Elevating South Africa with digital education
Author and founder of the global digital education company, IDEA Digital Education, Dr Corrin Varady is on a mission to democratise education by providing digital resources to emerging-market students.
results produced by that access and that learning. This year, IDEA also launched its first Arabic, French, isixhosa and Bahasa Melayu topics in Science and Mathematics.
Dr Varady says what lies at the heart of IDEA is the desire for everyone to have the best educational experience the world has to offer, localised to national education syllabuses with feedback and analytics that enable the students, teachers and parents to monitor progress.
‘Our aim is to replicate the best in learning and teaching that works in a non-digital environment, but drive that through a low-cost digital alternative. My dream is for IDEA to improve learners’ grasp of school content, improve their performance results, and give them a chance to part-take meaningfully in an ever-changing world of work and business.
‘What we ultimately want to hear are students and teachers from countries like ours easily say that they can compete with their global peers in a 21st century economy. Each day we want to help students to do more than simply pass, we want them to thrive in South Africa and across the continent.’
For Dr Varady, a democratic education does not simply mean access to the same things, it means that all students have the same opportunities of achieving their self-determined pathway. ‘In order for this to happen, a shift has to take place in the way we deliver education. It must be personalised because there are many ways of learning. So while we may have ambitious goals to bring greater democracy to education, we want to do this in a way that considers each child as the key metric of success.’
Having travelled extensively, he explains that from Southeast Asia to South Africa, the most common challenges within education systems remain the same, namely foundational literacy, the changing role of teachers in an increasingly digitised world, and the link between basic education and employability. Challenges, he says, that all stem from resource constraints, too much focus on access as opposed to enough focus on learning outcomes, and the lack of content mastery from teachers.
‘Teachers are the key. We often pass the blame to teachers if we don’t see great end-of-year results. I would argue that we haven’t spent as much time and energy thinking through ways for us to support teachers as we have students – especially in a tech-enabled learning environment.
‘IDEA’S programme has taken that into account, focussing on whole-school change. We help teacher professional development in both content, digital transformation, and monitoring and evaluation, giving teachers options and feedback on how they can use technology more efficiently and meaningfully in their classrooms. We just need to be asking teachers what they want in their development journey because just like students, their learning needs to be personalised.’
Dr Varady explains that education is key to driving a global economy, particularly within this Fourth Industrial Revolution. ‘People confuse the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) with digital literacy. They believe 4IR merely means a technology-driven age, but the principles of the 4IR focus on how we can use technology to achieve greatness as humans. I am often asked, “If we are sitting in the middle of a digital revolution, why then do we need second-language programmes, and why are history, culture and climate change important?”
‘It is, in fact, because of the pressing needs of our country, our environment and our youth that we must embrace technology as a means of building that bridge, and we must recognise that 4IR is opening up our communities and our nations. This poses significant opportunity while seemingly also making us feel threatened. Value-based education isn’t about creating a curriculum, it is about infusing and weaving core concepts through our current education system.’
In 2007, Dr Varady founded the World Youth Education Trust (UK, Tanzania and Australia) to support the education of marginalised students across
East Africa, and where his most significant work focused on the reintegration of child soldiers into education and leadership programmes.
‘In my first year of working in East Africa, I ended up in Northern Uganda at the tailend of the conflict between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Uganda People’s Defense Force. I met with hundreds of formerchild soldiers, who made up a small part of a large population of children affected by war.
‘The stories are sometimes too horrific to describe, but the drive and determination of these young people (some as young as 10 years old when they escape the rebel group) is incredible. “Never give up” was the line said to me hundreds of times over a decade working with these inspirational young people, and one which I use on a daily basis. We still run our sponsorship and education programmes in Northern Uganda and we have our first cohort graduating from university this year. My years in Uganda further cemented my belief that only education can help us to solve the social, political and economic challenges.’
As to what drives his passion for education, he explains ‘Globalisation has given all of us access to multiple markets, opportunities and exposure to new ideas and concepts. And for many, life has improved, but not for all. Education is the only way that we can ensure that these global opportunities are easily accessed by everyone. And education is the only investment that, once made, can never be removed or taken away. Beyond political agendas, budgets and dependencies, education is the only self-determining investment we can give every human being.’