This document discusses challenges and opportunities for achieving Education for All (EFA) goals in Africa through mobile learning or mLearning. It notes that while Africa has experienced rapid growth in mobile access, educational quality, access, and outcomes still lag global standards. Barriers include large numbers of out-of-school children, high youth unemployment, low adult literacy, poor teacher quality and shortages. However, mobile technology could help address these issues through low-cost access to educational content, tutoring, and administrative functions to support learners. More work is still needed to realize mLearning's potential, including supportive policies, integration with existing education systems, and addressing real problems faced by learners.

1. Education for All
Open Innovation Africa Summit, Kenya
Steve Vosloo
28 November 2010

2. Roadmap
Education for All: Progress and challenges
Africa’s “mobile miracle”
Mobile miracle meets EFA challenges

3. Africa’s greatest resource?
By Irene2005, http://www.flickr.com/photos/irene2005/432311008/sizes/l/

4. Africa’s greatest resource?
By Irene2005, http://www.flickr.com/photos/irene2005/432311008/sizes/l/

5. Africa’s greatest resource?
By Lead Beyond, http://www.flickr.com/photos/32493043@N00/3483997920/sizes/l/

6. Education for All (EFA)
Goal 1: Early childhood education.
Goal 2: Primary education of good quality.
Goal 3: Life-skills programmes.
Goal 4: Adult literacy and basic and continuing education for all adults.
Goal 5: Gender equality.
Goal 6: Quality of education.

7. Progress, but ...
Sub-Saharan Africa has made significant progress since the Education for
All goals were adopted.
But ... overall the region
lacks education access,
quality and effectiveness.
EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010: Regional overview of Sub-Saharan Africa
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001865/186526E.pdf

8. Universal primary education
32 million out of school.
59% will never enrol.
How can we get them to school?
Support them?
Enable them?
Think of them as a resource?
EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010: Regional overview of Sub-Saharan Africa
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001865/186526E.pdf
Out-of-school population: 32 million in 2007. Yet the deficit remains large: one-quarter of the regionʼs primary school age children were out of school in 2007, and the region accounted for
nearly 45% of the global out-of-school population.
Some 59% of the out-of-school children in sub-Saharan Africa are likely never to enrol in school – the highest of any Education for All region.

9. Youth and adult skills
In countries such as Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique
and Zambia, young people face about 5 years of
reported inactivity before finding work.
In Burundi, Cameroon, Kenya and Nigeria, youth
with secondary and tertiary education have higher
rates of unemployment than those with lower levels
of attainment.
What do they do in those 5 years?
How do we support them as entrepreneurs?
EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010: Regional overview of Sub-Saharan Africa
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001865/186526E.pdf
Almost two-thirds of population is under 25.

10. Functional Illiteracy
38% of the adult population in sub-
Saharan Africa, or 153 million adults, lack
the basic literacy and numeracy skills
needed in everyday life.
How can we bring them into the
innovation ecosystem?
How can they be lifelong learners?
EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010: Regional overview of Sub-Saharan Africa
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001865/186526E.pdf

11. Quality of education
The average student in Botswana and
Ghana stands alongside or below the
poorest-performing 10% of students in
higher-performing countries.
Teacher qualifications and teaching
quality below global standards.
EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010: Regional overview of Sub-Saharan Africa
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001865/186526E.pdf
From Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study conducted in 2007 ...

12. Chronic teacher shortage
2.4 million teachers needed by 2015.
How can they be trained quickly?
How can they be supported?
How can we support schools if (when?)
the required teachers aren’t found?
EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010: Regional overview of Sub-Saharan Africa
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001865/186526E.pdf

13. Getting left behind
Although more children from poor
households have entered school in
Malawi and Uganda since they abolished
fees over a decade ago, half the
households with children who have
dropped out of school cite lack of money
as the main problem.
How we can help them?
EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010: Regional overview of Sub-Saharan Africa
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001865/186526E.pdf

