School From Home For Quality Education in Pakistan — UN SDGs

What are the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030?

In 2015, The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by all United Nations Members in order to put an end to poverty, protect the planet and do make sure that people around the world enjoy better living standards, peace and prosperity by the year 2030. The world leaders promised that in 15 years, they are going to achieve all the goals part of the SDGs. All the 17 Sustainable Development Goals are interlinked, which means that action in one area will affect the other one, therefore, that development must balance social, economic and environmental sustainability. The SDGs are designed to bring the world to several life changing times, where there will be no poverty, no one would sleep hungry and where there is no discrimination against women. Each and every country must help to contribute into achieving these goals. The creativity, effort, technology and financial resources from each country is needed to achieve the sustainable development goals in every context. The SDGs include the following 17 goals:

1. No poverty

2. Zero Hunger

3. Good Health and Well being

4. Quality Education

5. Gender Equality

6. Clean Water and Sanitation

7. Affordable and Clean Energy

8. Decent work and economic growth

9. Industry Innovation and infrastructure

10. Reduces inequalities

11. Sustainable Cities and communities

12. Responsible Consumption And production

13. Climate Action

14. Life below water

15. Life on land

16. Peace, justice and strong institutions

17. Partnerships for the goals

Since the year 2000, there has been some good progress for achieving the target set for Universal Primary Education. However, progress has been tough in some developing countries due to high level of poverty, disputes and other emergencies. Achieving the goals set for quality education would mean that education is one of the most powerful driving force for Sustainable Development.

The Education problem in problem:

Pakistan, being a developing nation, has faced critical problems related to education almost since inception. Simply put as; the system has failed to deliver as expected by the nation. The problems associated with the education system in Pakistan are a lack of adequate budget, lack of policy implementation, defective examination system, poor physical facilities, lack of the quality of the teachers available, lack of implementation of education policies, directionless education, low enrollment, high scale dropouts, political interference, outdated curriculum, corruption, poor management and supervision, lack of research, and lack of uniformity. These problems are mostly found in the rural areas in Pakistan. With low literacy rate in Pakistan, a report released by UN says that our country is 50 + years behind in its primary education targets. This is due to a lot of reasons. First and most importantly, proper schools are not available in our rural areas that would allow children to be at their comfort at school and focus on learning. Rather, schools in these rural areas are small, with little to no proper facilities for effective and interactive classes to be held there. Classes are mostly held in very small rooms that are not even properly lit. In addition to that, good and qualified teachers are not available in these areas. The teachers are often the locals who are not properly educated themselves, or if so, are not motivated enough to teach effectively. Such teachers often do not attend most of their scheduled classes. Moreover, the curriculum being followed in some rural and tribal areas is outdated to the extent that a student of grade 6 cannot compete a student of grade 2 who has studied at a school in any given developed country.

The Solution: School From Home:

The solution for the problem of low quality education in the rural areas of Pakistan is an application that would allow schooling of these children from home. The Application would consist of curriculum from Grade 2 to Grade 8 and the application could cover Grade 9 and Grade 10 if the results go well. The application would consist of different sets of courses for each Grade level which would match the curriculum being taught in urban areas of Pakistan. The courses would be designed in a way to be highly interactive. The students would be guided by their respective teachers throughout the duration of the class. The application would be controlled by one teacher offering any particular subject. The students would be guided to log in to the same virtual class which their relevant teacher would be in charge of. The teacher could then play different videos that would be watched by students within the same virtual class room for learning. These videos could be uploaded by the teacher before the class starts and would be of their choice. Moreover, the teacher could make use of various built in class activities that would allow for interactive learning by the students. This way, the students in the rural areas of Pakistan will not have to rely on small school buildings for learning. The children could be called to their schools for extra-curricular activities once a week, however, the classes could be attended by the students from the comfort of their homes. Moreover, the problem of unavailability of quality teachers could also be avoided as teachers from urban areas in Pakistan could connect and take a virtual class from their home. Of course, the unavailability of internet connection and smartphones in the rural areas is a hindrance to this solution, however, Government, with the help of telecommunication companies operating in Pakistan can overcome this issue, just like what the Indian Government has been doing in rural India with the help of Jio. This way, we would certainly be able to at least increase the quality of education being provided in these rural areas, helping Pakistan to contribute to the UN SDGs for 2030.

The concept of this solution was taken from a Ted Talk ‘How can we provide quality education for all by 2030?’ by Bernd Roggendorf at TEDxHamburg

Summary of ‘How can we provide quality education for all by 2030?’ by Bernd Roggendorf at TEDxHamburg:

Mr. Bernd Roggendorf talks about the schools and quality of education in Kibera in his Ted Talk. In Kibera, there are only an handful of local government school, however, there are more than 200 private schools financed by small fees from the parents. The children, often aged just 3, have to sit in tiny and dark classrooms with little to no facilities provided for quality learning. The teachers were not much qualified, therefore, the learning was very repetitive, whereas, the children would; most of the time, just wait for something to happen. Unfortunately, there are no other alternatives to this problem as the parents cannot afford better schools whereas the Kenyan Government is already spending a higher percentage of their budget than many developed countries are. However, there still is one cheaper solution to this problem. Over the last 20 years, the poorer nations have also got access to smart phones. Today, around 95% of the population of the world live in reach of a satellite tower. Smartphones have also become cheaper as the cheapest ones could be available for less than $20. Mr. Bernd then shows some videos of a class in Kibera where the children share a single smartphone alongside other classroom activities. The children seem more engaged into learning through different learning activities installed on that smartphone. The same phone the gets passed on to other children as well, turn by turn. The children seemed to be more excited and eager to learn through the app. Teachers say that the children’s cognitive and mathematical skills have gone up, moreover, their confidence and self-esteem has increased as well. The teachers ranked the app highly with respect to learning. Our next challenge would be to go beyond the school and encouraging the children to use their parents’ smartphones in order to learn through the app on which their regular classes would be held, which would be controlled by one teacher for each class. This way, the quality of education could be lifted, especially in less developed regions of this world.