KARACHI: To make education accessible, SABAQ has been providing free learning videos for K-12 student., In collaboration with the School Education Literacy Department (SELD), UNICEF, and Malala Fund, it has jointly deployed its offline version of SELD Learning Application in 67 public schools at three districts included Badin, Tando Muhammad Khan, and Tando Allah Yar.

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The SELD Learning App contains content for pre-primary and primary grades in the form of animated video lessons, stories, flipbooks, and quizzes. The App aims to provide digital lessons for KG-5 during the COVID-19 crisis to students across Sindh and is aligned with Sindh’s curriculum. Moreover, the App’s interface is available in three languages: English, Urdu, and Sindhi, so, children with different backgrounds can benefit from it.

SABAQ and SELD selected test-qualified government teachers, to implement blended lessons in the schools. A total of 89 teachers have been trained to delivery tech-enabled lessons in the govt. schools using the SELD App. As they help bring innovation to public schools, they are referred to as ‘Champions of Change’ in the program.

Dr. Fouzia Khan, SELD’s head of curriculum wing said that the collaboration of these organizations for blended learning would empower teachers of the government schools to change Sindh’s education system. The teachers receive the ongoing training and mentorship from our SABAQ team to ensure a smooth execution of the project in other districts, she said and assured that Sindh government and SELD would fully cooperate with these organizations to reduce educational disruption.

While sharing her experience, Misbah, a teacher from Badin said; “This is the first time that an innovation like SELD App has been introduced in the public schools and we are trained on blended learning. Usually, it is the private sector that benefits from such initiatives. But now teachers and students of the state-run schools will also utilize from this opportunity”.

From Tando Allah Yar district, another schoolteacher Sobia who recently completed her training also voiced her support and said: “as a result of the pandemic, I had lost all hope for my students. I felt I won’t be able to help them or reduce their learning losses. But SELD Application has given us hope to help students catch up”

According to SABAQ’s administration, several parents and community mobilizations activities have been carried out by the ‘Champions of Change’, a campaign for blended learning, in which parents and community members have been trained to download and use the App during school closures amid the COVID-19 situation. With the support of the government, SABAQ aims to scale this successful pilot across all public schools in Sindh in order to be the catalyst for the introduction of digital learning in Pakistan’s education system.