ProLearn Podcast: Inclusion and Digitalisation in Developing Education Globally

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Kimmo Kuortti:
Welcome to ProLearn Podcast. This week we have a couple of interesting and related topics. First of all, we ask what is global learning crisis and secondly, how digitalisation and inclusion are dealt with in development cooperation in education. My name is Kimmo Kuortti and I work at Oulu University of Applied Sciences School of Professional Teacher Education. Our guests today are Professor Elina Lehtomäki from the University of Oulu.

Elina Lehtomäki:
Hello!

Kimmo Kuortti:
Hi, Elina. And Manager of International Affairs Mari Kontturi from Luovi Vocational Vollege.

Mari Kontturi:
Hello!

Kimmo Kuortti:
Hello to both of you and welcome.

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Kimmo Kuortti:
First of all, could you both tell our listeners who you are and where do you come from, where do you work? Elina, why don’t you start.

Elina Lehtomäki:
Thank you. I am a professor and my field is global learning which means that I’m looking at education and learning, also how it’s connected to the global, could I say scale, and also what is the importance of local knowledge in connection with global. We are all interconnected in this world, whether we want it or not. I have done research on education development, especially in collaboration with several African universities and colleagues and followed up this development of education in diverse contexts and also in collaboration with international organizations who have defined this global learning crisis, which we will discuss today. I got interested in cultures and international cooperation already long time ago during my studies. I’ve had this opportunity to work in this field and I’m glad to be here today to talk about it.

Kimmo Kuortti:
Thank you, Elina. And what about you Mari?

Mari Kontturi:
Well, I live in Joensuu in the eastern part of Finland, quite close to the Russian border. I work at Luovi Vocational College as manager of international affairs. My passion is to promote internationalization in vocational education and training. And to be honest, I was not planning to work in this field when I was younger, but I have always been interested in languages and other cultures and people. Then I wanted to try something new and to be honest, again I am still on that path.

Kimmo Kuortti:
Thank you both. If I understood it correctly Elina, you’re a professor at the University of Oulu in the Faculty of Education and Psychology.

Elina Lehtomäki:
Yes.

Kimmo Kuortti:
And Mari, you mentioned you work at the Luovi Vocational College. What does Luovi Vocational College do?

Mari Kontturi:
Luovi provides vocational education and training on upper secondary level. So for students from 16 up to adults. All our students need support in their studies.

Kimmo Kuortti:
OK. Thank you very much. Mari and Elina, is there something which has caught your attention, which has stopped you on your tracks during the past week or so?

Elina Lehtomäki:
I could mention especially the situation in Afghanistan and women in Afghanistan, where schools have been closed, girls and women’s access to education institutions has been blocked. Finland has already issued that women and especially women who have worked for foreign agencies are at risk. They risk their lives just by being and living there. Another example is Somalia, where we fail with our digital solutions to help when 130 or 150 people die per day affected by global climate change. These are current issues and they do affect our understanding of the global learning crisis.

Kimmo Kuortti:
Thank you Elina. That is absolutely a very important connection that we can establish here to our themes today, which we will be discussing a bit later. What about you, Mari? If I understood correctly, you are yourself at the moment at an interesting place.

Mari Kontturi:
Yes indeed I am in France and I have a chance to visit Abilympics, which is a skills competition for people with disabilities. There are over 20 countries and over 400 participants presented here in Metz, close to Germany border. I started to think about that in Finland, we can offer a lot of support for the students who need it. But unfortunately the situation is not the same in so many countries and somehow it really makes me think about what could we do.

Kimmo Kuortti:
Very good. And indeed this is something that we’re going to discuss today.

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Kimmo Kuortti:
Our first theme to touch upon today is a theme called Global Learning Crisis. This is a theme or subject that has been raised especially by certain international organizations over the past few years. My first question to you is whether there actually is a problem? Is there a problem in the sphere of learning or education that we can call a global learning crisis and if so, what does this actually mean? Any thoughts on this, Elina?

Elina Lehtomäki:
Yes, the concept that we understand as global learning crisis was first introduced by international agencies, not by single governments or countries, but by big international organizations such as UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and the World Bank, which are leading organizations when we think of education cooperation internationally. And already 10 years ago, they defined a global learning crisis. They draw from country level reports on poor learning outcomes, especially in basic literacy and numeracy which we do understand as foundational skills for further learning. Today 6 out of 10 children show learning results in reading and mathematics being very low. That means that we are losing generations of people with poor quality education or with poor conditions. We urgently need solutions and I think we in Finland have a role to play when we think about finding solutions. The international agencies have urged for strategies to find a global response so that we would not lose these young people, who have the right to good quality education for all. We can still say that according to reports across the world, members of the international community have failed young people. We can’t afford this failure. It is important, however, to understand that global refers to the general situation on countries level. It’s drawn from governments reports to different international agencies. Anything that happens in the country level or local level in schools, in districts, local contacts, all that adds up to the global level. That is why local successful examples, even in countries with low overall education achievement results, is important. If, for instance, a country like Nigeria with 1 billion inhabitants would manage to improve its learning achievements, that would make a huge difference to the global picture. That is why we need to understand these diverse contexts and differences even within countries. We have understood also in Finland finally now that we can do more in this field. We do have knowledge and skills. What we need is more efficient collaboration in this field.

