An independent evaluation of a BBC World Service Trust project in Sri Lanka has praised the role of iLearn, which it says has been 'one of the principal successes'.

Over the past 18 months, the 'Bridging the Divide' project has been attempting to reduce ethnic tensions on the island, which has endured a 20-year civil war, by working with journalists from both communities.

Working alongside colleagues from the Sri Lanka College of Journalism in Colombo and the Media Training and Resources Centre at the University of Jaffna, BBC trainers have led almost one hundred journalists through courses in editorial skills, journalistic ethics and management.

Regardless of their mother tongue (Tamil, Sinhala or English), location or ethnicity, trainees attended face-to-face workshops, and followed an iLearn course online. All but 3 of the trainees completed the course, a remarkable success rate.

The evaluation, led by Dr Andrew Skuse of the University of Adelaide, Australia, found that:

"Whether completed online or offline, i-learn was found to be highly valued by trainees and a useful mechanism for maintaining a connection to an ongoing learning experience for journalists, especially in areas that have limited exposure to journalist training programmes in the past."

The evaluators have made a number of suggestions for the way that iLearn might be integrated into further training in Sri Lanka. The iLearn team is already working on handing over the system to the local partners, so they can go on training journalists on the island beyond the formal end of the project.

We have recently submitted 'Bridging the Divide' for the international Stockholm Challenge Award for IT projects. Read our entry here.

Please click here for a list of all iLearn modules in English