DUBAI PLAN TO TEACH 1M CHILDREN IN NEED
▶ Online school aims to educate refugee and underprivileged pupils around the world over the next five years
Dubai is launching a digital school that aims to educate a million refugees and underprivileged children over the next five years.
The first batch of pupils will enrol next September at www. digitalschool. org, with children from countries such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan the priority.
The school aims to empower a lost generation of youngsters across the Arab world and give them hope to dream of a better future.
The Mohammed bin Rashid Global Initiatives is behind the ambitious project and it is seeking accreditation for the school from ministries of education around the world.
A pilot project involving 20,000 pupils began this month and will run until August of next year. Pupils will have access to international curriculums and digital learning materials in Arabic.
“There are millions of children across the world with no access to education due to war and conflict,” said Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai yesterday.
“If we didn’t try to address this knowledge gap, we will fail to give our future generations a healthy environment to grow up in and contribute to their societies.”
The people behind the school are enlisting educational experts. A tie- up with leading universities such as Harvard, Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and New York University will help provide technological solutions in remote areas where pupils do not have access to digital learning.
Teachers will be recruited in the coming months but those already in the region will participate in the pilot phase.
“We’ve read in history that if you want to change the future of a country, change the education,” said Omar Al Olama, Minister of State for AI, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications.
“There are refugee children who do not have access to an education and this is a challenge Sheikh Mohammed wants to overcome. If we want to change the future of the Middle East, we have to provide them with an education.”
There are close to 34 million refugee children around the world, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. They face daily struggles to survive, and the emergence of Covid-19 has made things more difficult.
Pupils across the world switched to e-learning during the past year because of coronavirus restrictions but most refugees did not have this luxury. In June, the agency said that many refugee camps could not support online learning.
“Even before Covid- 19, refugee children were twice as likely to be out of school as other children, and despite improvements in refugee enrolment rates, only 63 per cent of refugees are in enrolled in primary school and 24 per cent in secondary education,” the agency said.
“The pandemic risks creating a backslide in the small gains made and creating a disaster for groups such as adolescent girls.”
Prof Christopher Dede, a professor in learning technologies at Harvard University in the US, said the challenges thrown up by this year could be overcome to create a better tomorrow.
“We can design new ways to learn, teach and assess, which can grow from initial projects in the digital school to prove effectiveness to scalable insights that can influence education everywhere, for everyone,” Prof Dede said.
“We can rescue children who have no opportunities now, to help all of us realise a bright future.”
A digital school that seeks to provide an education to one million refugee and underprivileged children over the next five years began in Dubai yesterday.
The Mohammed bin Rashid Global Initiatives is behind the project that will lead to its first batch of pupils joining digitalschool.org in September next year.
Refugee children from countries including Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan are the focus. Global Initiatives is seeking accreditation for the school from ministries of education in different parts of the world. An accredited school diploma will help pupils to be admitted to university.
A pilot that began this month with 20,000 pupils will run until August next year. They will have access to digital learning materials in Arabic and international curriculums.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, described the school as filling a “scientific and educational gap in the Arab world”.
“We have millions of children who miss years of education due to economic conditions or conflicts. And if no one moves to address these challenges, there will come generations led by ignorance and extremism, instead of leading their homelands with the light of knowledge,” he said.
Omar Al Olama, Minister of State for AI, Digital Economy and Remote Work Applications, said education was the key to providing children with a brighter future.
“We’ve read in history that if you want to change the future of a country, change the education,” he said.
“With Covid-19 disrupting sectors worldwide, 1.6 billion people around the world were left without a school in 190 countries.
“There are refugee children who do not have access to an education and this is a challenge Sheikh Mohammed wants to overcome. If we want to change the future of the Middle East, we have to provide them with an education,” he said.
A tie-up with leading universities will help provide technological solutions in remote areas where pupils do not have access to digital learning tools.
The universities include Harvard, Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University and the Mobiles for Education Alliance.
Dedicated teachers will be recruited in the coming months, but those already in the area will participate in the pilot phase.
There are about 30 to 34 million refugee children worldwide, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
Pupils worldwide switched to e-learning because of school closures but most refugees did not have the same opportunity.
The Covid-19 pandemic created major disruption for these children, who were already facing many challenges, especially in terms of education.
In June, the UN agency said that many refugee camps did not have the technical infrastructure to support online learning.
“Even before Covid-19, refugee children were twice as likely to be out of school as other
children, and despite improvements in refugee enrolment rates, only 63 per cent of refugees are in enrolled in primary school and 24 per cent in secondary education,” it said.
“The pandemic risks creating a backslide in the small gains made and creating a disaster for groups such as adolescent girls.”
The agency estimated that 20 per cent of refugee girls in secondary school are at significant risk of never returning because of Covid-19 closures.
Dr Paul Kim, associate dean and chief technology officer at Stanford University in the US, said pupils at the digital school would be able to create online portfolios of their work that will help with university admissions in future. Teachers and advisers will also help pupils with their university applications.
“When we have the machine-learning algorithms and modern artificial intelligence systems and tools available, we will be able to track student performance data in a way that never been possible before,” he said.
“With those kind of footprints that we will be tracking, we will be able to better guide our members with highly personalised learning pathways that can help them reach their fullest potential.”
Prof Christopher Dede, a professor in learning technologies at Harvard University, said the digital school was an opportunity to digitally enhance the education sector worldwide.
“This is the time for a mobile engineer to realise these opportunities for learning and overcome the challenges we face,” he said.
“We can design new ways to learn, teach and assess, which can grow from initial projects in the digital school to prove effectiveness to scalable insights that can influence education everywhere, for everyone.”
We have millions of children who miss years of education due to economic conditions or conflicts
SHEIKH MOHAMMED BIN RASHID Vice President and Ruler of Dubai