Kimmo Kuortti:
Thank you. You raised very important and interesting points and thank you for the good definition of the global learning crisis. I can’t help to notice that you also mentioned the international community and how international community has failed young people. And indeed in this situation the international community has almost a duty to do something about the situation. What about Mari? What is your take on this issue of global learning crisis?

Mari Kontturi:
Yes, if I think about the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals, all United Nations Member states, we have committed or adopted those goals. If the aim is that we want to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and also to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, so then I think that we still have a very long way to go. Especially during the years of the coronavirus pandemic, I think that inequality in learning has even grown. For example, in Finland we were able to organise distance learning for our students, but in many countries the pupils and students didn’t get any teaching during those years.

Kimmo Kuortti:
Thank you Mari for the analysis. I think you touched upon very interesting things. You talked about the inclusiveness of education, inequality and you brought up also the theme that touched us all globally, which was the corona pandemic. We as you mentioned in the developed world and especially in Finland, we were able to move to online teaching and use both our equipment and our existing good connections and digital networks to provide education, obviously not without problems, but nevertheless. This brings me also to the issue of digitalisation. You already tied it together actually, with the issues of accessibility, inclusion and equality. We have debated in Finland about what the online education actually did, so to speak, to especially young people during the corona epidemic. And although we can see the digital solutions as a tremendous aid in that situation, not everyone agrees that we did a great job there. So the theme of digitalisation is therefore very intertwined with learning and education nowadays. Now that we were talking about the global learning crisis and digitalisation and we have seen some challenges that digitalisation in learning and digital support of learning can have, what in your opinion are the opportunities for using digital learning solutions in solving the global learning crisis, especially in the developing countries? Any thoughts and ideas on that?

Elina Lehtomäki:
I think, in response to the pandemic, there has been even a call for more digital solutions. We managed more or less well in Finland as you said, and still we had reports of our children feeling lonely, learners feeling left alone with their studies. There were certainly differences even within Finland when it comes to access to materials and peer feedback. The social dimension I think was lacking in many solutions. At the same time we also have some excellent examples of the use of digital solutions in education. We do have opportunities also for collaborative technologies, not only individual learning tools. What this requires is that we also get understanding of how ICT has been used in different other fields. There are some examples in, for instance, agriculture business, professional development etcetera using mobile tools or a combination of mobile tools, information technology, networking and finding solutions in a collaborative way. These are things that I think we need to map even further what we can do. In education and especially educational leadership and teacher development there are many unused opportunities, I think, around the world. And yet digital solutions are needed in transforming our education systems, and there are many possibilities. There were some good examples in a conference called UNESCO Mobile Learning Week. I listened to some presentations on curriculum sharing, how secondary school students in the context of Kenya, for instance, could learn about what is expected from them, what the curriculum states and defines as learning goals. We have some other examples of teachers’ professional development, especially in South Africa, and also on reporting education results from local education authorities. These are sort of management issues. It can be that we use digital solutions for management to create important data on learning achievements, teaching solutions, using technology. Of course learning materials are very important as well. Creating learning solutions that are context relevant and socially acceptable is a very important issue and that is something where we do struggle in Finland. I think that is why I would like to emphasize the important matters or prerequisites that are close collaboration with the local experts, developers and end users in those contexts where we work. Also using local research and our partners to understand the needs, interests and also knowledge systems and recognition of all these conditions where we work, including also cultures, social norms and using creative ways of combining knowledge and sharing. I think that these sort of platforms and the use of multiple platforms in connection like radio, mobile, tablets, even texts, infographics etcetera can be one solution. Certainly ICT can offer us a lot in this field, and especially with open educational resources.

Kimmo Kuortti:
Thank you Elina. I think you raised very interesting points also about the importance of understanding the local context, the local needs and local solutions. We should not always be so completely preoccupied with our solutions and what works and what we’ve done here in the global north, but realizing what should be taken into account and how we need to adapt what we’re doing to the local needs. This brings me also to a project where Mari you’ve been involved, called ScalED, which focuses on digital learning. Could you tell a little bit about that project and how that relates to the question of digitalisation and working in the development projects?