14. Africa’s “mobile miracle”
By the end of 2010, there will be an estimated 5.3 billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide, including 940 million subscriptions to 3G services (Source: www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/material/FactsFigures2010.pdf).
Worldʼs fastest growing mobile market. Remember that in 1990, Norway had more landlines than the whole of Africa. Today, over 400 million subscribers in Africa.
In Africa, mobile penetration rates will reach an estimated 41% at the end of 2010 (compared to 76% globally). This still leaves significant potential for growth as Africa is the region with the lowest penetration rate. Africaʼs 2010
Internet penetration stands at 9.6%, which is less than half that of the developing country mean estimate. (Source: Futures of Technology in Africa, Jasper Grosskurth, 2010. Available at http://www.stt.nl/uploads/documents/
192.pdf)
Image of mobile phone by ICT4D.at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ict4d/3000017623/sizes/l/

15. Africa’s “mobile miracle”?
Highly uneven landscape
Although most African nations offer 3G at least somewhere, the landscape is highly uneven. As a rough estimate, about 2% of African phones could be classified as smartphones with user-
friendly mobile web capabilities.
Source: Futures of Technology in Africa, Jasper Grosskurth, 2010. Available at http://www.stt.nl/uploads/documents/192.pdf.

16. "Most phones are very cheap or
secondhand devices, which
hardly ever have usable airtime
loaded on them. The primary
purpose is to be reachable and
not to be able to call others."
Jasper Grosskurth, Futures of Technology in Africa
Africa’s “mobile miracle”?

17. Mobile miracle meets EFA challenges

18. 51%
South African households that own no leisure books
TNS Research Surveys. (2006). National Survey into the Reading and Book Reading Behaviour of Adult South Africans. Available at http://www.saccd.org.za/objects/sabdc_reading.pdf

19. 7%
Public schools in South Africa that have functional libraries of any kind
Equal Education. (2009). EE rejects DoE's statement on school libraries. Available at http://www.equaleducation.org.za/press-a-views/press-releases/item/74-statement17dec2009.

20. “Kindle” of Africa
Stories: www.yoza.mobi
Project blog: www.m4lit.wordpress.com
As at 28 November 2010: 60000 full story reads, 40000 comments, 10000 compo entries.
By mlearning africa, http://www.flickr.com/photos/40042565@N06/page2/

21. It's great ... for me it really hard to
pick up a book to start readin but i
don mind readin on my phone
dotty1

22. The stories r interesting nd fun 2
read, they kip ma englsh gng
Hlengiwe gulube

23. If friar's plan wrks, then romeo wil b
able 2 cum nd take juliet wit hm 2 liv
hapily 2geda at mantua bt if it fails,
sumbdy's gna b dead. Lol!
Elsie

24. Support comes in many forms
mLearning is not just delivering content.
Conversation.
Tutoring.
Testing.
Support and motivation.
“System strengthening”/administration.
Birth registration.
Cash transfers.
Maternal health.
Conversation/tutoring: Dr Math on MXit
Support and motivation: Project Zumbido, UNISA student support.
System strengthening: Distance is a problem in Africa -- mobile can fix that. Enormous time, resource and money savings.
Birth registration and identity card drives in Burkina Faso and Senegal support the right of every person to a formal identity, crucial for claiming a place in school or an entitlement to stipends.
Cash transfers: Conditional and unconditional transfers of cash and food can build the resilience of poor and vulnerable households so that they can manage risk
without compromising the long-term welfare of their children.

25. Lower costs, radically
Europeans spend little more than 1% of
their average monthly income on mobile
communication, Africans spend 17.7%.
Zero-rate educational content.
1c SMS.
$10 smartphone.
Futures of Technology in Africa, Jasper Grosskurth, 2010. Available at http://www.stt.nl/uploads/documents/192.pdf.

26. Mobile miracle meets EFA challenges:
so where is all the mlearning?
Iʼve been using the same examples of mlearning for 3 years now. Why not more? Sometimes I feel like m-money and m-health and m-agriculture is doing more interesting and effective work
than mlearning?

27. mLearning needs to get serious
Need policies that support mlearning.
Buy-in at government as well as school
level.
Fresh thinking: support and disrupt
existing educational structures.
Address real problems.

28. steve.vosloo@shuttleworthfoundation.org
www.vosloo.net / twitter: stevevosloo
By Steve Vosloo, http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevevosloo/4918829341/in/set-72157624663121313/