After a year and a half of facing a pandemic, it’s undeniable that technological and digital devices offer a long-term strategy for education, with both equal access and innovation in the backdrop.

In the wake of a digital transition that reaches almost all companies and States, it is a pressing issue to have citizens that are qualified to respond and perform accordingly in their personal, student and professional lives. To do so effectively means training people throughout lif e especially at a young age.

In underprivileged countries, the benefits of digital education are more evident than in privileged ones. But to implement this model is also much more difficult. More often than not, companies and institutions have a crucial role in helping States all over the world meet these standards. This is why Intel, jp.ik, Millennium@EDU and ALECSO decided to act.

Since the first half of 2021, Intel, jp.ik, Millennium@EDU and ALECSO have joined forces by giving out more than 4.000 student devices and almost 100 teacher devices to Djibouti. These four institutions are not only equipping students and teachers in the aforementioned country with technology especially designed for education, but they’re also training teachers and technicians to adapt to a more sustainable model of education.
Intel,  jp.ik,  Millennium@EDU and ALECSO believe that creating a more responsible, inclusive and sustainable world, enabled through technology and collective actions, can change the world.

Jorge Sá Couto, Chairman at jp.ik, states that theres no doubt that digital transition transforms our society and economy, but what truly drives jp.ik is the impact that education especially digital education can have in these young peoples lives. We want every student to have access to and train for whatever they want, regardless of the country theyre from in particular young women who, many times, face added steps to achieve equal treatment and opportunities.

Mário Franco, Founder & Chairperson at Millennium@EDU SUSTAINABLE EDUCATION, states that Millennium@EDU SUSTAINABLE EDUCATION is committed to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly, in getting results and achievements related to SDG4 Quality Education, in specific targets, namely Target 4.4 Technical and vocational skills –  By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship and Target 4.a School Environment Build and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive and provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for al Electricity Internet Computers, each measured by the respective SDGs Indicators 4.4.1 and 4.a.1. which present Data that makes visible those who are most vulnerable.
Millennium@EDU SUSTAINABLE EDUCATION is extremely honored and humbled to be part of this Project which steers countries towards achieving their targets.

H.E. Prof. Mohamed Ould Amar, the General Director of ALECSO, states that since the outbreak of COVID-19, ALECSO has mobilized all its technical capabilities to contribute to tackling the impact of this pandemic. It has launched several initiatives, including its e-learning initiative in response to school closure and education disruption in the Arab countries. It has worked, jointly with its partners, to provide the latest online platforms and digital environments for Arab education ministries and institutions, to be used for online learning/education purposes. It has also held specialized training courses for Arab teachers on how to operate the educational platforms provided through this initiative, how to use e-learning tools, and how to design digital educational contents and make them available on the web.

He added that ALECSO is pleased to cooperate with its distinguished partners, Millennium@EDU SUSTAINABLE and jp.ik Inspiring Knowledge, for the implementation of an initiative to donate computer devices to Mauritania, the Comoros and Djibouti, with a view to supporting their efforts in tackling the impact of the pandemic through the use of modern e-learning tools and systems.
Also, Prof. Mohamed Jemni, the Director of ICT at ALECSO states that this project creates a distinctive opportunity for many students, especially poor students, to benefit and practice online education in these countries.

Proud of the work that has been developed and implemented in the past year, Intel, jp.ik, Millennium@EDU and ALECSO will continue to commit and work for sustainable development goals and access to digital education.

Launched this year in collaboration with 40 companies and 118 volunteers, the Digital Literacy for the Labor Market Training Course is the first inclusive education training in a context of higher education implemented in Portugal.

Created by the Instituto Politécnico de Santarém, this Course qualifies young people with special education needs (SEN) with a degree of incapacity equal or superior to 60%. The model of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid Training Course inspired this Training Course, which has a duration of two academic years. Its final purpose is the integration of young people in the labor market and is part of the National Initiative on Digital Competencies (INCoDe.2030).