Mari Kontturi:
Yes, of course. The ScalED project you mentioned is coordinated by the University of Oulu and I think it has been a great opportunity to work and really focus on digital learning. When we started to think about our services and our products, we have built several networks with several stakeholders. We have organized and also participated in seminars and webinars with the aim to learn more about the situation in developing countries so that we could design our services based on the needs. I could mention a couple of examples like participating in eLearning Africa 2022. The event was organized in Rwanda. Also we organized workshops in Tanzania in 2022. I think that it is really important that we work closely together with local partners and also with the network of partners in Finland. We can’t do it alone. For sure there is a huge potential in digital learning, although there are also challenges. As a result of the ScalED project, I’m really excited that we will soon launch a capacity building project in Tanzania. The project is coordinated by educational consortium OSAO. Luovi and Oulu University of Applied Sciences are partners in that network. There we will work very closely with local VET (Vocational Education and Training) colleges. The focus of the capacity building project is on digital tools and also on teacher training.

Kimmo Kuortti:
Excellent, that’s fascinating. I looked a little bit at the ScalED project description and I noticed your role especially in the area of additional support theme in the project. You mentioned the challenges and I can’t help but to think about that digitalisation is by no means, although it has a lot of merits, a fix-all solution and one-size-fits-all solution. When we think about different realities of education globally, we really have to carefully consider how we’re going to apply, not just the digital tools or digital pedagogy, but any application. Especially in context of the additional needs, I think that the one very topical theme, the larger theme is that of inclusion and how inclusion and digitalisation fit together and work together in a meaningful, sensible way in development projects. Do you have in your mind, maybe some of the challenges that there are in this thematic area of inclusion, digitalisation and maybe even some examples of working solutions?

Elina Lehtomäki:
This is an important question. I think that recognition of challenges in the contexts and also from diverse perspectives is a key to inclusion. Not assuming that a fix-all solution works. I think finding alternative ways and plan A, B, C, D etc. is very important. Connectivity shortcuts can be problems in many contexts. In some cases, we have had a mobile phone being their most important assistive device, both for teachers as well as for learners with special needs, parents, caretakers and communities. When we develop these solutions and if we really carefully think about accessibility, it is very important that we have local experts, designers, users; that means students, teachers, parents in identifying the needs but also appropriate solutions. Co-development in different ways and mapping local partners. We do have organizations, civil society organizations, we do have expertise. I think the young generations are keen to learn and get skills in ICT. This means that we need to create also low threshold possibilities for participating in co-development. Another important issue is also that these good examples and good solutions for co-development need to be reported to local authorities and partners and show the possibilities. That means we validate and we can scale in partnership with several stakeholders across different fields and also learn across different fields. The challenges are to be expected, but I think through collaboration we can find different ways of working and that also includes materials and technology developments.

Kimmo Kuortti:
We definitely now go back to the theme that we talked about earlier; the importance of the cooperation of different stakeholders, local knowledge, local understanding of different groups locally. I think what you brought up is very interesting. The fact that no matter how small the approach to what we’re doing is, we absolutely need to ensure that the dissemination includes also the reporting back to local authorities, ensuring a coverage of what we’ve found, what we’ve done. In this way it increases the possibility that it will be taken up and will be used even more broadly. These are extremely interesting points of view that you brought up. Mari, what about you? You also have a long history of working with international partners. What is your take on this theme?

Mari Kontturi:
Well, I have to say that I have been really privileged that I have been able to be involved in so many networks in several countries. And met people who work in the field with people who need support in their studies. I have realized it’s not a surprise that there’s a huge demand for materials, something practical, practical tools and methods how these learners can be supported if we, for example, talk about developing countries now. It is really important that the teachers are trained to support the students. It’s crucial because learning difficulties are so common nowadays. So in a way we can say that all of us are of course different learners. It’s important that we recognize difficulties in learning as early as possible, so then it’s easier and we can support learners throughout their pathway to employment. Also digital tools and alternative communication methods can support learning. When we organized our workshops in Tanzania in the ScalED project, we realized that we don’t always have to think too big. It’s really the practical things that they wanted to get, some tips how they could deal with the young people who needed support, some materials, some very practical things. Of course, in the beginning we had an idea what could be the product for our service, but it was really important to get the feedback from the participants of these workshops to be able to design our services better together with them in the future. I really believe that sometimes we can make an impact also with small improvements.

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Kimmo Kuortti:
The last section of today’s podcast is the TOP 3 topics in the world of education to follow, where our guests have thought about 3 topics which they think are interesting and worth following. What would be topic number one? Elina, go ahead.

