SEF to launch Digital Learning project with 125 micro-schools

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah chaired a board meeting of the Sindh Education Foundation (SEF) on Tuesday, and approved the Digital Learning project to be launched in collaboration with the Teach the World Foundation (TTWF) to bring out-of-school children to school.

The primary objective of the Digital Learning project is to lay the foundation for solving the education crisis in the province by bringing out-of-school children to school. The project would leverage digital learning that offers the most effective solutions to the crisis.

The meeting was held at the CM House, and attended by Education Minister Syed Sardar Shah, Chief Secretary Sohail Rajput, Planning & Development Chairman Hassan Naqvi, economist Kaiser Bengali, Finance Secretary Sajid Jamal Abro, School Education Secretary Akbar Leghari, SEF Managing Director Kazi Kabir and other officers concerned.

Kabir briefed the CM that it would be a joint project between the SEF and the TTWF, which has pioneered digital learning in underprivileged communities, and their expertise has been recognised by the World Bank and various other such institutions.

According to the plan, the project would start as a pilot programme for around 10,000 out-of-school children in southern Sindh and 2,500 in-school children, and if successful, it would be scaled to millions across the province.

The provincial government runs over 42,000 schools, representing the vast majority of the schools in the province, with SEF being one arm running over 2,600 schools.

CM Shah said that we have an education crisis in Sindh, the crisis of access, quality and accountability. He said that there is little to no accountability for learning outcomes, and the situation has been vastly worsened by the recent floods.

During the discussion, the education minister said that the traditional approaches would not solve this crisis in an acceptable time frame. He said that the estimates of six to seven million out-of-school children in Sindh were not authenticated figures.

However, he added, even if the estimates were to be accepted, we need 150,000 additional teachers and 25,000 new schools to bring them to school.

He said that digital technology offers an unparalleled opportunity to solve this crisis in a relatively short time, as it has been observed that digital technology solves all the three crucial problems causing an educational crisis: access, quality and accountability.

Kabir said that digital technology promotes self-learning, and enables gamified learning, which creates high engagement, resulting in accelerated learning and higher learning outcomes. It provides digital skills that are now a crucial component of functional literacy, he added.

“Digital learning is the new wave. It has been massively validated recently by Covid. It enables adaptive learning, augmented reality and virtual reality, which would further enhance learning.”

The CM was told that the TTWF used the world’s best educational games to teach reading, writing, and mathematics, delivering them on tablet computers and smartphones in a facilitated setting.

The proposed solution is a mix of digital micro-schools and in-school digital classrooms to provide access to out-of-school children in localities without schools and quality education for children enrolled in existing SEF schools.

The meeting was told that the SEF in collaboration with the TTWF could launch a micro-school for 100 children within two months, and it would cost Rs3,500 per student per month.

The TTWF in-school programme for 105 children costs Rs1,700 per student per month. The programme is managed by a facilitator who is trained in less than a week.

The CM approved the proposal, and directed the CS to provide funds to start the project. Shah also directed the SEF MD to start 125 micro-schools in the suburban areas of Karachi and Hyderabad immediately.