REMOTE LEARNING
Remote Learning During a National Emergency
COVID-19 Response
The danger of students being left behind during the current time when in person classrooms are not available poses significant developmental challenges. The digital divide is slowly increasing leading to a widening of the achievement gap between youth, especially young women and girls. An increasing number of young women and girls do not have adequate access to technology.
Covid-19 has significantly altered the nature of the way we work, live, socialize and connect. Digital Transformation, long thought of as something that would take decades for the world to adapt to, has occurred at such a rapid pace and significantly shifted the way in which we operate. It has been estimated that more than 2 billion students, parents and teachers have had to adapt to digital and remote learning. UNESCO estimates that “roughly 826 million students have no home computer and some 706 million no internet at a time when ‘distance learning’ is the only option available for most, with school closures in 191 countries of the world.” The Aspire Artemis Foundation has had several interventions in envisioning and charting the way forward through collaboration with our partners in curating and developing materials that assist in the continuation of learning and training online.
Aspire Artemis Foundation intends to launch trial programs in the United States, Malta (more advanced nations), Djibouti, Barbados and other Small Island Developing States (Less developed economies). Our emphasis would be on girls and women in these countries as women and girls are often statistically shown to have less access to learning in technology.
Onwards and upwards
Primary and secondary education has disproportionately suffered as ministries and departments of education worldwide along with educators, students and parents who were previously not used to utilizing digital technologies were forced to adapt to teaching their entire learning material online.
It is with this in mind that the Foundation has decided to launch a series of training programs that take into account television, radio and print to teach students how to utilize digital technologies in the absence of infrastructure.
In populations that have no readily available infrastructure, i.e (computers, tablets, internet access) that is usually utilized by educators, student education continues to lag. The potential use of cellular phones to reach the part of the population that is without more advanced devices could be a useful tool to advance student learning. In other more severe circumstances, the use of other media could be utilized for those who have no access to cellular phones (radio, television). Finally, we will engage the use of print media where electronic media are not readily available. This would in essence forge a path for remote learning that takes into account all facets of learning and all members of society.
Collective Action
The idea is to work through a collaborative partnerships approach; to coordinate and bring together a multitude of partners and experts in the education sector with the aim of curating and delivering targeted training programs to students and teachers in developing countries on diverse platforms, including digital, radio, television and print. These programs will cater primarily to disadvantaged students aged 11-17 who have little to no exposure to digital technologies. Each pilot country will have a minimum of one showcase school that will serve as a model for data and statistics gathering, monitoring and potential for scale in each individual country.