The Learning Passport: Helping learners get back on track in typhoon-affected schools
Helping improve teaching and learning experience in multigrade schools with innovative offline tech solutions
Dinagat Islands, 27 June 2023 – It was in the middle of COVID-19 pandemic when Super Typhoon Odette hit the Philippines in 2021. Yet, until now, multigrade schools in the areas most affected by the typhoon still experience its effects on students’ education.
The struggle of children to catch up with learning after over two years of COVID-19 school closure became even more difficult when the typhoon destroyed schools and learning materials. It had been challenging for teachers to find materials that will help learners get back on track with few printed materials like books and modules that they managed to secure.
To support the Department of Education (DepEd) in ensuring that every child effectively catches up on learning, UNICEF introduced The Learning Passport with hub devices to multigrade schools in Dinagat Islands and Southern Leyte, two of the provinces severely affected by Typhoon Odette.
The Learning Passport is a learning management system developed by UNICEF and Microsoft Community Training and being used in around 30 countries. It supports learners by serving local and contextualized educational content as well as global supplementary learning resources to enhance their foundational skills, such as basic literacy and numeracy. This system allows every user to have a personalized record of their learning history.
The hub devices reflect the content of the online Learning Passport and produces a unique local area network (LAN) so that learners can access learning materials on devices such as phones and tablets without connecting to internet. This offline innovative technology is crucial in enabling continuous access to quality education in remote areas where there is low to zero Internet connection, offering equitable learning opportunities for every child.
“Learners find it easy to access the Learning Passport. They find the lesson easier by typing in the keywords. The platform is not only for learners. As a teacher, I also learn from the Learning Passport. I take on courses like digital literacy and learning toolkit and it is a great help for me.” Sheen Margarett Ensomo, 26, a multigrade teacher and Disaster Risk Reduction Management Service (DRRMS) coordinator of Navarro Elementary School in Dinagat Islands shares her experience.
“Learners are eager to come to school and attend their classes every day because of the digital resources. They understand the lesson better and actively participate in the discussion, making the teaching and learning more effective. During a reading session, while I am focusing on struggling readers, I let the others explore the materials in the tablet.” Kristin Monton, 26, a multigrade teacher of Lawgawan Elementary School in Southern Leyte also shares her observation and teaching approach. “I can provide quality instruction to my learners through the supplementary resources, and it allows me to have time to think of new and better ideas in delivering my lesson. These technologies allow me to gain more knowledge or skills in learning, as well as the much-needed confidence in my professional development,” shared Kristine.
“As the Philippines is the first country to implement the Learning Passport hub devices in the world, we continue to monitor and hope to scale up the innovation to more remote and disadvantaged schools to create the impact to children’s learning,” Isy Faingold, UNICEF Philippines Chief of Education says.
To learn more about the implementation of the Learning Passport, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DCtSby-FAc
