Ensuring learning with educational technology in emergency settings

UNESCO’s annual Mobile Learning Week provides a unique opportunity for policy makers, civil society organizations, teachers, students and academics to share knowledge, innovations and good practices in mobile learning. A key theme at this year’s event is the role of technology to address challenges created by displacement – and how to leverage it to deliver quick responses for populations on the move. This blog authored by Luke Stannard and Michaelle Tauson examines Save the Children’s efforts to use educational technologies in humanitarian contexts.

Yaarub and Sulafa in an animation workshop in Lebanon. © Save the Children

Quality and inclusion are two pillars of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on education. With a growing need to address low learning outcomes and with an expanding population of displaced children at risk of having their education opportunities disrupted or cut, educational technology (EdTech) is increasingly proposed as a potentially effective response in humanitarian contexts.

While many believe that new technology is inherently positive for education, there is little applicable evidence that is relevant for those engaging in education in emergencies. That said, there is nearly three decades worth of research into ‘what works’ in EdTech.

At Save the Children UK we felt that, if we cautiously cast the net a little wider, there were areas where research from more stable contexts could be used to inform practice in emergency settings as well. Our researchers spent eight months working to collate this evidence. The report, EdTech for learning in emergencies and displaced settings: a rigorous review and narrative synthesis, reviewed over 130 academic papers on EdTech’s impact on learning outcomes.

More than just symbolism? France makes pre-primary school compulsory from age 3

President Macron of France announced yesterday that, as of 2019, school will be compulsory in the country for all children from age 3, making France the country with the lowest compulsory age of education in the European Union.  Apart from a few European countries, which begin compulsory education at four years of age, eight countries in the EU start it at five years, and almost half of EU members start it at six.

Explaining his move, Macron tweeted a list of the benefits that he believes come from more time in school, including playing, drawing, learning to write, and improving chances of work.

Pour toutes ces raisons, et bien d’autres encore, l’école sera désormais obligatoire dès 3 ans (et non 6 ans). pic.twitter.com/W3oWPsyF99

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) March 27, 2018

Already today, 97% of children aged 3 years old (and almost 100% of children aged 4 and 5) go to pre-primary school in France. This new policy, therefore, would only affect access for about 25,000 children in total.  This change, therefore, in Macron’s own words, is to ‘even out social inequalities’.

How technology can boost accountability in education

This week, as UNESCO’s annual flagship event on ICTs in education Mobile Learning Week, is taking place in Paris, the GEM Report takes a look at the growing interest in the role of technology and big data in facilitating citizen engagement and improving accountability in education.

It is impossible to dispute the importance of accurate education data and information for monitoring commitments to deliver quality, equitable education for all. As a result, governments worldwide are increasingly investing in new technologies and web-based tools to transform education management and delivery systems.

In 2017, for example, the governments of Kenya, India and Pakistan invested in technology to improve information available to decision makers. Proponents have cited the ability of these technologies to assist policy makers to analyze student progress throughout their education trajectories, monitor leakage and fraud, such as ghost teachers and schools, which deprive millions of children worldwide from receiving an education.

The 2017/8 Global Education Monitoring Report Accountability in education: Meeting our commitments highlighted the need for collecting transparent and relevant data about the strengths and weaknesses of education systems to enhance accountability in education. The Report showed that technology creates new possibilities for citizen engagement and access to information via online platforms than ever before, thereby enabling real time feedback and communication between education providers and users. Yet the Report cautions that countries need to be judicious in their use of data, keeping in mind the costs and time needed for data collection, which many low and middle-income countries cannot afford.

Learning InEquality: An equality law approach to Education for All

Camilla Alonzo, Legal and Programmes Officer, Equal Rights Trust, an independent international organisation whose objective is to combat discrimination and advance equality as a fundamental human rights and a basic principle of social justice

The statistics regarding the number of children out of primary school are, by now, familiar: last month, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) reported that an estimated 63 million children of primary school age are still out of school, which is roughly the size of the population of Italy. It is also well-known that the population of out-of-school children is made up disproportionately of children from disadvantaged groups: girls, who are still far more likely never to enter school, children with disabilities, children from ethnic, linguistic or racial minorities, refugee children and the poor.

