Ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all is one of the seventeen sustainable development goals for 2023 adopted by the United Nations. It is clear that developed and developing countries differ in their ability to accomplish this. If we don’t put effective measures in place, the UN predicts that 84 million children and youth won’t attend school, 300 million students won’t have basic reading/writing skills, and only 1 in 6 countries will have universal secondary education. The question is—how can we tackle this problem?
ICTs are one method of achieving this goal. These have been used for many years in educational settings in developed nations and they are now being gradually introduced in developing regions and the most vulnerable rural communities in the hopes that these resources will aid in reaching the goal. Thus, we would be using ICTs for development. But what is that exactly? ICT4D can be defined as “the application of any entity that processes or communicates digital data in order to deliver some part of the international development agenda in a developing country”1.
In today’s post, I’ll show you a project that captivated me, since it considers the likelihood that many schools in underprivileged areas lack internet connection.
“RACHEL (Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning) is a portable, battery-powered, device that contains copies of educational websites in offline format. This means RACHEL can go anywhere in the world and wirelessly deliver free digital educational content to nearby tablets, laptops, or smartphones with no internet or data plans required”.
The system, which was designed by Word Possible, functions as a virtual library where students can access an array of adaptable educational materials. Among the open-source websites are TED, Project Gutenberg, and Wikipedia. Additionally, Word Possible provides in-person assistance from qualified trainers and teacher training manuals. RACHEL facilitates access to education quality for boys and girls in more than 53 countries. The device can be directly bought through the World Possible website and costs $500.
I believe it to be a very helpful tool for bringing high-quality, interactive educational content to classrooms where internet access can be taken for granted, although there are two factors that make me stop and think: the device costs 500 dollars and it needs to be connected to another electronic device like a tablet, computer or smartphone. To put it another way, schools would need to be able to both finance an electronic gadget for each student or group of students, as well as an additional RACHEL device for each of them.
Even though many educational centres do have the financial means, or have the financial support from the institutions, what degree of viability does this have for schools with a very limited budget? Is a digital tool actually necessary, or are there other ways to employ these financial resources that would better assist the community’s workers and economy?
Leave a comment with your reflections and stay tuned for more on this topic!
- Heeks, R. (2017). Information and communication technology for development (ict4d). Taylor & Francis Group.