery Days - is influencing educational practice and policy from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) requested an evidence-based distance learning resource on Tutoring from Keith, as this type of intervention is both cost-effective and highly valued in developing, as well as developed, countries. The booklets are part of their Educational Practices series and are intended to specify, in accessible language, universally applicable principles identified by research and scholarship. The booklets may be freely reproduced and translation into other languages is encouraged.

The Tutoring resource was created in the Faculty of Education & Social Work and distributed by UNESCO's International Bureau of Education to staff in Education Ministries in the 190 member countries. It has subsequently been translated into a number of languages, including Mandarin, Spanish and Catalan.

The University of Illinois has distributed 5,000 copies to academic staff in 17 US universities. Cabrini and the Beck Foundation are distributing 10,000 copies to voluntary organizations working in deprived neighbourhoods in the Chicago area.

The booklet can be read online at: http://www.ibe.unesco.org/International/Publications/
EducationalPractices/prachome.htm