UNICEF and Microsoft are launching learning platform to help address COVID-19 education crisis in Kosovo

Kosovo, 20 April 2020 – UNICEF and Microsoft Corp. today announced the expansion of a global learning platform to help children and youth affected by the COVID-19 pandemic continue their education at home.

The Learning Passport – a partnership between UNICEF, Microsoft, and the University of Cambridge originally designed to provide education for displaced and refugee children through a digital remote learning platform – has undergone rapid expansion to facilitate country-level curriculum for children and youth whose schools have been forced to close in response to COVID-19. The platform will also provide key resources to teachers and educators.

“We are looking forward and we know that help is needed now and fast. We are bringing the best global expertise and know-how for benefit of all children and young people in Kosovo. Learning passport connects the Education Ministry in Kosovo with Cambridge University and Microsoft to co-create solutions that will help youngest population in Europe to provide quality education for all” – says Murat Sahin, Head of UNICEF Kosovo Office.

Prime Minister of Kosovo, Mr. Albin Kurti appreciated UNICEF on learning passport initiative. He believes that the benefits will be multiple in improving education and employability of young people.

Kosovo together with Timor-Leste and Ukraine are the three pioneers in the world to roll out online curriculum through the Learning Passport. Education Specialist in UNICEF Kosovo Office, Kozeta Imami, highlights that “Kosovo specifically focuses on developing a minimum viable product starting with digitizing of UPSHIFT- a Kosovo born programme replicated in 21 countries around the globe. The developed content will be adapted for both self-learning and online-facilitated group learning, with the aim of producing adaptable open source content which can be iterated, improved and scaled across multiple countries. This initiative can gain strong insight for longer term plans and platforms to be used by adolescents and youth anywhere they are”. 

Children and young people continuing their education online can do so through a country-specific platform, accessed via their country’s learningpassport.unicef.org page. The platform for each place provides a digitized curriculum with text books and a selection of supplemental content, in local  languages, that is jointly curated at country-level to best serve learners’ and educators’ specific needs. The Learning Passport captures a record of the curriculum subjects each student learns and guides learners with little additional support needed.

According to the latest available data from UNESCO, 1.57 billion students have been affected by closures in 188 countries worldwide.

“From school closures, to isolation, to a persistent sense of fear and anxiety, the effects of this pandemic are impacting childhoods worldwide. We need to come together and explore every avenue to help our children through this difficult time. And with partners like Microsoft, we are able to swiftly deploy innovative, scalable solutions for children and youth,” said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director. “The adaptations made to the Learning Passport is a powerful reminder of what we can achieve together with our partners for children as the crisis deepens globally.”

The Learning Passport is part of the Generation Unlimited Global Breakthroughs on Remote Learning and Work and Portable Certification that aim to use technology to address challenges faced by learners, facilitators and education providers, particularly in conflict-affected and humanitarian contexts. Generation Unlimited is a global multi-sector partnership to meet the urgent need for expanded education, training and employment opportunities for young people.

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Notes to editors:

About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

About Generation Unlimited
Generation Unlimited is global partnership working to prepare young people to become productive and engaged citizens. It connects secondary-age education and training to employment and entrepreneurship, empowering every young person to thrive in the world of work.

About UPSHIFT
UPSHIFT prepares young people from Kosovo’s marginalized communities to identify, analyse, and take entrepreneurial action against challenges in their communities - helping vulnerable young people realize their role as agents of social change, and building their leadership skills, professional readiness, and resilience along the way. UPSHIFT was born in Kosovo and now is replicated as promising solution to more than 21 countries worldwide.