More than 190 countries have closed schools forcing over 1.57 billion students out of their classrooms. UNICEF and Microsoft Corporation has today announced the expansion of a global learning platform to help children and youth affected by COVID-19 continue their education at home.
The Learning Passport started off as a partnership between UNICEF, Microsoft and the University of Cambridge and its departments; Cambridge University Press and Cambridge Assessment. The design is meant to provide education for displaced and refugee children through a digital remote learning platform. After undergoing rapid expansion, the platform is now ready to facilitate a country-level curriculum for children and youth whose schools have been forced to close due to COVID-19 and will also provide key resources to teachers and educators to ensure learning continues despite the lockdowns.
“From school closures to isolation, to a persistent sense of fear and anxiety, the effects of this pandemic are impacting childhoods worldwide,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director.
“We need to come together and explore every avenue to keep children learning and help them through this difficult time. With long-term partners like Microsoft, we are able to swiftly deploy innovative, scalable solutions for children and youth. The adaptations made to the Learning Passport are a powerful reminder of what we can achieve together for children as the crisis deepens globally,” she added.
UNICEF says the Learning Passport has been in development for the past 18 months, and was due to start as a pilot programme this year before the global pandemic hit and schools had to be closed worldwide. All countries with a curriculum capable of being taught online will now be able to facilitate online learning for children and youth with devices at home.
“Just as COVID-19’s impact has no borders, its solutions must not have borders, as it requires the collaboration across public and private sectors to ensure every student stays engaged and continues learning,” said Brad Smith, President of Microsoft.
“UNICEF’s Learning Passport is uniquely positioned as a scalable learning solution to bridge the digital learning gap for millions of students to bring their classroom into their home during the pandemic,” Brad Smith noted in a statement.
Children and young people continuing their education online can do so through a country-specific platform, accessed via their country’s learningpassport.unicef.org page. The platform for each country provides a digitized curriculum with textbooks and a selection of supplemental content, in national languages, that is jointly curated at the country-level to best serve learners’ and educators’ specific needs. The Learning Passport captures a record of the curriculum subjects each student learns and guides learners with little additional support needed. It aims to use technology to address challenges faced by learners, facilitators and education providers, particularly in conflict-affected and humanitarian contexts.
Read Also: I still don’t understand why Kenyan universities have closed