Meet Aminata Lo Badiane, a former high school teacher in Senegal who is leveraging the power of technologies to improve learners’ results, empower teachers and make teaching and learning more engaging and collaborative. In her role as a trainer at SIMEN, the agency of the Senegalese Ministry of National Education mandated to advance the integration of technology in the education system, Aminata was part of the team that developed the self-assessment platform Senlycée2sciences. The platform is an initiative of the Ministry of Education supported by the UNESCO-KFIT project “ICT Transforming Education in Africa”.
“I have been a high school teacher for over twenty years. After discovering digital education and all the possibilities that the Senegalese education system could draw from it, I decided to go back to studying to invest myself fully in the production of educational resources,” she says, explaining how she went from being a teacher to embarking in continuous professional development in ICT, to her current assignment at SIMEN and her role in developing the self-assessment platform Senlycée2sciences.
Senlycée2sciences targets learners in the last year of high school and first year of university who wish to improve their level of mastery in science. It includes over 2,340 questions in mathematics, life and earth sciences, and physics-chemistry, organized in sets of 20-question quizzes. In parallel, the platform proposes supplemental learning materials to attain the expected proficiency levels.
Aminata and her colleagues at SIMEN led the content development team, made up of experts, through a series of trainings on script writing and online content writing tools. The platform was then integrated into the website of the Ministry of National Education, in particular on SENPROF, which is the national portal that hosts all the resources produced by teachers.
Developing Senlycée2sciences entailed the strengthening of capacities of various actors in the Senegalese education system, including SIMEN personnel and developers. “First and foremost, I am an English teacher and this activity allowed me to strengthen my competences and challenge myself,” adds Aminata, before highlighting her pride that different stakeholders came together for this activity and grew together as one team. To ensure the widest possible uptake of the Senlycée2sciences platform, presentation sessions targeting teachers are being organized by SIMEN specialists. Between May and June 2022, testing was undertaken in 12 high schools across the country, and a new round of tests is planned for April and May 2023.
A long road ahead to transform education for all learners
Despite these achievements, there is still a long way to go. “We should start thinking about the evolution of the platform, hearing the voices of the teachers who are in the classroom, so that, one day, they can contribute and create their own resources,” says Aminata. Additionally, even if the platform can be accessed via mobile phones and content can be used offline, more should be done to give visibility to the platform so that more people can benefit from it.
All learners in Senegal have access to Senlycée2sciences via their unique identifier number. The produced content and the methodology used throughout the production process have been validated by the General Inspectorate of Education and Training of Senegal, demonstrating the high level of national ownership of the initiative. The launch of the platform for grades 10 and 11 (Sencollege2sciences) is foreseen for May 2023, while the platform for grade 5 and 6 (Senprimaire2sciences) will be available in August 2023.
“Eventually, our aim is that learners have better results at school, understand the content better and have a continuity with the platform. Hopefully, within three years, we will have fewer losses in terms of students who drop out from their courses,” concludes Aminata.
The development of Senlycée2sciences is a major achievement of the UNESCO-Korea Funds-in-Trust (KFIT) project “ICT Transforming Education in Africa”, an initiative that fosters human and social development in African countries through the use of information and communication technology (ICT) for education. Together with Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, Senegal is one of the beneficiaries of the second phase of the project, and the country also recently hosted the forum on digital public learning and the 2022 cross-country seminar of the project.
The project is in line with the 2022 Transforming Education Summit’s call for quality public digital learning for all. In Senegal, the project addresses two of the three keys for unlocking the potential of digital technologies to transform education, and notably the content and capacity keys.
Resources:
- UNESCO Korea Funds-in-Trust (KFIT) project “ICT Transforming Education in Africa
- How a UNESCO ICT training is making a difference for a high school teacher in Ghana
- Forum on quality public digital learning and cross-country seminar of the UNESCO-KFIT Project “ICT Transforming Education in Africa” – event page
- UNESCO’s work in digital learning and transformation of education