The demographic of the population of out-of-school children indicates that this issue is firmly rooted in inequality. As such, both development and human rights actors have rightly recognised the importance of equality and inclusion in tackling the issue of out-of-school children: the Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs) reiterate global commitments to universal education, with SDG4 being to “[e]nsure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”, whilst the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education’s latest report explicitly focused on the role of equity and inclusion in strengthening the right to education.

Despite this growing consensus on the importance of understanding inequality as a factor in exclusion from education, the relevance of equality law to the achievement of universal primary education has historically been underexplored. The Equal Rights Trust has sought to fill this gap by conducting research into how both current and past patterns of discrimination lead to children being out of primary school. This research resulted in the publication of “Learning InEquality”, a global report which explores the use of equality law to tackle barriers to primary education for out-of-school children.

A global framework to measure digital literacy

By Manos Antoninis, Director of the Global Education Monitoring Report, and Silvia Montoya, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics

From the cocoa farmer in Ghana using a mobile phone to market crops to the nurse in Sweden using telehealth to check on patients at home – digital literacy is considered an essential set of skills needed to find information and communicate in today’s world.

This is why one of the monitoring indicators of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 4.4, which focuses on “relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship” among youth and adults, looks at digital literacy. In particular, it calls on countries to track the percentage of youth and adults who have achieved at least a minimum level of proficiency in digital literacy skills.

Both the target and indicator reflect the commitment and forward-thinking of countries. But what exactly does it mean to achieve a minimum level of digital skills? Clearly the contexts will vary from one country to another. The challenge lies in finding a sufficiently broad definition that reflects these different contexts and priorities of countries while developing a measurement approach to generate the internationally comparable data needed to monitor progress towards SDG 4.

This has been the priority of a task force of experts and country representatives, established by the Global Alliance to Monitor Learning (GAML) and chaired by the GEM Report. This work is crucial – we need a framework so that the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) can collect the data as the official source of SDG 4 indicators and internationally comparable education data and the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report can analyse the results and help keep countries and donors on track to achieve the goal. So we have been working together with the Hong Kong University’s Centre for Information Technology in Education (CITE) and the GAML task force to develop the first version of the Digital Literacy Global Framework.

Gender stereotypes in Bangladeshi, Indonesian, Malaysian and Pakistani textbooks

By M Niaz Asadullah, Professor of Development Economics at the University of Malaya, Malaysia, and Kazi Mukitul Islam, German Embassy, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Female education is widely believed to benefit society through both economic and non-economic channels. Yet, for decades, girls around the developing world have lagged behind boys in education. Realizing the seriousness of the problem, governments around the world united at the start of the millennium and increased investment in women’s education. The UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) campaign prioritized gender equality in all spheres of the society. The response has been overwhelming. In countries, such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Malaysia, girls today outnumber boys in classrooms. According to the 2015 EFA Global Monitoring Report, the number of countries with gender parity in primary education increased from 83 to 104 in the 2000s. On average, in South Asian countries, from a low of 83 girls enrolled for every 100 boys in 1999, parity had been achieved by 2012.

While this achievement calls for celebration, there are two reasons for concern. Not all countries have succeeded in closing the gender gap in enrolment. According to the latest UNESCO eAtlas of Gender Inequalities, advances have been disappointing in Nigeria and Pakistan. Moreover, there is growing recognition of the fact that school textbooks lack gender balance, as the 2018 Gender Review reminds us. School education encourages girls to perform traditional roles. Gender bias in textbooks remains difficult to reverse and is present in far more countries than the gender gap in enrolment.

A few years ago, sociologist R. Blumberg reviewed the available literature on gender bias in curricula contents. While schoolbooks are steeped in sexism even in high income counties, this is particularly a problem in countries where progress in girl’s school enrolment remains low.

Highlights from the 2018 Gender Review launch in New York

“Young women aren’t the changemakers of the future, they are the here and now” said GenUN Fellow, Rabita Tareque to a room of civil society representatives, teachers, policy makers, academics and donors at Thursday’s global launch of the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report’s 2018 Gender Review in New York.