In the course students learn digital literacy, that is, learn how to connect a computer, create an email account, search, attach files, take pictures and produce videos.

Working out the emotions, overcoming obstacles, as well as the sense of frustration and knowing how to relate to others and the job market are other skills worked on.

The curricular unit I teach for this semester “Professional Profile Construction” is very much linked to the companies that will foster internships to the students and our goal is to work the competencies and functions requested by the partners.

On April 2, the 11 students presented the ongoing work on the development of digital skills to the Minister of Science and Higher Education of Portugal, Manuel Heitor, including preparation for paid internships in companies and public administration.

Six months later, students acquired more skills in writing, reading and speaking, but also developed social competences, as they attend the bar, cafeteria and other social spaces of the Institute.

Above all, we want them to feel happy and to learn digital skills that are important to the job market.

This training course is also contributing to policy changes because internships will be paid in public institutions.

At the end of this first edition, the great goal is to take this course to the whole country, to promote inclusion.

 

Contribution by:

Maria Potes Barbas was born in 1965, in Lisbon, Portugal. She holds a PHD Degree in Communication and Education Multimedia at Universidade Aberta, a Pos-Doctorate by Universidade de Aveiro (UA) and a Tenure in Education with speciality in eLearning by the UAb. Professional capacities_Full Professor (Communication and Education Multimedia) at ESE-IPS and an invited Associated Professor at the Universidade Aberta (Open University_UAb).
She is also the Head of the Projects and Internationalization Experience_Professor of the curricular units of Project, Seminary and Interactive Argument at the School of Higher Education. Expertise_Networking, ICT professional skills, INCLUSION; elearning; Ethics issues, IoT; Safety. Nominated by FCT in Portugal to become an “e-Skills for Jobs ambassador” in Portugal, an EU initiative based on a multi-stakeholder partnership that facilitates collaboration among business and education providers, public and private actors, through actions that attract young people and promote employment.

In the year jp.ik and Intel celebrate ten years of a close collaboration in the context of education reference designs by working with school systems worldwide, the two companies joined forces to implement a Proof-of-Concept in two schools in Senegal. Microsoft, a solid and close jp.ikâ€s partner with shared beliefs, also joined this initiative by offering two general introduction-training days.

Graciela Bertancud is the founder of the School 113-PS Tomás Alva Edison that provides Initial, Primary and Secondary Level, enrolling 862 students. She is also the President of the Tomás Alva Edison Foundation.

In 2005, Graciela reached the 1st place in the Educational Quality Award, granted by the Ministry of Education of the Argentine Nation and Intel and in 2008, she reached 1st place in the category Between Peers at the I Latin American Forum for Innovative Teachers organized by Microsoft.

Today it is unavoidable how technology revolutionized the different dimensions of our life, including education. When did you realize that the integration of technology in education is as effective as urgent?

Was around 2004 following a UNESCO document about the digital literacy. This document observed that the technological penetration we had at that time did not allow us to reach the proposed standards for 2010, so we decided to implement, almost in conjunction with the Negroponte proposal, the one-to-one model (a computer for each student). This model began to be implemented in 2005 and we are one of the first most innovative schools in the region.

We started with a course in 2005 with 20 computers. Today we have 400 notebooks connected on a daily basis to the Internet, plus 30 teachers†computers that are running almost all day in cross- curricular activities.
For us we realized that our students were ready to program when they started to develop games with PowerPoint, then we realized that they were already needing other tools to be able to develop values and competences. It was then that we introduced Scratch and the robot part with the students.

In the year jp.ik and Intel celebrate ten years of a close collaboration in the context of education reference designs and expertise by working with school systems worldwide, the two companies joined forces to implement a Proof-of-Concept in two schools in Senegal.
In addition, Microsoft, a solid and close jp.ikâ€s partner with shared beliefs, also supported this initiative by offering two general introduction-training days.

