When the mEducation Alliance 2021 Symposium kicked off recently, Inclusiv Education was proud to lead the way.
The symposium’s first session focused on teacher professional development and featured Inclusiv Education’s work in Papua New Guinea and Tonga.
Save the Children Education Program Manager, Stanley Kumasimba, spoke about the Literacy Boost and Numeracy Boost programs we are running together in Papua New Guinea. Our Educational Technology Specialist, Natalie Denmeade, joined him in sharing insights from the programs which support teachers with low digital literacy to develop skills in using digital content, apps, tablets and solar-powered projectors. The Inclusiv Learning Platform provides teachers with ongoing access to almost 150 digital teaching resources and on average, they receive almost 26 hours of face-to-face training. Almost 7000 students have benefitted from eLearning through the project, and parents have reported an improvement in their children’s grammar, pronunciation and phonics understanding.
Our Senior Education Technology Adviser, Dr Ian Reid, presented on the GPE-funded Tonga Accelerated Resilience Program (TARP). He represented our program partners: Tonga Ministry of Education and Training CEO, Dr Tanhikina Moimoi Steen, and TARP Project Manager, Timote Katoanga. Ian spoke about the research basis for the TARP, which was derived from two comprehensive trial days of at-home schooling conducted in 2020 in preparation for the impact of COVID-19. Following this research, Inclusiv Education designed the TARP and with Save the Children Australia as the grant agent, our proposal for it was accepted. Progress on this project has been very exciting so far – look out for a report next year.
The symposium’s focus on ‘EdTech for accelerating foundational literacy and numeracy in low-resource contexts’ is of particular interest to Inclusiv Education as we help our partners successfully adopt EdTech in challenging settings.
It was great to participate in the symposium with other presenters, including Wendy Smith and Ethel Sakitey from World Reader, Tae Young from Enuma, Dayani Mbowe from Camara Education Tanzania and Adam Kreimeia from the EdTech Hub. Together, we provided diverse perspectives on drawing upon sound evidence for the efficacy of EdTech in challenging settings. Sharing experiences in forums like this is an important way to learn from each other and accelerate the progress on thoughtful and evidence-based EdTech in low-to-middle income countries.
You can catch up on the sessions below: