The “Reading is Life” Competition: Mitigating Learning Losses during School Closures through a Low-Tech Reading Application in Upper Egypt

• In Event: Preventing learning loss during the COVID-19 pandemic by supporting digital learning opportunities and career guidance for marginalized girls/youth in Egypt

Proposal

This session will present initial lessons learnt from the use of a low-tech mobile application (BookSmart) used during an eight-week pilot to mitigate learning losses during the COVID-19 related school closures in rural areas of Egypt across three governorates (Asyut, Beni Suet and Minya) in Egypt. The app was used as part of a wider reading competition campaign aiming at engaging parents with their kids in a dynamic learning process through books of the week with related reading/learning activities. Despite all the challenges faced by communities and learners due to the additional economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related school closures and lockdowns, the pilot has proven to be a successful way to encourage learners to keep engaging in reading and home-based learning through competing with their peers. The pilot used age-appropriate, leveled, and curated content and tools through which learners were encouraged to apply their learning gained through reading in activities focused on real life situations, for instance, creating environmental awareness/recycling projects with objects found in the home.
Through this experience the project observed that children who live in rural poor areas in Upper Egypt affected by COVID-19 can build strong foundations for lifelong learning and well-being through engaging with their families in joint-activities that are fun and engaging while promoting learning. The competition exceeded the targeted 600 households reaching up to 712 participants in 26 villages (18% more than the targeted 600 readers). The participants completed an average of 10 books per household, exceeding the targeted eight books, with 23 minutes on average reading time per student, per day.
This mobile application can help the Egyptian government in building reading competencies and preparing skills-based curriculum materials that can help learners (mainly those from most marginalized, rural areas) grow foundational literacy skills as well as to develop the skills needed for meaningful participation in an increasingly digitalized world. The intervention demonstrated a strong use of technology at the household level to support self-guided/self- paced home-based learning.
Potential ideas for scaling up the use of the reading app could include supporting the Egyptian Education Ministry to adopt the model of engaging parents/communities’ volunteers to take part in reading competitions using a low-cost app coupled with other approaches to encourage self- study and parental engagement in their children’s learning. Cross-sectoral partnerships engaging and strengthening private/public partnerships (such as between the Egyptian telecommunication companies, the Egyptian Ministry of Education, INGOs and NGO/Community based organizations like youth groups) to support scale-up efforts.

Author

• Deborah Backus, Worldreader