Future-Proofing Technology for Education in International Development: Mobiles for Education Alliance releases report on its 7th annual Symposium

The seventh annual Mobiles for Education (mEducation) Alliance Symposium, held October 5-6, 2017, brought together practitioners, thought leaders, policy makers, and funders to advance the use of and evidence for information and communications technology in global education (ICT4E).

Each year, the Steering Committee of the Alliance designs the Symposium to promote a shared understanding of the opportunities and challenges of implementing ICT4E solutions particularly in lower-resource, developing country contexts. 

Download the full report

The event is designed to promote networking and partnership development among participants, who come from government, nonprofit, and private-sector organizations.

The guiding theme of this Symposium, “Future-Proofing Technology for Education in International Development” demonstrated the power of this gathering to discuss pathways to spread and scale promising The future-proofing theme was embedded into a novel Symposium application process: Prospective presenters were asked to submit proposals for presentations in which they would time-travel three years into the future. The presenters would retrace the future-proofing steps taken by The future-proofing theme helped presenters and participants envision pathways to implementing evidence-driven innovations at scale. The longer term vision is that this focus on sustainable, durable project designs would lead public sector policy makers to adopt and support such innovations in their countries.

We were delighted to be invited to present at the Symposium to share our work in improving educational outcomes in Kenya, and our involvement was featured in the report:

"Project iMlango is a comprehensive educational technology program delivered by a ground-breaking partnership of public and private sector organizations, which aims to improve Kenyan pupils’ learning outcomes, enrollment and retention. Avanti and sQuid, two of the project partners, highlighted their work in improving educational outcomes for over 68,000 girls in highly marginalized rural regions of Kenya. While iMlango serves a total of 150,000 male and female students, the project’s special focus on measuring and improving girls’ education outcomes derives from iMlango’s partnership with Ministry of Education in Kenya. Among the project’s key findings: Over 60 percent of the girls served became more interested in school because of the digital learning methods used. Among iMlango’s innovations is the platform’s mobile app for numeracy, which significantly accelerated students’ math progress. Other important project outcomes include improved student attendance overall and higher levels of teacher engagement."

For more information on the mEducation Alliance or their annual Symposium, please click here. 

iMlango Junior Debaters' Contest: Strengthening literacy skills through digital competitions

The iMlango Junior Debaters’ Contest (iMJDC) is an inter-school competition that is accessible to all 205 iMlango schools.

The contest is delivered in partnership with Arimus Media, which runs the highly renowned Great Debaters’ Contest in Kenya. Each student group that enters the contest comprises of five members; and there are three rounds to each competition, with groups writing responses to a debate motion – either for or against the issue - and submitting them digitally on the iMlango platform.

Moiben Primary School have performed especially well in the contest, with all five groups from the school proceeding to the second round and two making it to the final 10. One girl pupil, Jael, who was a member of a top 10 group, demonstrated impressive progress in English over the duration of the contest.

Involvement in the iMJDC also contributed to improved engagement with the e-learning platform for Jael. She spent 14 hours 55 minutes on the iMlango portal in Term 2. She largely attributes this increase, from less than an hour in Term 1, to her involvement in the debaters’ competition.

Coupled with more structured lab-sessions during lesson-time, Jael took the initiative and used supervised out-of-hour sessions to conduct her own research for the competition.

From before the contest started, Jael scored 54 in her English exam at the end of term (1). At the end of the year, Jael scored 64, representing a 19% improvement in her score. According to Jael and her English teacher, Mr. S, the debaters’ contest combined with her initiative in using the e-learning platform’s content were the main reasons behind her increased English score. In particular, Jael’s written composition skills dramatically improved - which is an essential skill for developing core literacy competency.

Jael stated that “the competition made us work as a team. We had to agree on what we wrote, and then make our argument strong enough to get to the next round. We had to do our own research to make sure we had enough information for our answer, and then spent time carefully writing the response into the iMlango portal.”

In addition to improved English scores, the debaters’ contest has opened up a platform where girls and boys can interact academically outside of the classroom, which has enhanced equality and teamwork, and contributed to an improved work ethic amongst the pupils.

iMlango launches new Microloans initiative

This month we are pleased to announce that iMlango has launched a new Microloans initiative which provides access to funds for families in selected iMlango communities. The unique initiative provides recipients with funds to help them grow their business, and aims to focus the recipient family on the importance of saving for their children’s education. The microloan service is directly connected to their child’s education, and it is intended that the loan – coupled with sensitisation activities on the importance of education and its centrality to loan provision – helps develop recipients’ positive attitudes and behaviours towards investment in education.

The team process one of the first Microloan applications in Makueni County

The team have been busy collecting and reviewing applications this month - recipients are selected based on a scoring system - and we are now in the process of disbursing the first loans to recipients.

Members of the iMlango community in Makueni County wait to have their application reviewed

Make sure to look out for further updates on this exciting new initiative in next month's update. 

Until next time,

The iMlango Team