Smartphone program

What is it?

A revolutionary way to leverage the massive reach of smartphones to bring literacy.

In Bangladesh and in Pakistan, we identified parents who have internet connectivity and smartphones. We sent a message to these parents introducing the concept of homeschooling and then links to our learning application. Parents downloaded these applications for their students and monitor learning. Our facilitators have regular check-ins with parents and students take weekly online quizzes to reinforce learnings. We are currently piloting this initiative in the Bihari Camps in Bangladesh, and in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Why do we do it?

• Access ... 24 million parents of school-going children have smartphones in Pakistan, and this number is growing fast.

• Limited incremental investment ... The primary expense is for software, remote facilitator support, and data plans. If successful, this program will be our lowest cost program.

• Program dependence on parental involvement is unexpectedly opening doors to family literacy

  • Parents showing great interest in being involved ... research suggests that parental involvement is crucial to academic success

  • Illiterate parents teaching themselves ... Parents of out-of-school children are frequently illiterate. We are seeing increasing interest from parents in educating themselves--a potentially life-changing development.

• We plan to make family literacy a key focus of our program

What is next?

In a “Think Big, Start Small” mode, we have begun a pilot with 1500 + students in Pakistan and Bangladesh, leveraging our existing partners first. The pilot will give us the prototype we need to scale rapidly. Partnerships with major telcos will be crucial to penetrate the market.

Critical challenges we are currently working out:

• Developing effective incentives/rewards for parents to ensure they follow our learning regimen

• Remote support/facilitation at scale

• Software costs at scale

Stay tuned!

The pilot in pictures: