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Mobile Learning Week: technology can help to educate children in emergencies

Barriers to education, Children in conflicts, Education in emergencies, Refugees and internally displaced people, Right to education, Teachers and learning, Technology and education

The theme of this year's event in Paris was education in emergencies - and how聽mobile technology聽can deliver learning to聽refugees and other displaced people.

In many parts of the world, you would be hard pressed to find a book. Even in schools.

A聽study of 16 sub-Saharan African countries found that a majority of primary schools have few or no books.聽Even in a richer country like South Africa, only 7% of schools have libraries.

But what most people around the world have聽these days聽is a mobile phone.聽The United Nations estimates that six billion people have access to a working mobile聽and over 90% of the global聽population is covered by a mobile network.

That was聽the backdrop to聽UNESCO’s聽Mobile Learning Week, which ends today in Paris, France. This year’s theme was Education in Emergencies and Crises and was run in partnership with the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR.

Experts, practitioners and聽government ministers聽spent five days examining how best to聽use聽cheap and widely available mobile technologies for the education of refugees and other displaced people.

More than half of the world’s refugees are children. But only half of younger refugee children聽have access to primary school and just 22% enrol in secondary school.

Jacqueline Strecker, the Learn Lab Manager in Kenya for the UN refugees agency UNHCR, said: 国产视频淧roviding education in refugee contexts is riddled with challenges including few resources, teachers with limited training and multiple protection issues.

“Mobile technology offers avenues to help address these challenges and open up the world to students.国产视频

Rosalind Hudnell, President, Intel Foundation, said: “The key is not just to give people access to technology, but to enable them to create their own technology国产视频.”

Here’s a look at some of the issues being explored, announcements made and the impact mobile learning can have on children during and after conflicts, natural disasters and health emergencies.

The growth聽of mobile

71% of refugee households own a mobile phone and 39% have internet-enabled phones. The vast聽majority (93%) live in places covered by a 2G mobile network and 62% are in reach of 3G mobile聽networks.

67% of the world国产视频檚 population currently own a mobile phone. By 2020 smartphones will account for three聽out of every four phones聽and it is estimated that more people will have an internet-connected mobile聽phone than will have electricity.

Google’s $50m grants

The internet giant Google announced it will give聽$50 million in grants to nonprofit organisations working to聽improve education in developing countries using tech-based learning tools.

罢丑别听grants are aimed at three main areas –聽getting to students in combat zones, providing quality learning materials and aiding in teacher development

Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, intends to give grants in 20 countries by the end of the year.

Learning in three languages

罢丑别听Tabshoura聽trilingual e-learning platform, created by聽Lebanese Alternative Learning, was聽presented daily in the Demonstration Tent at the聽Paris event.聽

国产视频 has been piloting the Tabshoura platform – which uses English, Arabic and French – as part of its Tech Hubs in Lebanon since 2015.聽

国产视频 has聽Tech Hubs聽in two schools in Lebanon, which we have equipped with laptops,聽tablets and e-learning resources. We are also working with Lebanese partner DOT to train teachers on how to use them in the classroom.

The aim is to help聽Syrian refugee聽students who are struggling to keep up in class after missing years of school. Methods of teaching which incorporate technology will help to engage them聽and improve聽their learning.

Tablet games for Sudanese children

War Child Holland国产视频檚 Can’t Wait to Learn programme teaches basic numeracy skills to young children in Sudan using tablets and games in a fun and effective way.聽

The success of this initiative has attracted a lot of investment from donors such as the Dutch Postcode Lottery and Ikea Foundation to scale the model to Lebanon and Jordan.

During Mobile Learning Week, War Child Holland ran a workshop to discuss how the programme could be scaled up to reach one million children with quality education.

Syria app winners

The winners of the EduApp4Syria contest were announced by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation.

The competition encouraged entrants to come up with ways to use聽mobile devices to create engaging literacy and learning聽supplements for Syrian children, which double as fun, engaging psychosocial support for children聽dealing with trauma of forced displacement.聽

The games Feed the Monster and聽Antura and the Letters were聽named as the winners.

Teaching the teachers in Kenya

The Kakuma refugee camp is home to 200,000 refugees from 20 countries. It has 21 primary schools and five secondary schools – but there are between 150 and 300 children in each class and 10 children to each text book.

罢丑别听Teachers for Teachers聽initiative at the camp means teachers can get mobile mentoring from聽volunteers from around the world with significant classroom teaching experience. They聽provide ongoing, real-time support on teaching challenges.

Solar-powered help in South Sudan

In 2015, 800,000 people fled from South Sudan to Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, and Sudan.

Many others were聽internally displaced and without access to education as a result of conflict.

UNESCO’s South Sudan Office has designed and introduced an app to聽improve literacy for young women.聽

Solar-powered digital audio聽players are also聽used to train teachers how to use mother tongue alphabet charts for聽40,000 children.

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