Education for All mLearning presentation, Open Innovation Africa Summit

Education for All

Open Innovation Africa Summit, KenyaSteve Vosloo

28 November 2010

Roadmap

Education for All: Progress and challenges

Africa’s “mobile miracle”

Mobile miracle meets EFA challenges

Africa’s greatest resource?

By Irene2005, http://www.flickr.com/photos/irene2005/432311008/sizes/l/


By Irene2005, http://www.flickr.com/photos/irene2005/432311008/sizes/l/


By Lead Beyond, http://www.flickr.com/photos/32493043@N00/3483997920/sizes/l/

Education for All (EFA)

Goal 1: Early childhood education.

Goal 2: Primary education of good quality.

Goal 3: Life-skills programmes.

Goal 4: Adult literacy and basic and continuing education for all adults.

Goal 5: Gender equality.

Goal 6: Quality of education.

Progress, but ...

Sub-Saharan Africa has made significant progress since the Education for All goals were adopted.

But ... overall the region lacks education access, quality and effectiveness.

EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010: Regional overview of Sub-Saharan Africahttp://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001865/186526E.pdf

Universal primary education

32 million out of school. 59% will never enrol.

How can we get them to school? Support them? Enable them? Think of them as a resource?


Out-of-school population: 32 million in 2007. Yet the deficit remains large: one-quarter of the regionʼs primary school age children were out of school in 2007, and the region accounted for nearly 45% of the global out-of-school population.

Some 59% of the out-of-school children in sub-Saharan Africa are likely never to enrol in school – the highest of any Education for All region.

Youth and adult skills

In countries such as Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, young people face about 5 years of reported inactivity before finding work.

In Burundi, Cameroon, Kenya and Nigeria, youth with secondary and tertiary education have higher rates of unemployment than those with lower levels of attainment.

What do they do in those 5 years?How do we support them as entrepreneurs?


Almost two-thirds of population is under 25.

Functional Illiteracy

38% of the adult population in sub-Saharan Africa, or 153 million adults, lack the basic literacy and numeracy skills needed in everyday life.

How can we bring them into the innovation ecosystem? How can they be lifelong learners?


Quality of education

The average student in Botswana and Ghana stands alongside or below the poorest-performing 10% of students in higher-performing countries.

Teacher qualifications and teaching quality below global standards.


From Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study conducted in 2007 ...

Chronic teacher shortage

2.4 million teachers needed by 2015.

How can they be trained quickly?How can they be supported?How can we support schools if (when?) the required teachers aren’t found?


Getting left behind

Although more children from poor households have entered school in Malawi and Uganda since they abolished fees over a decade ago, half the households with children who have dropped out of school cite lack of money as the main problem.

How we can help them?


Africa’s “mobile miracle”

By the end of 2010, there will be an estimated 5.3 billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide, including 940 million subscriptions to 3G services (Source: www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/material/FactsFigures2010.pdf).

Worldʼs fastest growing mobile market. Remember that in 1990, Norway had more landlines than the whole of Africa. Today, over 400 million subscribers in Africa.

In Africa, mobile penetration rates will reach an estimated 41% at the end of 2010 (compared to 76% globally). This still leaves significant potential for growth as Africa is the region with the lowest penetration rate. Africaʼs 2010 Internet penetration stands at 9.6%, which is less than half that of the developing country mean estimate. (Source: Futures of Technology in Africa, Jasper Grosskurth, 2010. Available at http://www.stt.nl/uploads/documents/192.pdf)

Image of mobile phone by ICT4D.at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ict4d/3000017623/sizes/l/

Africa’s “mobile miracle”?Highly uneven landscape

Although most African nations offer 3G at least somewhere, the landscape is highly uneven. As a rough estimate, about 2% of African phones could be classified as smartphones with user-friendly mobile web capabilities.

Source: Futures of Technology in Africa, Jasper Grosskurth, 2010. Available at http://www.stt.nl/uploads/documents/192.pdf.

Africa’s “mobile miracle”?

"Most phones are very cheap or secondhand devices, which hardly ever have usable airtime loaded on them. The primary purpose is to be reachable and not to be able to call others."

Jasper Grosskurth, Futures of Technology in Africa

Mobile miracle meets EFA challenges

51%South African households that own no leisure books

TNS Research Surveys. (2006). National Survey into the Reading and Book Reading Behaviour of Adult South Africans. Available at http://www.saccd.org.za/objects/sabdc_reading.pdf

7%Public schools in South Africa that have functional libraries of any kind

Equal Education. (2009). EE rejects DoE's statement on school libraries. Available at http://www.equaleducation.org.za/press-a-views/press-releases/item/74-statement17dec2009.

“Kindle” of Africa

Stories: www.yoza.mobiProject blog: www.m4lit.wordpress.com

As at 28 November 2010: 60000 full story reads, 40000 comments, 10000 compo entries.

By mlearning africa, http://www.flickr.com/photos/40042565@N06/page2/

It's great ... for me it really hard to pick up a book to start readin but i don mind readin on my phonedotty1

The stories r interesting nd fun 2 read, they kip ma englsh gngHlengiwe gulube

If friar's plan wrks, then romeo wil b able 2 cum nd take juliet wit hm 2 liv hapily 2geda at mantua bt if it fails, sumbdy's gna b dead. Lol!Elsie

Support comes in many forms

mLearning is not just delivering content.

Conversation.Tutoring.Testing.Support and motivation.“System strengthening”/administration.

Birth registration.Cash transfers.Maternal health.

Conversation/tutoring: Dr Math on MXit

Support and motivation: Project Zumbido, UNISA student support.

System strengthening: Distance is a problem in Africa -- mobile can fix that. Enormous time, resource and money savings.

Birth registration and identity card drives in Burkina Faso and Senegal support the right of every person to a formal identity, crucial for claiming a place in school or an entitlement to stipends.

Cash transfers: Conditional and unconditional transfers of cash and food can build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households so that they can manage riskwithout compromising the long-term welfare of their children.

Lower costs, radically

Europeans spend little more than 1% of their average monthly income on mobile communication, Africans spend 17.7%.

Zero-rate educational content.1c SMS.$10 smartphone.

Futures of Technology in Africa, Jasper Grosskurth, 2010. Available at http://www.stt.nl/uploads/documents/192.pdf.

Mobile miracle meets EFA challenges: so where is all the mlearning?

Iʼve been using the same examples of mlearning for 3 years now. Why not more? Sometimes I feel like m-money and m-health and m-agriculture is doing more interesting and effective work than mlearning?

mLearning needs to get serious

Need policies that support mlearning.

Buy-in at government as well as school level.

Fresh thinking: support and disrupt existing educational structures.

Address real problems.

[email protected]

www.vosloo.net / twitter: stevevosloo

By Steve Vosloo, http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevevosloo/4918829341/in/set-72157624663121313/

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