3 May 2016
Vodafone Foundation launches 'Instant Schools For Africa' to bring advanced
educational resources to millions of young Africans
The Vodafone Foundation and Vodafone today announced the launch of one of the largest
philanthropic programmes in the Vodafone Foundation's 25-year history. The Instant Schools For Africa initiative will launch this
autumn, providing millions of young people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania
with free access to online learning materials developed in conjunction with Learning Equality*- a leading not-for-profit provider of
open-source educational technology solutions - and with education partners, ministries of education and local education experts
in each country. A similar initiative was recently launched by Vodafone's South
African subsidiary Vodacom which worked with the Department of Basic Education to develop a free education portal - Vodacom
e-school - that supports the national curriculum.
The educational resources provided under the Instant Schools For Africa programme will include
subjects such as maths and science, providing millions of children and young people in seven countries with access to educational
materials - from primary through to advanced high school level - comparable in quality, range and depth to those available in
schools in the developed world. The materials - curated to align with local standards - will also include content designed for
children who do not benefit from traditional schooling: UNESCO research found that 59
million children aged six to 11 were out of school in 2013, with 30 million of those children living in Sub-Saharan
Africa.
Conventional teaching materials such as textbooks, reference books, past examination papers,
assessment worksheets and classroom aids are prohibitively expensive for many African schools. Digital learning materials
provided via mobile networks - with basic tablets for pupils and a laptop and projector for educators - offer a cost-effective
alternative and can be updated instantly to ensure pupils receive the very latest information and insights in the classroom and
at home.
Children, young people, educators and others who are customers of Vodafone or its African
subsidiaries will not incur any mobile data charges when accessing the Instant Schools for Africa educational resources. The
Vodafone Foundation and Vodafone will engage with the other major mobile operators in the countries involved to encourage other
providers to adopt a similar non-commercial approach in order to stimulate widespread adoption of what, for many young people,
will be life-enhancing opportunities to learn and gain new skills.
The Instant Schools For Africa programme represents a significant expansion of the Vodafone
Foundation's ongoing mission to use digital and mobile technologies to bring critical educational resources to the people who
need them most. In March 2015, the Vodafone Foundation announced the creation of the Instant Classroom 'digital school in a box'
- a portable case containing equipment to enable tablet-based teaching in schools where electricity and internet connectivity are
unreliable or non-existent. The Instant Classroom is being deployed in partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees' (UNHCR) Innovation and Education units to schools in refugee settlements in Kenya, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic
of Congo. It is estimated that the Vodafone Foundation's work in refugee settlements will benefit at least 62,000 children and
young people by the end of 2016 and the Foundation is targeting up to three million children and young people in refugee
settlements by 2020.
Vodafone Foundation Director Andrew Dunnett, said: "Education is a powerful antidote to poverty.
Children and young people in some of the poorest countries on earth are desperate to learn but parents, teachers and other
educators often lack both means and materials to teach them. Mobile and digital changes everything. Our Instant Schools For
Africa programme will put a wide range of advanced learning materials - tailored for each local language and culture - into
classrooms everywhere, from city slums to remote villages. We believe Instant Schools For Africa could transform the life chances
for very large numbers of young people."
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For further information
Vodafone Group Media Relations:
www.vodafone.com/media/contact
Note to editors
*Learning Equality optimises all educational resources so that content
can be delivered efficiently. Videos are optimised to be low bitrate, the web pages created by Learning Equality are configured
to work over low-bandwidth data connections and the education modules can easily be stored on mobile devices. Educational content
hosted by Learning Equality is designed for schools that do not have internet access but have their own local area network. The
content is hosted within Vodafone's core network rather than on third-party servers via the internet which optimises the speed
and reliability of connection. Pupils, teachers, parents and other educators simply need a data connection to the Vodafone
network to access the materials. Vodafone and Learning Equality will provide other mobile operators with the technical
specifications required to extend the benefits of this philanthropic programme to the largest possible number of
beneficiaries.
Pictures of Vodafone Foundation Instant Classroom can be downloaded here:
https://www.flickr.com/x/t/0093009/gp/vodafonegroup/dpgww9/
A short film which shows the Instant Classroom equipment being set up can be viewed
here:
http://youtu.be/DVnoXyBsJI8
About Vodafone Foundation
The Vodafone Foundation's Connecting for Good programme combines Vodafone's charitable giving and
technology to make a difference in the world. Globally, the Vodafone Foundation supports projects that are focused on delivering
public benefit through the use of mobile technology across the areas of health, education and disaster relief. The Vodafone
Foundation invests in the communities in which Vodafone operates and is at the centre of a network of global and local social
investment programmes. The Vodafone Foundation is an independent charity, registered with the Charity Commission
of England and Wales with registered number 1089625.
About Learning Equality
Learning Equality www.learningequality.org is committed to enabling every person in
the world to achieve a quality basic education, through supporting the creation and distribution of open educational resources,
and facilitating their use inside and outside of classrooms around the world. They developed KA Lite, an open-source platform for
viewing and interacting with Khan Academy videos and exercises, which can be used even when no Internet is available. Students
can connect to the server from within a classroom or other space, on a laptop, tablet, or desktop computer, or it can be
installed directly on a learner's computer for portable access. KA Lite has already been installed in over 160 countries,
reaching an estimated 2.1 million learners, in contexts as varied as rural schools, orphanages, community centers, refugee camps,
prisons, and homes.