 

jp.ik and Intel understand the challenges teachers face towards the growing demands of students prompted by the global digital revolution. This new reality we live in shows education is at a decisive turning point, bringing to the surface the challenges resulting from a growing labor skills gap. In this scenario, the opportunities brought by technology point to a single path: transforming education for the next generations.

Both companies believe successful ICT-based educational projects go beyond the technology itself, empowering educators to boost student engagement, retention and the development of real-world career-ready skills.

This common statement joined jp.ik and Intel in the implementation of a Proof-of-Concept in two Senegalese schools, Primary School Matar Seck in Rufisque and CEM Ouakam 2, located in two less-privileged neighbourhoods of Dakar area.

This cooperation aims to raise awareness of how ICT in education aligned with a comprehensive teacher training can leverage the learning experience towards an inclusive and quality education.

The purpose of this initiative is to assist teachers in the effective integration of technology in the day-to-day teaching to prepare students to develop skills, such as cognitive flexibility, decision-making, creativity, critical thinking and problem-solving, increasingly requested by a job market in a frenetic mutation revolutionized by technology.

The local beneficiary schools chosen by the Minister of National Education, HE Serigne Mbaye THIAM face the typical challenges public schools in Western Africa are being challenged with, as CE2 classes of the primary school and the 6ème of the secondary school, the main targeted grades, count over 70 pupils per class. For the Primary School the POC is a first initiative where the kids have direct access to computers, whereas the CEM Ouakam 2 was already beneficiary of an initiative that equipped a room with server and thin clients where general ICT classes were performed. In both schools, this is the first initiative of integrated learning with digital devices and the pedagogical training about the use of the devices throughout the schooldays was very much appreciated.

This initiative was undertaken following the visit of a delegation of the Ministry of National Education to Portugal in the end of 2016. The Ministry of National Education did show innovative approaches to integrate ICT in education and since then has followed a few workshops given by Intel.

This Proof-of-Concept, based on jp.ikâ€s 21st Century Classroom solution has been implemented in several countries around the world, is a three-part approach, comprehending a technological solution and a pedagogical and engineering solution.

Technologically speaking, the solution covers a broad group of devices developed for the classroom experience: Student devices, Teacher device, Content Access Point, Interactive Board and projector.

In terms of Pedagogy, this Proof-of-Concept provides a solid solution to assure an efficient level of Training to assist teachers to assure the adequate use of the technological equipments and to explore them at their full potential. For that, jp.ik teams of Pedagogy and Engineering, who run the workshops and the technical support, respectively, assure this training.

The project kicked off early August with two days of general introduction training that were genuinely offered by Microsoft. The second step was the implementation and testing of the technological solution undertaken by a jp.ik team in both schools last week of September. Later on, in the first week of October four days of pedagogical teacher training took place in CEM Ouakam 2 School, gathering school heads and teachers from the two schools, as well as different representatives from technical and pedagogical departments of the Ministry of National Education.

Summing up, this Proof-of-Concept reflects how jp.ik engages with partners in different regions, aiming to extend the reach of these types of initiatives to private and public decision makers.

“Digital Literacy for the Labor Market” is the name of this training course that lasts two years and does not confer a master’s degree, is inspired by the model that has been in operation for over a decade at the Autonomous University of Madrid. It has been designed in accordance with the recommendations of the National Education Council, opening doors to several jobs and mitigating one of the main challenges of the families of these young people: the lack of adapted vocational training.

 

The innovative and pioneering nature of this training, since it is the first model of inclusive education training in the context of higher education for intellectual disability, makes it a reference model for other experiences, promoting personal development, well-being and social inclusion.

Jp.ik has been invited to join this pioneering training course in our country, which merges a very captivating trilogy: Education, Technology and Innovation. Due to the pioneering, innovative and inclusive nature of this initiative, jp.ik accepted the invitation, offering computers that will be used by the students during their training.