Bringing learning to home through education television
How education changed during COVID-19 in Iraq
Iraq like many countries across the world has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. An immediate action by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was the closure of schools as part of prevention measures. Schools across the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) have been closed since 26 February 2020. Nearly 1.7 million children and adolescents enrolled in around 6,800 public and private schools were suddenly left without any access to schools and learning. This includes an estimated 30,000 vulnerable children in refugee camps who were already impacted by the protracted conflict in the country.
Following the school closure, Ministry of Education-KRI (MoE-KRI) and UNICEF prioritized continuity of learning while children stay at home. MoE-KRI, through public and private schools, started the process of recording lessons for all grades 1-12 in all formal languages and dialects in KRI.
At the same time, MoE-KRI established an online platform called “Ewana” that connects every student to relevant recording lessons. The KRG pushed key communication firms to allow users to access the system for free. However, MoE was aware that almost half of families in KRI do not have access to the internet nor means/device despite now data access is free of charge. Therefore, the online learning has a limitation as it is not accessible to majority of children and adolescents.
The Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2018 shows that 99% of families in KRI have access to TV while only 54% of families have access to the internet. MoE-KRI was very conscious that online learning is not an equitable solution and will lead to increasing the disparities. A large proportion of the communities and families do not have a smartphone, internet connectivity or computer. In addition, there are cultural norms which may prevent girls from accessing learning through online mechanisms.
Therefore MoE-KRI decided to use the Education Television (ETV) as a tool to reach out to communities and places where online learning cannot. The previous ETV of MoE-KRI uses old technology and coverage was limited to only urban areas. The complete lockdown and the sudden fall of oil price made the government unable to finance upgrading the education channel. This is where UNICEF was approached to support in facilitating the MoE to co-opt services of a satellite channel which has coverage across the entire KRI.
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Reach of Television: 98.5% in Iraq - 99.1% KRI, 98.4% South-Central 97% Rural, 98% Urban 95% Poorest, 99% Richest |
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Access to Internet 54% in Iraq - 70% KRI, 50% South-Central 39% Rural, 60% Urban 14% Poorest, 85% Richest |
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Computer at home 24.8% in Iraq - 44% KRI, 19% South-Central 14% Rural, 28% Urban 1.5% Poorest, 61.5% Richest |
Source: MICS,2018
From UNICEF’s perspective, this request was in line with ensuring continuity of education, to mitigate the inequities from depending solely on online/internet- based learning portals and reaching the most vulnerable. Supporting MoE-KRI with a requirement of USD 240,000 has the potential to reach all the children and adolescents in the region making it a worthwhile investment. The accelerated procedures rolled out by UNICEF in this emergency period were used to ensure that the satellite channel was up and running. After only 10 days of broadcasting, MoE-KRI reported that an estimate of 350,000 children were benefiting from the Education TV. This demonstrates how effective the intervention is.
