Driving Literacy Up Using Cell Phones: UNESCO & Mobilink

This post is next in the series of e-learning related stories. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Mobilink signed an agreement to facilitate literacy among adolescent girls in Pakistan using mobile phones. The first phase of the program will target 250 learners in Punjab.

The traditional mode of learning based on text books has many challenges. It takes significant resources - time and money - to updates curriculum, print and distribute the books. Delivering education services via a widely available digital channel such as cell phones has many benefits.

The key to a successful education porgram is to involve educationists and to fine tune the content and delivery according to local needs and cultural conditions. Another big advantage of electronic / distance learning is how content can be re-used and distributed to a very large number of users without much additional cost.

I hope that Mobilink will share more information (such as screen views of the application and content details) and publish the lessons learned from the intial phase of this program.
UNESCO says it will be the first time anywhere in the world that mobile phones are used to facilitate literacy by providing post-literacy materials as messages on a mobile phone.
The agency notes that in order to maintain literacy skills after basic literacy courses, the new literates should have constant access to reading materials at least for three months after learning to read. However, it points out, for most of the new literates in Pakistan, reading materials are scarce and the occasions to use the acquired literacy skills are rare.

As a result, after graduating from basic literacy courses, the new literates return to a non-literate environment and it is difficult for them to retain their newly acquired literacy skills.
Under UNESCO and Mobilink programme, adolescent girls will receive interesting and informative text messages in Urdu and are expected to respond.

The second part of the programme includes evaluation every month to assess the knowledge that learners have gained, interactive exercises, a glossary of educational terms and additional resources.