Education Above All

Of the more than 1.5 billion students that are not in school due to COVID-19 related school closures, many learners in marginalized communities have little to no access to education due to the lack of internet connectivity and lack of adaptable learning resources in these communities. This causes large learning gaps and an increased risk of dropping out of school.

EAA developed the Internet Free Education Resource Bank which is a growing collection of 120+ project-based learning resources across 10 subjects, 100+ math games and 70 activities in the Activity Bank for Disabilities. What makes IFERB unique, however, is that these resources can be completed with no technology in low-resourced contexts with minimal supervision. All the resources cover ~85% of the learning standards of the US, UK, Qatari, Australian and Indian curricula. 

If this were scaled globally, IFERB could serve as an off-the-shelf offering for educators in an emergency context.

Education has been adversely impacted by the spread of COVID-19. Schools across the globe have been temporarily closed, leaving teachers, administrators and parents looking for ways to administer remote learning to keep students engaged in education while adhering to community safety protocols. Today, more than 1.5 billion additional students are not in school because they are confined to their homes in an effort to control the spread of COVID-19.

As governments continue to grapple with the challenges of the current coronavirus crisis, the unique problems posed by long-term quarantines will likely be significant for students from underserved communities. Whilst many schools have begun to adapt and implement distance-learning solutions, the majority of students worldwide are left without hardware-connectivity, distance learning infrastructures and home-learning materials.

These COVID-19-related school closures and disruptions to education as a result of social, environmental or political reasons have therefore left many learners in marginalized communities with little to no access to education. Due to the lack of internet connectivity and lack of adaptable learning resources in these communities, many children are left with large learning gaps and risk dropping out of school.

EAA developed the Internet Free Education Resource Bank (IFERB). This is a growing collection of 120+ engaging project-based learning (PBL) resources, 100+ math games and 70 activities for special needs learners that can be completed with no technology in low-resourced contexts. All the resources cover ~85% of the learning standards of the US, UK, Qatari, Australian and Indian curricula. 

IFERB contains a range of interdisciplinary projects that were designed to meet the learning needs of 4–14-year-old learners in subjects including science, mathematics, language arts, social sciences, economics and environmental studies. Most projects also have embedded literacy and numeracy practice. What makes IFERB unique, however, are the design and implementation methodologies employed in its development and deployment that enable learners in low-resource contexts to benefit from PBL. IFERB empowers learners to not only continue engaging academically during school closures, but also gain several skills that are harder to develop in traditional classroom settings. Twenty-first century skills including critical thinking, creativity and communication are a major component of the IFERB projects, most of which contain several activities that promote these skills. 

Projects are implemented using a variety of media technology depending on the context, including phone calls, SMS, radio and in-person classes. 

In the recently completed iteration of the IFERB pilots, EAA reached a total of 113,470  students in 29 different regions within India, Kenya, Lebanon, Zambia and Pakistan through our partner NGOs. The various pilots ran in different contexts which included projects for long term out of school students, short term out of school students, rural and urban marginalized communities and tribal communities. These communities lack contextualized, technology-free educational resources that are implementable in any context by a guardian or teacher

To understand the needs of these communities, we partnered with over 20 NGOs on ground who are able to contextualize the content and communicate with parents and teachers in order for EAA to better serve their needs. . 

We have feedback through our pilots that IFERB has had a tremendous impact in promoting life skills, conceptual learning and fostering teacher effectiveness. With 80% agreeing that IFERB taught 21st century skills (communication, confidence, creativity and critical thinking) and  90% agreeing that IFERB brought learning and growth, the innovation has proven to be successful. 

IFERB addresses the need for technology-free, engaging project-based learning resources that are easily implementable and relevant for communities with low connectivity, few teachers and/or shut down schools.

School closures have left marginalized communities with little to no access to education due to lack of internet connectivity. IFERB is a collection of high quality educational resources that are implementable in technology-free contexts for primary and secondary school children aged 4-14, providing quality education for all. The resource bank contains project-based learning resources, math games and activities that cover 10 subjects and are aligned to 5 national curricula. The resources are collaborative; they include group activities and involve parent and family engagement for the math games and for the course of the 4-5 day projects, respectively.

In the recently completed iteration of the IFERB pilots, EAA reached 113,470 students in 29 different regions within 5 countries through our partner NGOs. The various pilots ran in different contexts: rural and urban marginalized communities, tribal communities, refugees and out of school children. By February 2021, the IFERB resources were being piloted with over 20 NGOs or schools in 5 countries including India, Kenya, Lebanon, Zambia and Pakistan, the longest pilot being 22 weeks. 

