Girls’ e-learning Platform

The World Bank estimates that less than 40% of female have access to education in Tanzania. Amid Covid 19 pandemic, all schools have been closed in Tanzania and the youth are missing education opportunity. This has much hire impact on girls because they are most at risk.

While at home, the girls will be given opportunity to access education through e-learning. They will be provided with laptop computers and afforded with internet connection. Teachers will support the girls to receive lessons based on school curriculum through e-learning platform.

The solution will provide girls with access to education at any point where they are. It will empower girls to be employable, to become leaders, to be self-reliant and get them out of gender based violence, poverty and will be able to contribute significantly in economic development for their communities and nations in general.

UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report (2013) shows that 34 million female adolescents (about 39%) have no access to secondary education worldwide. In Tanzania women are 22.3 million i.e. 51% of the total population of 44 million (2012 National Census). But women of all age categories with secondary education in the country are 18.6% compared with 25% of men. But with regards to girls aged between 14 to 19 years, less than 40% of the girls have access to secondary education in Tanzania (Basic Education Statistics of Tanzania, 2017).

The Human Rights Watch (2017) sighted various factors for low level of girls’ access to education. Many rural schools have no adequate teachers, no adequate learning and teaching facilities, unreliable transport to and from school, lack of enough books, limited reading extra materials, low level of teacher’s support to students because of huge number of students in a classroom. Covid 19 makes girls remain at home with no facilities to support learning because of poverty. The applicant have seen some schools in urban areas sharing home work with students through parents’ e-mails and mobile phone applications such as WhatsApp. This is challenging to students in rural areas.

The solution is an e-learning platform where the girls in rural areas will be provided with laptop computers and internet router connected with mobile phone number line. At least one competent teacher for each subject will be involved in developing learning materials that will be uploaded in a special application. Girls will be given passwords to access lessons and assignments.

There are six mobile network companies covering most parts of the country. This means that internet is available in most areas. Electricity has also reached most rural areas or at least near villages. Female community volunteers will support girls in the first three months but there will be short videos in the laptops and instruction texts to provide instructions to girls.

For the first year, the girls will access internet paid through mobile network company. For sustainability, parents will purchase internet airtime the same way they purchase airtime for their mobile phones. It will be affordable because the girls will connect internet only when they want to download materials or upload home works. Mobile network providers are open to support these initiatives through Corporate Social Responsibility. The solution will carry on beyond Covid 19 pandemic.

The solution will benefit secondary school girls from poor rural families in Tanzania. Initial baseline survey will be carried out through trained volunteers. It will be an opportunity for girls to give their needs and opinion. Their needs and opinion will enrich the solution to assure designing solutions that address their needs right. The e-learning platform will focus on subjects taught in secondary schools. Learning materials will follow government curriculum and syllabus. Monitoring and evaluation efforts will collect information from the Ministry of Education and from examination council to accommodate new changes. The solution will contribute in improving the rural girls’ performance in national examinations and increase chances to join higher education. Joining higher education will promote their employability and hence being economically independent.

Proposed solution will improve access to education for rural marginalized girls. It will improve on their chances to participate in learning and training, provide skills and prepare them to pass examinations and promote employment or self-employment readiness. An e-learning is gender inclusive, it empowers rural girls to access digital world. They will be independent while working on the platform hence reducing gender based violence, bullying in school and it will reduce frequency of asking for help to access materials. Girls will be independent in terms of planning and decision making.

Laptops and internet are available in the country but no organization has used them to support learning especially of rural marginalized girls. In this time of Covid 19, the solution will be a good opportunity to support desperate girls. We saw some private schools using smart phone applications particularly WhatsApp to support students learning. But this not done in rural areas because most parents cannot afford smart phones. The WhatsApp has many limitations including limited amount of information that can be sent through.

Laptops can receive and send large amount of documents and videos and will allow girls to type and share back home assignments to teachers. Also the girls will be able to research more materials on the internet and download for reference. They can register themselves in online libraries and in other learning forums online.

Girls will be learning how to use digital facilities and connections to communicate, search opportunities on line for further education, markets and educative information related to social cultural and economic issues.

Use of computer is not new. But it has rarely used to support education in rural communities. It is a simple technology that can be accessed and maintained in rural setting. It requires little budget to maintain and use hence affordable and sustainable.

It will be used to share information between a teacher and students back and forth facilitated by an internet connection. Girls will access internet through router/modem connected with mobile phone network providers. Network airtime will be purchased initially paid through network company but later parents will support the children. 

There are similar initiatives run and managed by other organizations. The following link will provide an example of the platform:

 https://www.easyclass.com/

If the girls are provided with laptops and internet connection,

They will access education through e-learning and be able to receive learning materials through e-mail and other online applications,

They will be able to learn and be able to pass examinations and being selected to join higher learning colleges where they will get qualifications and skills to empower them and prepare them for employment or self-employment,

THEN they will be employed, earn income, be independent and support their families and community in general.

In the first year the solution will reach 200 girls, the second year it will reach 500 girls and in five years it will support 2,000 girls

The plan is to change the lives of about 500,000 girls in near future. The approach will be replicated in cities and small towns where access to computers and internet is not an issue. What will be done is to promote the idea through community mobilization and reaching out to the government authorities in some regions to officiate online learning. After Covidd 19, the idea will be scaled up in more regions where e-learning centers will be initiated through existing structures such as community resource centers.

The following are key barriers:

Inadequate computer laptops. We do not have funding to purchase laptops to distribute to the target population.

Access to router and internet itself. Internet requires routers that are sold. We fail to get funding to pay for them and pay for internet.

Teachers are available but it requires some budget to prepare them and engage them in providing this services to support girls through preparing materials

Computers will be purchased and distributed to girls in rural areas.

The routers will be purchased and internet paid for and provided to girls who received the computers

Teachers will be identified, trained and engaged

For now we are in the early stages of developing the idea. We have not hired any member of staff yet to support this solution. Two of us have bee thinking through and communicated few students. Responses from students indicated that the idea is going to be a strong solution especially to marginalized girls including those with disabilities. 

My self (Program Director) has over 20 years of work experience is designing programs, implementing and tracking results including educational programs in our country. I have worked with both local and international NGOs. The CEO has been in the development sector for more than 5 years. She has been involved in developing strategies and deliver different solutions that has an impact to the beneficiaries.

We are capable to design project management systems, monitoring and evaluation system and reporting structures. For this solution, we have identified IT experts who are willing to join us and they have been giving us technical ideas as we think through.

We have not established partnership yet for this solution. But with other projects we have partners including the government and the beneficiaries themselves.

Before we provide any service, we carry out baseline surveys that includes getting feedback and actual needs from beneficiaries. Then we design interventions based on the actual needs. In most of our projects we work with partners derived from lower levels e.g. community volunteers, local government authorities, local community based organizations, donors and stakeholders who are doing similar projects in the same communities.

We use a combination of sources. We welcome funding from various sources because we are open to mobilize resources from any credible source.