News
sQuid invited to speak at Leveraging Technology to Scale Early Grade Reading in Africa event
11 May 2018
The Leveraging Technology to Scale Early Grade Reading in Africa event aimed to enhance understanding of technology tools and resources to advance early grade reading efforts. Held in Pretoria, South Africa, the event was hosted by All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development, Global Book Alliance, mEducation Alliance, and sponsored by World Vision and USAID in collaboration with Pearson Institute of Higher Education.
The three-day workshop explored systems-level challenges and technology-leveraged solutions, with the aim to answer the following questions: What are promising initiatives and opportunities to leverage technology for early grade reading in low-resource environments? And, how might these be expanded, replicated, and/or scaled in traditional and non-traditional educational settings?
We were delighted to be invited to participate in a panel session with other technology specialists involved in educational development on a conversation about how technology can be effectively utilised to enhance literacy skills, and scaled efficiently.
Simon Bruce Kaniu, sQuid Kenya General Manager provided insight on how sQuid, through the iMlango programme, had created a digital competition to improve literacy in iMlango schools, thus improving Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) scores, and how access to an online children's encyclopaedia through iMlango's interactive learning platform has helped teachers prepare their pupils for the KCPE examinations.
Other topics that were discussed during the workshop were on what is necessary for pupils for them to build literacy skills; answers to this question included love and security, assistance of families and communities, teachers being adequately trained, availability of text books, digital innovation, and an appropriate learning environment.
The event welcomed representatives from projects located all around the world and from several Ministry of Education departments to discuss the challenge and possible solutions to improving early-grade literacy in Africa.
We'd like to thank the organisers for inviting us to share our thoughts and experiences in improving literacy in Africa.
For more information on sQuid's work in Education for international development, please click here.
For more information on the iMlango programme, please click here.
Or should you require any more information of have any questions, please contact us here.
