Our target beneficiaries are pre-literate and emerging literate out-of-school children and their families in the Imvepi Refugee Settlement in West Nile, Uganda. We have a particular focus on children between age 3-12.
Basic literacy skills have stagnated across the African continent for decades, increasingly referred to as learning poverty (UNESCO, 2021; World Bank, 2017). This has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Uganda was the world’s last country to reopen school doors 22 months after closing in March, 2020. During this time, 15 million Ugandan learners were left without any formal education. Some estimates show that up to 10 years of learning gains have been lost in low-income countries.
Subsequently, many children are not returning to school, adding to the existing 260 million children globally who were out of school prior to the pandemic. Girls in vulnerable communities are disproportionately impacted by interruptions in education, and it has been estimated that an additional 20 million girls never return to school due to the pandemic (Malala Fund, 2020).
Even as students return to school, large student-to-teacher ratios at 133:1 in refugee schools in Imvepi (UMOES, 2019) and many other camps create a palpable concern over the ability to support effective learning.
There is a dire need for a solution that both bridges the gap for out-of-school students and students in overcrowded schools in a cost-effective and scalable model. Hence, Project Backpack, informed by the challenges of autonomous learning, was launched in 2019. It has focused on understanding how technology supplemented by limited instruction can be employed to teach foundational literacy skills. This has been done by providing learners with a group-based tablet, continuous feedback, leveled, culturally relevant content, and adaptive software for targeted formative practice. Throughout this program, “learning guides” have helped students focus their tablet time based on assessment data.
End Notes
Uganda Ministry of Education and Sports. (2019). Education Response Plan
for Refugees and Host Communities in Uganda. Accessed via https://globalcompactrefugees.org/sites/default/files/2019-12/Uganda-%20Education%20response%20plan%20for%20refugees%20and%20host%20communities%2C%202017-2020_0.pdf
UNESCO. (2021). Global Education Monitoring Report 2021/2: Non-stateactorsineducation: Who chooses? Who loses? Chapter 15, pg. 301. Paris, UNESCO.
World Bank. (2017). What Do Teachers Know and Do? Does It Matter? : Evidence from Primary Schools in Africa. Accessed via https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25964
Malala Fund. (2020). Girls’ Education and COVID-19: What Past Shocks Can Teach Us About Mitigating the Impacts of Pandemics. Accessed via
https://downloads.ctfassets.ne...
