The Connect Teaching Project

Connect.Teaching

Marc van den Homberg

Euro Africa ICT

Lisbon, 29th of November 2012

Six years ago barely an educational system due to civil war >> education peace dividend is now expected 81% illiteracy, 26% primary school completion rate Over 500 primary schools (first to eight grade) constructed, still half of primary school children out of school

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Education in South Sudan (1)

Poor quality of teaching: 61% of teachers do not possess any professional training to be teachers Lack of trainers for the teachers Pupil-Teacher ratio = 52 Predominantly rote teaching Syllabus coverage not on schedule

Infrastructure: A third of classes in open air Not enough books, paper and pens No or little electricity and internet connectivity

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Education in South Sudan (2)

Goal: Improve children’s learning through a focus on the quality of classroom teaching

Solution: Classroom support and coaching Learning-centred lessons for teachers using an off-line database of curriculum-linked educational resources

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Connect.Teaching

Classroom support and coaching Training by Cluster Education Centre in collaboration with Warchild, and aligned with Ministry of Education and General Instruction in Eastern Equatoria State

Educational content Curriculum of South Sudan: English, Science and Maths Teacher Professional Development material

Tablet Hardware: 7” and 7 hrs battery lifetime, Micro SD card Software: “a website disguised as an app” (Android OS, HTLM5 and Dolphin browser), Microsoft Sharepoint for online database

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Solution proposed

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Low cost hardware

Content Management System (SCREEN 2A) 7

Stakeholders involved

Schools, teachers and pupils! Government of the Republic of South Sudan:

Ministry of Education Ministry of Education and General Instruction in Eastern Equatoria State Teacher trainers organisations: Cluster education centre

NGO: Warchild (leading party)

Technical partners, such as innovation partner, platform hosting company and programmers Content providers: National and International

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“We have decided not to have a big consortium from the start, but instead hire specific expertise on the way. Sometimes this meant there was a delay, as it took time to find the right experts to do the job. On the other hand, the core team was quite small which made it easier to take decisions. Opportunity driven though and financing all activities has been a constant challenge, and still is.”

July – Sept 2012: Training of teachers by Cluster Education Center Tablet: 22 tablets in 10 schools in Magwi and Torit, one solar panel per school

Research and evaluation:

Classroom and school observation Participant experience Tablet usage

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Early Implementation Pilot

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Research and evaluation (1/3) Classroom and school observation – Quantitative and qualitative data

To monitor

Children’s engagement in classroom learning increases (time-on-task) Teachers increase the number of different learning activities used, and broaden the type of learning activities used in the classroom

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Research and evaluation (2/3)

Participant Experience (Survey, interviews, focus groups)

To monitor Children’s classroom experience improvement Teacher’s and supervisor’s capacity and commitment to providing quality education improves Teachers gain access to additional important information through the database

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Research and evaluation (3/3) Tablet usage – Quantitative data To monitor

Supervisors and teachers access teaching and learning and professional development material from the database to support their work with teachers

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“For teachers to work with the tool, we need to do a fair amount of training, actually more than we had first planned for. The first pilot results showed there is more work to do before the teachers will actually apply the teaching material in the classroom”

Supervision and training Usage of tablet is still limited Certification of teachers and Peer learning will be explored

Hardware: Charging with solar panel takes 3-4 days, exploring other ways for charging, possibly more powerful panels

Database content Streamlining the over 500 resources Mother tongue and teacher generated content will be explored

Overall Work towards replicability: ensure adoption, technical scalability, sustainable business model. Continuous communication with Ministry of Education

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Preliminary findings and recommendations

Questions?

Marc van den Homberg, leader ICT4D team, marc.vandenhomberg@tno.nl

On behalf of the projectteam:

South Sudan: Laina Henderson, Program development manager, Juba, laina.henderson@warchild.nl Beden Chaplain, Field Officer, Torit, beden.chaplain@warchild.n The Netherlands: James Lawrie, Education advisor, james.lawrie@warchild.nl Jenny de Boer, ICT4D consultant, jenny.deboer@tno.nl Have a look at:

http://www.connactnow.org/teaching/tool/

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Back up slides

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Education in South Sudan Goal of the Connect.Teaching project Solution proposed Value network Pilot Monitoring and evaluation Results and challenges ahead

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Contents

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Content Management System (SCREEN 2B) 20

Open Educational Resources

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TECH-FLOW 22