Online meeting held for UNESCO-Huawei project on technology-enabled open schools

The meeting provided an opportunity for UNESCO and Huawei to discuss their digital inclusion experiences in the region.

On 2 September 2020, UNESCO hosted an online preparatory meeting for the UNESCO-Huawei joint project on Technology-enabled Open Schools for All. The project is designed to support the Member States to design, pilot test, and scale-up Technology-enabled Open School Systems that can connect school- and home-based learning to ensure the continuity and quality of learning during crises as well as during normal circumstances. Egypt, Ethiopia and Ghana have been selected as the first group of beneficiary countries. Ha, The meeting was convened by UNESCO's Education Sector and Africa Department and joined by Directors of UNESCO field offices, high-level representatives from the Permanent Delegations of the three countries and Huawei. Starting in September 2020, the Funds-in-Trust project will allocate USD 3 million over three years to support connectivity in these three countries.

The meeting provided an opportunity for UNESCO and Huawei to discuss their digital inclusion experiences in the region. The project managers of Huawei's TECH4ALL programme shared its vision to bring the digital world to every family, person and organization. Then country representatives from both UNESCO and Huawei presented their distance learning programmes designed to respond to the digital divide and to the COVID-19 education disruption in each country.

The overall objective of the project is to empower the Member States to transform schools to be technology-enabled inclusive and crisis-resilient open schools that can ensure the continuity and quality of learning for all learners no matter under normal situations or in the context of education disruptions caused by crises. This is highly relevant to the reflection on lessons learned from the education responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. More specifically, this project helps the Member States to rethink and build the new generation of digital schools and digital learners in the face of more frequent global pandemics and crises.

By building a more crisis-resilient technology, content, and human infrastructure for school education and making it equitably accessible, the technology-enabled open schools will serve as digital learning hubs to underpin the following strategic objectives in the context of achieving SDGs: (1) promoting digital inclusion, (2) mainstreaming digital skills development, including skills required by the adoption of emerging technologies and Artificial Intelligence, and (3) fostering digital-pedagogical transformation needed for ensuring the quality of learning. Activities will include building national platforms and developing online/distance learning content in the target countries to support school-based blended learning and home-based distance learning; enhancing school and household connectivity; deploying relevant applications, and providing training on digital skills. The most vulnerable groups will be given priority, including female teachers and students, children from rural areas, and learners with disabilities.