What UNESCO is doing on Mobile Education

With mobile phones reaching the furthest corners of the world and mobile handsets becoming the new toys for today’s generation’s kids, it’s high time that this highly efficient and relatively cheap multi-purpose medium is tapped for advancements in education.

At present, there are more than 6 billion people who have access to connected mobile devices and for every single person who accesses net through phone, two people do so on mobile devices. This wide space of such usage has really opened up new doors for an entire revolution to be created.

Mobile technology has altered the way we live, communicate and the way we perceive things.

What UNESCO is doing

UNESCO is working with individuals and governments to make full use of this technology to advance education for all
people. UNESCO is focusing on responding to the challenges faced in different contexts like supplementing and enriching formal schooling and in general, making learning more accessible, flexible and equitable for students all over the world especially in developing countries.

Mobile Education

As the title suggests, mobile education involves the usage of mobile technology in combination with other communication and information technologies. The prime objective of mobile education is to make education accessible and available to all classes and places on mobile. The reason mobile technology is being looked upon to achieve these goals is that it transcends physical boundaries and is relatively a wider and cheaper medium to accomplish these tasks.

Work UNESCO is doing on Mobile education

For the last 3 years, UNESCO has provided advice and counselling to governments and other stakeholders looking to promote and use increasingly ubiquitous and affordable mobile technologies for learning.

UNESCO has also conducted research in a lot of areas such as mobile learning policies, mobile reading and promoting gender equality with ICTs. The results of which are used in describing the unique educational advantages that can be reaped and strategies that can be used to build and promote this endeavour further.

In parallel with its research, UNESCO has also done policy and knowledge sharing work, UNESCO runs its mobile learning field projects in a number of countries like Mexico, Pakistan, Senegal and Nigeria. Different countries projects often require different approaches to support teachers and students and cumulatively these expand the knowledge base of how mobile technology can expand access to education and improve its quality.

UNESCO hosts an annual mobile learning week conference which is recognized as a pre-eminent conference on mobile learning and attracts education leaders and practitioners around the world.