Final Cover - For Printing

Introduction

ON-NET / ICEVI MATHEMATICS PROJECT

THE EVOLUTION OF THIS PUBLICATION

SETTING THE SCENE

In July, 1998 the Overbrook School for the Blind (USA) and The Nippon Foundation (Japan)
embarked on a unique and ambitious collaborative effort to improve and expand education
and employment opportunities for blind persons in Southeast Asia. The program set out to
address needs of blind and low vision persons in eight (8) countries in Southeast Asia
(Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam).

The program was created on the assumption that with: -collaboration at the national and
regional levels, -effective use of new technologies and -active involvement of blind
individuals, their organizations, teachers and parents would result in improved educational
access for blind children and youth and new employment options for educated blind adults.
This program, the Overbrook-Nippon Network on Educational Technology, soon became
better known by its acronym ON-NET.

In addition to ON-NET national level committees that set the tone and priorities for each
country, ON-NET also created a Regional Advisory Committee whose task was to identify
challenges that were: -common to all or most of the countries in the region and -might be
most effectively addressed through a region strategy.

At the first ON-NET Regional Advisory Committee meeting in December, 2001 the issue of
weak instruction in mathematics for blind children was identified as one of several priorities
that might best be tackled through a well planned regional strategy. This same group noted
that poor instruction in the area was a region-wide weakness and that it was placing