About

Sven Åke Bjørke teaches environment issues, sustainable development and  ICT supported education at the Department of Global Development and Planning, Faculty of  Social Sciences,  the University of Agder. He has especially worked on the development of a pedagogy adapted for internationalized online education in the MSc Development Management.

He has previously worked for several years as information manager at UNEP/GRID-Arendal, where one task was to popularise the information from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and UNEP.

He was a lead author and editor of publications like:

Vital Climate Graphics  |  Vital climate graphics Africa  | State of environment Norway 

He also worked as a consultant for the development of State of the Environment reports for China and South Africa 1997 and for the Programme ‘Mainstreaming Education for Sustainable Development in Africa (MESA)

Bjørke has assisted in training university teachers in how to develop good virtual learning environments in online studies in Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Ghana, Egypt, Sri Lanka and Norway. He has participated in research and development of systems for online assessment with a group of collaborating teachers from the University of Agder and the University of Omaha, Nebraska. He also participated in the establishment of the Global Virtual University for internationalised online education associated to the United Nations University in Tokyo.

Sven Åke Bjørke has worked as a Field Director in Kenya for the Norwegian Save the Children. He has also worked in Kenya for the Norwegian volunteer service, for the Norwegian NGO ARC-aid as a board member for 20 years, and for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Kosovo.

Bjørke is educated as a science teacher, lawyer, jurist-linguist and e-pedagogue.

He retired from his position at the University of Agder 1 january 2018

Bjørke is engaged in the following projects:

• The Distance Education Leapfrogging Project (DELP)  http://cees.mak.ac.ug/delp/ a NORHED financed collaborative competence upgrading scheme on ICT-supported education between the University of Agder and the Makerere university in Uganda.
• Future learning lab  – a virtual network and think-tank-operating group of engaged colleagues from academia and the media/entrepreneurship sector. With a home base in Southern Norway, our projects now extend beyond Norway to the Nordic countries and beyond Europe to ongoing collaboration with peers in the United States, the Baltic countries and South Africa.
• Linking tourism and conservation (LC&T). Education and training on sustainable Tourism and National Parks.  LT&C is a network designed to develop tools and incentives for replication of best practices and examples of sustainable tourism that supports the establishment and management of national parks and other types of protected areas. LT&C works with individuals, businesses, and governments to strengthen the benefits of both sustainable tourism and area protection and management.
• Teaching at Mangrove virtual university
• Yme – https://www.yme.no/
• President 2020-2022, Den Norske Klubben Gran Canaria

More about Sven Åke Bjørke