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I had the privilege, last week, of attending the inaugural meeting of the steering group for Fusion-Universal's Virtual School project.
This is a project that has ideals very close to my heart. They have seen the need, and are looking to develop a sustainable and scalable model that uses appropriate technologies to provide access to quality educational materials and mentors.
... around the world, many educational systems are underperforming. Globally, more than 300 million children will fail to complete five grades of primary education, and will leave without basic literacy skills. For millions who remain in school, the quality of education is dismal, and little effective learning takes place.
The net result of this educational crisis has been that the target of halving the incidence of adult illiteracy has been missed, and the Education for All decade has seen a rise in the number of illiterate adults. The price paid by societies that fail to improve their educational systems, and the cumulative effect of poor educational performance, has been long understood (eg. Marshall, Alfred (1961), Principles of Economics)
This suggests that it is not only efforts to improve education, but the approach used to achieve these improvements that must change.
Educational quality can be improved through 21st century learning technologies. New social learning techniques are proven to accelerate the time to competency of learners, increase the engagement of younger learners and provide a scalable model to improve opportunities for education and training. By making the best learning tools and lessons available in an engaging and accessible format, we can improve access to high quality education around the world.
From basic literacy to advanced chemistry, the Virtual School aims to revolutionise learning. It will improve the accessibility and quality of locally generated, student centric educational content; available for anyone, anywhere, regardless of their geographic or socio-economic circumstances.
From the Virtual School proposal
This is a serious project with serious people contributing to it, from across the telecommunications and IT industry, and experts in ICT, adult learning and education. The group that met on Thursday included a number from senior corporate and government positions in South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
The video below explains the background of the project, its aims and the methods that are being explored.
It's exciting, and it's potentially going to make a massive difference. That's why I'm involved. How about you?
More on the Fusion Universal blog.
2 comments
Thank you Mark for getting involved and blogging about this. It’s a great project to be involved in and am sure with the people behind it such as yourself it will be a very successful idea which could potentially have a big impact on the way education is delivered in parts of the world that need it the most.
Yep it is exciting stuff! Great to have you on board!
