Poor's Online Education - How the world handled it?

The shift from offline to online mode of teaching is due to #Covid and most universities are asking teachers to adopt new way of communicating with the students. My mother and my aunt are teachers going through the same change, while most of my Mom’s class students are grownups and have smartphones as compared to my Aunt’s students. These students live on the hill and have to walk around half an hour before catching a local to come to the school. This got me thinking about how this shift without taking into consideration these students would not turn out to be inclusive.

Online education companies target students who have either smartphone, laptop or tablet along with a stable internet connection. Most of the education platforms try to keep the bandwidth occupied during teaching on the low side to ensure good experience. However, what about the ones who don’t have such facilities?

If we consider Indian Census, we can see the data providing the belongings of low-income families, and our focus would be the modes of communication namely radio, television and phone which are used extensively. This data is from 2011, until now the number of these devices must have seen considerable change and given the prices of mobiles are decreasing, we hope to have huge number of mobile users. Some sources claim smartphone users to be well above 500 Million and internet users to be 532 Million.

So, online education can be provided using these sources:

a.     Radio

b.     Television

c.     Mobile phone (Considering basic phone with 3G connection)

Further, I will look at different organizations, which use only these communication devices to provide quality distance education. I browsed through many websites to collate some ideas, which amazed me. This is just an attempt to understand how organizations around the world are handling the same situation we are facing.

FUNZI [https://www.funzi.fi/services]

A Finland company has attempted to provide quality content on basic feature phones, which consumes less data. The content is developed with collaboration with leading publishers but it is the platform, which should be looked at. Providing such quality on basic phones also increases the attention of student and the possibility of converting the content in regional language is present. 

ENEZA [https://enezaeducation.com/]

Dialing a code *291# from any kind of phone connects the student with this organization. Through this route, student is able to solve questions and get real time response.

This idea can be implemented for revision for students or after chapter test for the students. The data can collected and provided to teachers about the scores obtained, etc.

CELL- ED [https://www.cell-ed.com/]

Similar to Funzi, Cell-Ed is a platform that works on any kind of mobile device and ensures mobile learning. The platform provides essential skill programs to adults but the idea can be explored to use for providing education in India.

Data collection of the student's progress would be easy as it would be integrated in such kind of platforms. It would be easy for organization as well as teachers to keep track of student's progress.

UBONGO [https://www.ubongo.org/shows/akili-and-me/]

Akili and me is an animated story show which teaches language, maths and science to kids in regional languages. The episodes are available on television, radio, mobile and on-demand websites. This increases the reach of the videos, which is around 11 Million African households. The results page here shows the impact of the program.

Radio

In the past, India had multiple educational programs on radio. For more details, you can have a look at the document here and here.

The School Broadcast project was commissioned in 1937 and the program was mainly targeted at school students. AIR tried to make the broadcast more curriculum oriented but failed to attain the goal due to different timetables and syllabus in the schools.

These issues could be worked out to provide quality education on radio too.

Gyan Vani [https://ignou.ac.in/ignou/aboutignou/broadcast/3]  is an educational FM radio station in several cities of India. Gyan Vani stations operate as a media cooperative with the day-to-day programs being contributed by various educational institutions, NGOs, government and semi-government organizations, UN agencies, ministries such as Agriculture, Environment, Health, Women and Child Welfare, Science & Technology, etc. besides national level institutions such as NCERT, NIOS and state open universities. Each Gyan Vani station has a range of about 60 km and covers an entire city including the adjoining rural areas. However, going on the platform, I am unable to search for the schedule, which might mean that it is inactive.

AFRICA EDUCATIONAL TRUST [https://africaeducationaltrust.org/radio-education/] is using radio as a means of providing quality education to the students.

Whatsapp – Most of the teachers in India plan to use WhatsApp for teaching students on regular basis given that most of the students have smart phones. For primary section, it is difficult for the teachers to make students understand how to use zoom (regional language schools) and therefore they want to use the medium that students and parents are familiar with. The teachers could send them videos (YouTube or self-made) and interact with students on the phone to get real time response from the students.

BONUS : For people who want to know more :

Koulu [https://koulu.me/] A collection of free apps for primary education by Finnish companies. The link contains information about these apps which can be used by teachers or organizations to facilitate distance learning.  

 An extensive list of 600 distance-learning solutions provided to the refugees from United Nations. This excel sheet contains the details of these distance learning solutions.

The aim of this documentation was to know about how inclusive education is provided across the world. Currently in India, the government of Kerela has planned to start online education through television, radio as well as digital platforms. This could be used as a starting point for other governments too.

Available options for providing online education are as below:

a. Using Television or Online platforms : Asking regional teachers to provide quality recorded or live sessions to the students and live quizzes could be conducted to track progress.

b. Using Basic phones - Textual version of lectures can be imparted through platforms like Funzi or Whatsapp. For quizzes, Eneza model could be used.

c. Radio : The students can sit with the textbook and listen to the lecture via radio. All schools timetables should be same for this to happen.

d. Animated Series : Educational cartoon series can be started on all the platforms for primary school children.

e. Addition : In addition to the above, printed material or apps could be used by children to grasp the knowledge and make learning fun!