citischool

Where young people are citizens and citizens are teachers

CitiSchool (The Citizens' School) is an exciting new initiative being pioneered in the UK by Milton Keynes, to support disaffected young people in maintaining their interest in learning, and gaining qualifications. Adapted for the UK from a proven model in the US, some of the city's largest employers (including The Open University, BT, The British Army, and Abbey National) have joined forces to design and deliver Key Skills training to young people truanting or excluded from school, but who nonetheless have demonstrated their desire to learn. Citischool starts in September 2001, in collaboration with the major educational providers and agencies in Milton Keynes.

The Knowledge Media Institute is supporting Citischool by providing the technical infrastructure to manage this "school without walls". Students, mentors, work placement employers, administrators and tutors must communicate and coordinate work across the city, posing unique challenges for traditional systems. This infrastructure is absolutely critical to the project's success, and KMi is adapting and extending in-house Web-based technologies (originally developed for the Millennium funded CLUTCH Project) to help administer Citischool over the Internet.

Chris Valentine

Marc Eisenstadt

Chris Valentine