The world’s first satellite-enabled interactive distance learning project is enabling refugee children in Ghana to continue with their education

We tend to think of refugee camps as temporary structures, but most of us fail to realize that many people live in them for several years. This presents serious challenges, specially for children who face serious danger of falling behind with their schooling or dropping out of education altogether as it can be very difficult to get qualified teachers to reach the camps on a regular basis.

But now technology is bringing a cost-effective and viable solution to that problem, in a pilot project recently trialled at the Ampain Refugee Camp in Western Ghana. The camp was established back in 2011 to shelter displaced Ivoirians fleeing the hostilities following the November 2010 Côte d’Ivoire Presidential elections. It is currently home to over 3,000 people, including around 225 school-age children who go to the Ampain Primary school established within the camp.

The Varkey Foundation Teach to Reach Remote Classrooms Project is the first of its kind
Share on X

The Varkey Foundation Teach to Reach Remote Classrooms Project (TRC) funded by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is the world’s first satellite enabled live two-way interactive distance learning programme for children living in a refugee camp. Each classroom in the school is equipped with a projector and a low-cost durable computer to receive lessons via a solar-powered satellite link. Since April, the foundation has been running interactive distance lessons from qualified teachers based at its studio in Accra to support the children in the camp with their learning.

While technologies such as Skype have been used for distance learning solutions in the past, but this is the first live, interactive two-way satellite enabled project to reach refugee children in sub-Saharan Africa
Share on X

The goal of the Ampaign project is to prove that the concept works in an emergency situation to increase children’s school attendance
Share on X

According to Vikas Pota, CEO of the Varkey Foundation, the goal of the Ampaign project is to prove that the concept works in an emergency situation to increase children’s school attendance and build opportunities for teachers and community members that directly impact learning for pupils.

“This project can make a real difference because it is quick to mobilize and can be scaled up, delivering lessons to more refugee settings around the globe. Most importantly, it is a long-lasting solution which is what is required due to the length of time that children often end up staying in refugee camps,” he says.

While technologies such as Skype have been used for distance learning solutions in the past, but this is the first live, interactive two-way satellite enabled project to reach refugee children in sub-Saharan Africa. The Ampain primary school has been fitted with a satellite dish, which, through solar powered technology, receives a live link to highly qualified teachers in a studio in Accra who broadcast lessons direct to the refugee camp. Each classroom has a projector so all the children can see the teacher giving the lessons, and each classroom has also been provided with a computer so that children can interact with the teacher in a direct, live, two-way link.

This project can make a real difference because it is quick to mobilize and can be scaled up
Share on X

This allows the refugee children – who are currently out of school and at risk of dropping out of education – to not only catch up with their basic education through literacy and numeracy lessons, but also learn the language of their host country, which is crucial for integration.

Ms. Ioli Kimyaci, UNHCR Ghana Country Representative says that this is a cost-effective way to enable children who otherwise would have been denied a quality education to have access to qualified teachers. “The beauty of this project is that it allows one good teacher’s reach to extend anywhere with the use of satellite technology, solar powered computer hardware and an interactive live feed inside the classroom,” she says.

The program also offers after-school sessions for both boys and girls to address gender specific issues and life skills, helping to create a safe environment that empowers pupils with leadership and decision-making skills.

The Teach to Reach program is based on the successful Making Ghanaian Girls Great! project
Share on X

The “Wonder Women” after-school program, for example, teaches young girls about reproductive health, preventing early pregnancy, human rights awareness and financial literacy. It also emphasizes leadership skills that develop girls’ ability to advocate for themselves, interact with leaders in their community and stand up for issues important to them. The goal is to raise their self esteem and empower them to stay in school and reach their full potential.

Boys also learn these core skills to support them with specific challenges they face and encourage them to continue in their schooling, while also tackling harmful gender stereotypes through discussion and role-play, showing boys how a change in their behavior can help their sisters and female peers, and therefore their entire communities.

“Every child deserves an education, but refugees in particular are more often than not denied this right. According to UNESCO, refugees are five times more likely to be out of school than the global average. More than half of the 6m school-age children under UNESCO’s mandate have no school to go to, with some 1.75m refugee children not in primary school and 1.95m refugee adolescents not in secondary school,” says Leonora Dowley, Ghana Country Director at the Varkey Foundation. “What makes this project so exciting is that gives refugee children access to high quality teachers and does so extremely cost-effectively – we can reach more than 200 children who otherwise would not be getting any education at low cost but with significant results.”

The Teach to Reach program is based on the successful Making Ghanaian Girls Great! project (known as MGCubed), aimed at enhancing the quality of education for more than 10,000 marginalized children in Ghana since it was established in 2014. The Varkey Foundation is part of the #WithRefugees Coalition who are supporting the #WithRefugees campaign, a group of more than 100 universities, FBOs, youth groups, UN Agencies, and NGOs working with UNHCR to promote tolerance and respect for persons forced to flee. It also founded the Global Teacher Prize to shine a spotlight on the incredible work teachers do all over the world.

“Nothing beats having access to a great teacher who can add important context, stimulate discussion among children to help them truly grasp what they’re learning and broaden young minds,” says Dowley. “We believe it’s a highly replicable solution that could be deployed in other settings, and given the extent of the refugee crisis it will be exciting to see how things could develop on this front in future,” concludes Dowley.