The assessment data shows academic growth of up to 22% and an average completion rate of 91.5%. Parents, students and teachers have all also reported a shift in mindset and attitudes towards education as a result of IFERB being implemented in their communities.

IFERB is available in up to 9 languages, has been downloaded in 100+ countries over 26,000 total times and has been piloted to 113,470 students. It is therefore in the growth phase.

IFERB is the first technology-free education resource bank in the world. Whilst it was launched as a response to the COVID-19 induced education crisis, IFERB is now serving as an educational tool to marginalized communities in the midst of political, social and medical crises alike. 

Whilst most solutions to the COVID-19 education crisis were technology based, communities with lack of internet connectivity were largely left without adaptable resources in contexts where parents were unable to assume the role of an educator and online access was not available. 

IFERB solves this problem by providing these communities with high quality educational content that is implementable by parents, and the community, through projects that are relevant and contextualized in an offline setting. This is as opposed to providing internet access or technology devices to these communities. EAA’s solution has proven to be cost-effective, quick and academically effective. 

EAA’s expectation is that existing and future collaborations on IFERB will result in increased reach and more contributors, enhancing the range of content available on the bank. The goal is to positively impact as many communities as possible through education and provide education for all. 

IFERB currently serves 113,470 learners through partner NGOs and has deployed physical IFERB content to 300,000+ learners on the ground. IFERB pilots reach 100,000+ learners in a year.

EAA hopes to reach more learners in five years through our free open access website and through partners who have published our content on their platforms as well.

IFERB’s progress is measured through how effective of a learning solution it is. This includes the number of resources written and reviewed, the number of subjects covered, the number of curricula the resources are aligned to and through the partner satisfaction rates.

Impact is also measured through the amount of non-academic and academic growth - our learners take pre- and post-assessments which measure the academic growth brought on by IFERB.

IFERB’s impact is measured through our overall reach and access to learning - through the number of learners enrolled through partner NGOs, participation rate, completion rate and online content downloads. Access to learning is also measured through how many different contexts the resources are implemented in and the number of languages available.

The Innovation Development Directorate (IDD) that is a part of Education Above All (EAA) has 3 permanent full-time staff and 4 temporary full-time staff. 

Education Above All mission focuses on helping achieve gender equality and providing education to women and girls. The Innovative Development Directorate is currently an all women’s team who come from multidisciplinary backgrounds - a representation of the communities we serve. The team includes education experts who have had prior experience in designing and implementing education programs. The team also includes education technology specialists who have prior experience in designing education solutions in low-tech settings.

EAA is applying to Solver because we hope to impact more students by providing educational resources to different communities around the world with little access to the internet. 

The funding would help deploy IFERB to communities who are unable to contribute to pilot costs. Currently our pilots operate by sharing the cost between the partner NGOs and EAA. 

The high-profile network and media exposure that Solve would give IFERB would mean that many governments, and therefore learners, across the world will be able to access our high quality content to maximise our impact. 

EAA is also applying to Solve because of the monitoring and evaluation support that the award provides. Since IFERB is in the growth phase, we are constantly looking to improve our resources based on feedback. Professional support in this area would enhance the impact of our innovation and provide a more meaningful educational experience to learners who use IFERB.

Product distribution and Monitoring and Evaluation would allow EAA to reach it’s impact and outreach goals for IFERB. Since IFERB is an established, continually growing bank of educational resources, EAA values the dissemination of this content to as many communities as possible in order to maximise our impact.

We would like to partner with influential dissemination platforms such as:

1. OER commons

2. World Bank

3. INEE

4. National governmental platforms

Partnering with these platforms would allow EAA to expand the reach of the IFERB content. Since the PBL resources have been piloted and reviewed and we are in the growth phase, partnerships with dissemination partners would be the most impactful.

IFERB content has been successfully piloted in communities with refugees in our completed iteration of pilots. The pilots delivered contextualized, engaging and relevant content that can be implemented by parents with any educational level in order to promote academic growth and 21st century skills in refugee learners.

EAA will use The Andan Prize for Innovation to expand and enhance our reach amongst a greater refugee population in order for learners to receive high quality education content in the setting they are in. The technology-free material makes IFERB projects effective and useful in refugee settings.

IFERB content is target for communities with a lack of internet connectivity, lack of qualified teachers and those with a lack of relevant educational material that is available offline. Therefore, IFERB aims to make education more accessible to the most marginalized communities in the world through engaging project-based learning resources.

Our current reach is 113,000+ learners through pilots and 300,000+ learners through physical content dissemination on ground. The GM Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion would allow EAA to expand our reach in refugee communities around the world at low or no cost to the local communities.