News Release: mobile learning course for African refugee teachers

RAMZI ABDURRAHMAN AFTER SEVERAL YEARS OF TRAINING TEACHERS IS CO- PRESENTING A VIDEO SERIES TO HELP UNTRAINED TEACHERS TO IMPROVE THEIR CLASSROOM SKILLS.

30 March 2020

A new mobile phone video course will improve the classroom skills of teachers who cannot attend training. Aimed initially at teachers in refugee schools, the filming was completed in Ethiopia earlier this year and the course is now being assembled by Digital Learning Associates for The British Council. The course will be delivered to teachers on their mobile phones, printed on micro SD cards. Initially 2000 teachers will take the 8-unit course. Video is the instruction method, and each unit shows leading local teachers demonstrating core techniques.

Filmed in February 2020 at two refugee camps near Ethiopia’s Sudanese border, the materials show a group of stronger teachers working under normal conditions in schools of up to 4000 students with class sizes around 100. Under the Language for Resilience programme, trainers have worked in the camps with selected teachers for over two years. These trainers host the videos, appearing as online tutors and presenting the best aspects of localised teaching. 

In one unit, trainer Ramzi Abdurrahman (pictured) hosts a film in which different examples of good blackboard teaching techniques are shown and explained. Other units cover topics such as using songs, games and stories in classrooms, or methods like group work and pair work. 

Editing the units is now underway and Digital Learning Associates will have the training courses in the field by September 2020 in time for the new school year. The course is based on a successful pilot of two films produced in 2019 and distributed in schools on micro-SD cards. These demonstrated a positive impact on teacher skills. Ethiopia is home to roughly 1mn refugees from neighbouring countries and improvement of teaching quality and language skills in refugee schools is supported by the British Council’s Language for Resilience programme and UNHCR. Digital Learning Associates works also in English language resources for use in India by State teachers and for Rohingya refugee teachers in Bangladesh.

Director of Digital Learning Associates Stephen Haggard commented “Video allows volunteers who themselves have little education to see effective methods and follow it. The mobile screen is everywhere in Africa, even in the refugee camps, and we can use it to show good practice to every teacher working in these schools.”

Contact for more information: mail@digitallearningassociates.com 

Notes

There is a shortfall of over 10mn teachers on the African continent (UNESCO, 2018). On nearly all measures the effectiveness of teaching in African schools ranks among the lowest in the world (University of Bristol, Research Report, 2016)