This article was originally published on IDG Connect

How technology is helping education reach refugee children, by @alicebonasio from @CIOonline https://t.co/9UgA59FCJA

— Technology Experts (@IDGCN) June 27, 2017

For companies looking to gain a competitive edge through technology, Tech Trends offers strategic Virtual Reality and Digital Transformation Consultancy services tailored to your brand.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Technology Beaming Hope to Refugees appeared first on Tech Trends.

Not enough people are learning the skills required to drive the digital economy. I explore some solutions to this growing problem in this article for IDG Connect.

As anybody tasked with the challenge of recruiting IT talent knows, there is a severe and widespread digital skills shortage, which is impacting on businesses’ ability to compete in a technology-driven world. Education technology (EdTech) is central to tackling this. EdTech in this context refers not to the digital tools that help deliver traditional curriculum elements, but to facilitating a new system of education, where we learn about technology rather than just making use of it.

The term hacking used to have negative connotations, yet nowadays it is closely linked to this concept of playfulness in relation to technology.
Share on X

Teachers already acknowledge that technology is essential to the modern economy and plays a huge role in improving the quality of education. In the UK, coding has been part of the primary school curriculum since 2014, but in places like Estonia and Israel this has been happening for over a decade. Perhaps this is why the country was found to be lagging behind in terms of IT competence, with a recent report by Barclays showing that only 16 percent of workers in the UK would be comfortable building a website, compared to 39 percent in Brazil and 37 percent in India.

Many teachers lack the confidence to teach computer science at the higher levels required to address this problem. Bill Mitchell, head of the British Computing Society, says it could take another five years to up-skill the 14,000 teachers current ICT so that they can tackle more in-depth computing classes. The problem is made worse by the fact that math and computer science graduates are in high demand, making it harder to recruit them into teaching.

Many technology companies are so concerned about this issue that they started taking matters in their own hands. In addition to launching a program to help thousands of adults in the UK to improve their digital skills, Google invested £120,000 in a training initiative for primary school teachers in partnership with Code Club, a network of 2,500 after school clubs around the UK. The BBC micro:bit project also partnered up with companies such as Kitronik to provide teaching resources designed to deliver STEM-based lessons through their electronics coding kits.

A survey by the Varkey foundation found that 9 in 10 teachers would welcome involvement from companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Google to support student’s vocational training in schools
Share on X

In the U.S., IBM went a step further, setting up P-TECH (Pathways in Technology Early College High School) model schools, which give the option to ninth-graders to graduate six years later with both a high school diploma and an associate degree in computers or engineering. Rackspace even went as far as establishing its own training school, from which it hires two-thirds of the graduate output, with the remainder finding jobs in other companies.

This sort of corporate involvement is actually welcomed by teachers. A survey by the Varkey foundation — conducted in collaboration with the CBI and the Times Educational Supplement — recently found that 9 in 10 teachers would actively welcome closer involvement from companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Google to support student’s vocational training in schools. Marc Boxser, Chief Operating Officer of the Varkey Foundation — a not-for profit organization dedicated to promoting educational initiatives — says that such partnerships are crucial if we are to improve our digital skills base in the long term.

“In an age of disruptive innovation and digital advancement, those countries that prioritize greater understanding of digital skills will be the ones that thrive. If we continue to allow a generation of “computer illiterate” children to leave our schools, there could be grave consequences. As the growth of populism and anti-elite sentiment around the world shows, there is a divide between those “globalists” who have skills that the modern economy needs, and those whose jobs have been either downgraded or destroyed by technology.”

Indeed, a World Economic Forum report warns of a “Fourth Industrial Revolution” which will eradicate more than 7 million jobs as AI becomes ever more sophisticated and technology replaces humans. According to the WEF, 28 percent of the skills required in the UK will need to adapt before 2020 in order to meet the demands in new job sectors such as robotics and nanotechnology.

The greatest challenge we face in tackling the digital skills problem is not a lack of resources or creative solutions, nor a willingness from parents and teachers to embrace technology. The main issue we face is likely to be our outdated education system that restricts fluid and dynamic learning. There is a need to acknowledge — at a broader policy level — that the availability of information and the pace of change have rendered the concept of a fixed canon or permanent, universal curriculum grossly ineffective. A fit-for-purpose education proposition must be based around continuous learning and promote flexibility and curiosity.

In an age of disruptive innovation and digital advancement, countries that prioritize greater understanding of digital skills will be the ones that thrive
Share on X

The term “hacking” used to have negative connotations, yet nowadays it is closely linked to this concept of playfulness in relation to technology. Learning in this area happens through bold experimentation and iteration — and is as much a result of failure as it is of success. This is the fundamental shift that educators must embrace when incorporating technology into their teaching. There is no single solution to the digital skills gap problem. Rather, it requires a sustained collaboration between schools, parents and corporations in coming years. Technology is already an inevitable part of our lives, yet we must make a concerted effort to make it part of our education as well.

Read the full article on IDG Connect

How can we plug the widening digital skills gap? by @alicebonasio from @CIOonline – https://t.co/BLQ6ELTaw1

— Technology Experts (@IDGCN) September 1, 2016

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Plugging the Digital Skills Gap appeared first on Tech Trends.