“International Women’s Day is an occasion to recall that education is the linchpin for empowering women to build a better world”, stated panellist Nora Fyles, Head of the United Nations Girls Education Initiative (UNGEI) a key partner on the publication. “There has been a lot to celebrate in recent years in terms of ensuring girls do not miss out on education opportunities and we have made huge strides in girls’ education globally since the first GEM Report Gender Review six years ago”.

The event co-hosted by the GEM Report, UNGEI and the Malala Fund was timed to coincide with the sixty-second session of the Commission on the Status of Women, a pivotal event on the international human rights calendar.

In his presentation, the Director of the GEM Report Manos Antoninis highlighted the fundamental link between gender equality and education in pushing the development agenda forward. “It is important to recall that advancing equal rights and opportunities between women and men is critical for a sustainable future. This refers to all pillars. Not just social equality but also slowing down the pace of climate change, achieving shared prosperity, and ensuring effective governance – all of which require women’s full participation.”

Stepping up the pace towards gender equality in education through stronger accountability

International Women’s Day is a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women everywhere. It also acts as a reminder that although much has been accomplished around the world, there is a long way to go to reach full equality. For this to happen, we must empower every girl and woman by granting them the right to an education, thereby promoting lifelong learning opportunities.

Gender equality cannot be met without taking a stand against the millions of girls currently out of school, denied their right to education or being treated unfairly in the classroom. The Global Education Monitoring Report (GEM) is publishing its sixth Gender Review on 8 March. It explores the shortfalls in securing gender equality in education and proposes solutions to the challenges we face.

Meeting our commitments to education for girls and women

The fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and SDG 4 in particular, on which we concentrate our efforts, requires bold and united action. The gender gap remains – in entry to education, leadership opportunities and stereotypes.

Let’s take a look at the facts. In 2015, 193 countries around the world committed to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, where UNESCO played a pivotal role in conceiving a framework dedicated to delivering “inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

Campaigning for everybody to claim their right to education

By Victoria Ibiwoye, Youth Representative of the SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee

Last week I delivered a petition signed by over 1000 right-to-education campaigners from over 110 countries at the fourth meeting of the SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The petition calls on governments worldwide to take concrete steps towards strengthening the right to education in every country.

As one of the nine global youth ambassadors for the Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report’s right to education campaign, it was an honour to be able to address representatives from Member States, UN agencies, other multilateral and regional organizations, teacher and civil society networks on behalf of youth education advocates from around the world.

My fellow youth ambassadors and I have benefited from having access to good quality education. The education we received has given us skills that help us deal with complexities and uncertainties. And we continue to learn at every age both formally and informally.

Fulfilling a collective responsibility to provide global public goods in education

By Manos Antoninis and Priya Joshi, Global Education Monitoring Report

Global public goods are the institutions, mechanisms, and outcomes that transcend borders and provide benefits to all. Controlling infectious diseases, tackling climate change, enhancing international financial stability, strengthening international trade, and achieving peace and security are all global public goods, as is knowledge for development.

However, the level of provision of global public goods is insufficient. Some countries may free-ride on other countries’ efforts. Moreover, global public goods are political: some countries may be unwilling to support them, as when they resist monitoring their compliance with international agreements. Or they may disagree with how they should be delivered. Their provision depends on catalytic action from responsible leadership, which may be lacking. And, as the 2017/8 Global Education Monitoring Report argued, the increasing focus on short-term results distorts financing decisions.

Global public goods in education are linked to knowledge for global development. What precisely these goods are is however contested. A policy paper, launched today by the Global Education Monitoring Report at a side event in the fourth meeting of the SDG-Education 2030 Steering Committee, draws attention to three types of global public goods in education – data, research and networks. It calls for building consensus towards priorities that are fit for the purpose of achieving SDG 4.

Supporting global public goods in education will require joint, long-term vision and real leadership from the wealthier countries, combined with support from philanthropic institutions that value the complexity of learning. It is important to resist piecemeal, short-term, project-based approaches that would put the delivery of global public goods at risk.