Advancing Literacy through Mobile TechnologiesEmpowering Women and Girls

15-16 October 2013, Washington, D.C.2013 Mobiles for Education Alliance International Symposium: Commit Fair

for Project Scaling

Project Proposal by UNESCO Headquarters, Education SectorICT in Education Team

PHASE II: From Insight to Action

©UNESCO/Marc Hofer

126 million children

OUT OF SCHOOL

3

65 million are girls © UNESCO/Akhtar Soomro

4

774 million adultsand

123 million youth

lackBASIC

LITERACYSKILLS

© UNESCO/Françoise Pinzon Gil

5© UNESCO/Françoise Pinzon Gil

2/3 are

WOMEN

Women and girls face barriers to accessing education… (cultural, societal, religious, political, economical, their own attitudes, and geographic or security constraints. )

Learning through mobile devices can help overcome some of these barriers….(their unique features include portability, relative affordability, discreteness, potential content richness, wide-use and increasing social acceptability, and one-to-one learning advantages)

Framing the Issue

Rapidly rising global mobile cellular

subscription rates

Source: ITU, 2013 (estimated)

2000 2005 2010 2013

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100Per 100 inhabitants

6.8 billion

And greater world coverage by a mobile cellular network

67% in 2005

96% in 2013 Source: ITU, 2012; ITU, 2013 (estimated)

© Milica Sekulic

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OPPORTUNITIES

© UNESCO/Roya Aziz/Star Group

POTENTIAL

© UNESCO/Mario Santana

UNESCO recognized the need to know more about:

• how mobile devices can provide better access to education, especially to women and girls

• how to overcome the obstacles preventing their optimal use for learning and improvement of livelihoods

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Mobile PhonesAdvancing Women’s and Girls’ Literacy

Support was provided by the government of the United States of America

Projects reviewed

Asia and PacificProject MILLEE (India)Pink Telephone Project (Cambodia)Mobile-based Literacy Programme (Pakistan)Mobile Literacy Project (Afghanistan)USTAD Mobile Application (Afghanistan)Nokia Life Services (India, China, Indonesia)

Arab statesSomali Youth Livelihoods Project (Somalia)SMS Use by Berber Women (Morocco )

AfricaProject ABC – Mobiles 4 Literacy (Niger)Jokko Initiative (Senegal)

Latin AmericaAlfabeTIC (Argentina)Cell-Ed - Teaching Adult Literacy (USA Latin American immigrants)

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ACCESS

© UNESCO/Bunyad Foundation

15

EQUALITY

© UNESCO/D. Willetts

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Key Messages Emerged from the report:

• Mobile learning for women’s and girls’ education and literacy is an opportunity that governments can not afford to miss.

• There are few initiatives and more action is needed to scale them up, with close monitoring and gender-sensitive evaluation.

• Community sensitization and mobilization as well as political support are key ingredients for success.

• The particular needs of the targeted women and girls must be addressed and life-skills and empowerment opportunities offered.

• Programmes can bring added value through a powerful combination of 3-levels of change (change of self, a change in the perception of self, and a change in the perception of others of self).

• Reasons, structures and spaces with flexible learning times are needed, with close consideration of how the mobile technologies can be optimized in the different educational contexts and settings.

UNESCO is committedto empowering women and girls

through education

via innovative mobile technology-based learning

UNESCO calls for ACTION & PARTNERSHIPS

to launch phase II of the project

© UNESCO/Roya Aziz/Star Group

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PHASE II: From Insight to Action

Bring about large scale impact on literacy for women and girls in targeted PCPD countries and open potential for similar initiatives

Best leverage literacy education for life skills development in the areas of education, health, rights, agriculture, sanitation, water, and personal and family finances

Raise awareness and promote the value of literacy through mobile phones

Develop effective mobile learning models for literacy development among women and girls

Build capacity of the UNESCO field offices and local implementation agencies

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• A pilot project is proposed to target PCPD countries where the need literacy and life skills is greatest and the impact can be most effective.

• Mobile solution (basic or advanced devices) used to disseminate information, enable feedback and monitoring, and enable communication between participants to form peer-to-peer learning networks.

• Partnerships with local NGOs for literacy content development and training, as well as partnerships and local mobile network operators.

• Dialogue with and support from governments to ensure sustainability and reach for scalability.

PHASE II: From Insight to Action

v

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Project Implementation

Stage I: • Needs assessment (field visits), partnership establishment• Community sensitization and mobilization campaign for awareness, political

support and local buy-in, including participatory methods to include the future beneficiaries' voices.

Stage II:• A 6-month face-to-face literacy programme including life skills development

modules and embedded within a broader empowerment and human rights-based curriculum.

Stage III: • Introduction of the 4-month basic mobile technology component, with

gender-sensitive monitoring and evaluation (feedback through focus groups and community meetings).

• Peer-to-peer connection and chat-feature through a network for building in interactivity, providing feedback.

Stage IV: • Reflection and documenting model and lessons learned.• Promoting sustainability of the initiative.

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Example Target CountriesCountry Greatest Challenges Advantages

Haiti -One of 41 countries farthest from literacy goals.-One of 11 countries with adult literacy rates below 50% -Low literacy rates for adult women (44%).-One of UNESCO’s 20 targeted education priority countries.-Post-Disaster setting.-Island country, which would offer valuable lessons for scaling-up to similar contexts.

-UNESCO office in Port-au-Prince (national office to Haiti)-Regional diversity: Example from the Caribbean

Rwanda

-Post Conflict Post Disaster setting-One of UNESCO’s 20 targeted education priority countries.

-East Africa focus; possibility to expand programs in similar cultures and using English

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Expected Outcomes

• The quick reinforcement and scaling up of basic literacy among women and girls, especially those who have been the hardest to reach.

• Development of life skills in specific contexts.• Greater connections woman-to-woman and

with the greater world.• Increased autonomy, confidence and

empowerment (3-levels of change in self and the community).

• Stronger communities that value and encourage women’s and girls’ education.

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Strengths• Identification of an urgent need

among marginalized target audience and strong mobile potential solution

• UNESCO to leverage the accumulated knowledge and established network of experts from the global study

• A very active UNESCO Mobile Learning Team

• Broad and deep organizational capacity to provide both centralized coordination and in-field, local expertise in the selected countries

Challenges• Specific and difficult contexts to

implement the project and convince community members of its importance for the targeted population (especially in conservative areas)

• Potential challenges in measuring outcomes given the contextual and cultural constraints

• Need for a wide spectrum of committed partners at the governmental, local and private sector level

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Connect with us

UNESCO: ICT in Education – Mobile Learning tinyurl.com/unescomobilelearning

se.vosloo@unesco.org

UNESCO ICTs in Education

@UNESCOICTs

United NationsEducational, Scientific and

Cultural Organization