Now more than ever, being digitally connected is vital to maintaining a sense of normalcy during the current circumstances. Education is one critical sector particularly affected by the global COVID-19 pandemic, with around 1.2 billion students and youth around the world unable to attend traditional education institutions. This has placed a huge demand for comprehensive online education programs on governments and education institutions alike.
With education and learning being disrupted at unprecedented levels, Ericsson has joined the UNESCO-led Global Education Coalition for COVID-19 response, partnering with like-minded organizations to ensure the global pandemic doesn’t become a roadblock to learning and teaching. UNESCO and Ericsson launched a new portal for teaching AI to kids on May 13.
As its main contribution in this effort, the company has launched its latest Connect To Learn initiative, Ericsson Educate, a digital learning program that has the potential to benefit students all around the world who are currently disadvantaged due to lockdowns and home quarantines. The program includes different learning paths, customized to the educational needs and maturity level of the target audience, and can be accessed free of charge via web portals specifically created by Ericsson.
Ericsson Connect To Learn program director, Zohra Yermeche, says: “The current pandemic situation has affected students’ learning efficacy on a global scale never encountered before. Without schools, friends, and direct contact with teachers to reach out to, studying remotely brings its share of challenges for the learners. It is particularly difficult for teachers as well, who have to adapt to the new conditions and rethink their approach to teaching, with little to no adequate training on how to transition towards remote lesson delivery and virtual classroom management. The need of the hour is digital learning systems that are inclusive, scalable and easy to use, providing access to quality educational content aimed to be both informative and engaging.”
Ericsson Educate provides inclusive learning opportunities for students to help them through this period of sudden and unprecedented disruption. Learning is made more interesting through a comprehensive curriculum that encourages improving the digital skills of students in secondary schools and universities, at the same time empowering teachers to transition effectively to a more virtual medium of teaching and facilitating.
The digital skills portal developed by Ericsson features courses on 5G networks, IoT, data science, automation, artificial intelligence and machine learning. The curriculum aims to strengthen the ICT skills of university students to increase their readiness for jobs in the telecom and ICT sectors.
Teaching AI is another learning program developed by Ericsson in partnership with UNESCO, which includes a free, multi-lingual artificial intelligence (AI) skills portal that can be accessed globally by parents and teachers, enabling them to support children and students in home learning environments to learn about AI. UNESCO and Ericsson launched the new portal on May 13.