Advocacy Material #1: Press Release
Advocacy Target
This press release is intended for publication by the IRC as preparation for a meeting with Bangladesh's Ministry of Education. The IRC is looking to convince the Ministry that expanding their tablet-based education programs outside of its original location in the Cox's Bazar refugee camps will provide much needed educational aid to students in rural Bangladesh, especially girls. The IRC previously received permission from the Ministry for the initial pilot program, and is therefore experienced with securing the Ministry's support (IRC 2020). This advocacy material was developed to concisely inform both the public and the government of the IRC's intent to expand their program, and to generate support for their proposal.
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Successful IRC Tablet Program Could Open Doors for Out-of-School Girls in Rural Bangladesh
The success of Pop-Up, a tablet-based learning platform piloted by the IRC in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, offers a unique solution to help bridge the resource and education gap between out-of-school girls and boys caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.Creating the Initial Pop-Up Pilot Program
Launched by the Airbel Impact Lab through Research & Innovation at the IRC in November 2019, Pop-Up aims to provide low cost, personalized mobile technology to displaced children in order to fill critical gaps in learning and education. The pilot program, initiated with the Rohingya refugee community in Bangladesh, included 632 out-of-school children, 210 tablets, and 25 female Rohingya facilitators recruited by the IRC. Pop-Up’s offline tablets allowed students to control their learning without need for a physical classroom, the Internet, or a formal teacher.Taking place within community and home-based centers in Cox’s Bazar, students participating in Pop-Up’s pilot had access to programming four days a week. At the end of the program it was found that refugee students showed significant improvement in both reading and mathematical skills, with literacy increasing from 28.4% to 53% and numerical identification ability increasing from 18.3% to 48.5% after four months.
COVID-19 Brings a New Approach
Prior to COVID-19, the promising results of Pop-Up’s pilot in Bangladesh propelled the IRC to begin testing and scaling up its programming to work with refugees from Burundi and DRC in Tanzania and from Mali and Nigeria in Niger. Considering the nationwide school closures following the COVID-19 pandemic, however, refugees are now not the only communities in need of affordable, accessible distance learning strategies in Bangladesh.With curriculum software already developed and the proper infrastructure already in place, expanding the IRC’s tablet program to rural communities outside of Cox’s Bazar presents a rapid solution to the growing number of Bangladeshi students in danger of dropping out of school as the pandemic persists. This danger is particularly acute for girls and adolescents, as pre-existing economic, cultural, and technological inequalities are exacerbated by girls being out of school. Providing girls and other marginalized groups access to personalized, interactive education would help mitigate learning loss as a result of COVID-19 school closures, and ease the transition back to in-person school in the near future.
The IRC is seeking support and permission from the Bangladesh Ministry of Education to expand Pop-Up’s tablet-based learning initiative to communities surrounding Cox’s Bazar and beyond. Implementing an expansion of the program would require collaboration with the Department of Education to adjust curriculums, identify communities in need, and acquire funding for additional tablets and program trainers.
Sources: (ICR, 2020)