Elina Lehtomäki:
Thank you. What I would like to highlight is the role of education, the very important part that education and quality inclusive education has in this world. We need a just, peaceful and sustainable world and this is where education is really foundational. The sustainable development goals that Mari mentioned earlier function in interaction and everybody is needed. We do understand that there are many opportunities, there are risks, there are challenges, but we do need a just, peaceful and sustainable world. We will discuss these issues at an international conference in June organized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) together with an international research network. We try to find evidence, research findings, what works in this challenging world at the moment when many young people are worried about their future, are trying to find their place and also to improve their sense of belonging in this world. I think what we need is to share the goals through dialogue across different contexts, share our knowledge and also share our promising practices and that calls us to collaborate among partners, many stakeholders. There are strategies for that. In Finland we have participated in the European Union Africa Strategy development and Finland has its own Africa strategy. Africa has been highlighted because that’s where we have more challenges in the field of education than in other parts of the world at the moment. The young population is huge there and this young population certainly has interest in digital solutions, ICT in education and learning. Mari, I think you had a nice point on this.

Mari Kontturi:
Yes, when we think about Africa, I think that nowadays in Finland the authorities, organizations, they really want to promote participation opportunities for us when it comes to Africa. With this, I mean that there are several funding opportunities available and also that you don’t have to start from the very big projects like funded from the World Bank, but you can also take part in smaller ones. There’s really information and also funding available and Finnish organizations are nowadays encouraged to participate.

Kimmo Kuortti:
Thank you. That would be the topic number 1 on our TOP 3 educational phenomenon. What about the topic number 2?

Mari Kontturi:
Yes, IT, education and learning. One very practical example of an event which will take place in May in Senegal is eLearning Africa 2023. That would be a good place to learn more about the context in African countries. There will be professionals, authorities, decision makers from several countries from Africa and also Europe, I guess also overseas. It’s a great place to build networks and also to talk about your services, what you could offer for the development of IT in education and learning.

Elina Lehtomäki:
Yes, related to digital solutions to learning there are, for example, UNESCO and several other international agencies that organize seminars, conferences on open educational resources. They want to highlight the importance of our sharing good practices when it comes to open educational resources meant for teachers, learners and how we can create coalitions, corporation schemes to share materials and good practices on our learning material development, code designs, etcetera. There are regular conferences related to this issue of open education resources and digital tools in educational learning. That’s also a good opportunity for Finnish agencies, projects, partners to showcase their work in this field, but also to learn from partners and to network and find partners.

Kimmo Kuortti:
Excellent! We’ve already covered two of our TOP 3 educational phenomenon. What about the third topic?

Elina Lehtomäki:
I think we would say that it’s the technical vocational education (TVET) cooperation. The need for competency-based and learning through work approaches is recognized around the world internationally. In many of our partner countries, there’s a demand for developing competency-based and learning through work and also in the use of digital tools when it comes to developing competencies related to technical and vocational skills. That also addresses system development. Vocational education and learning is a part of education systems in many countries. It also involves other fields and there’s a need to work across different fields in technical vocational education system development. This field also has a strong connection to the implementation and advancement of all sustainable development goals.

Mari Kontturi:
Yes, that’s true. And if I could give one example or tip how a VET provider or other organization could get involved. There is this possibility under Erasmus+ program to apply for capacity building programs, for example, in African countries. That’s a very, let’s say it’s not easy, but not too demanding way to start collaboration in TVET sector, for example in Africa.

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Kimmo Kuortti:
Thank you very much Mari and Elina for this extremely interesting discussion. There are so many things here that at this point it becomes almost impossible to summarize everything that we have just discussed in a neat fashion. But if I take a couple of things that, at least in my case, created an impression and remained with me. It seems to me that we definitely need a genuine dialogue. I mean the dialogue needs to be between, obviously the so-called global North and the so-called global South, but more concretely, between the people involved in any kind of cooperation. This dialogue needs to be genuine and it needs to be very deep going indeed. There needs to be a real integration of local knowledge in any educational arrangements and institutions that are involved when we are working together. What I think you also underlined is the need for different stakeholders from all the way from parents to politicians. It really needs to be a very broad spectrum of different stakeholders in order to first of all, understand and appreciate the local reality, but secondly also to maximally ensure that what we do gets distributed, gets disseminated and hopefully takes root. The small good practices become general good practices and are adapted in larger context in more individual schools. We also need to be very sensitive in understanding how to culturally and contextually embed any educational solutions that we are developing or talking about. Those are the thoughts that remained with me having had the privilege of having this discussion with you. So thank you very much for this interesting discussion, Mari.

Mari Kontturi:
Thank you.

Kimmo Kuortti:
And Elina.

Elina Lehtomäki:
Thank you.

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Kimmo Kuortti:
Thank you for your interest. We hope that you will join the Oulu University of Applied Sciences School of Professional Teacher Education ProLearn Podcast also in the future. Follow us also in Facebook and Instagram. ProLearn Podcast is a podcast produced by Oulu University of Applied Sciences School of Professional Teacher Education.

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Additional information

This episode of ProLearn Podcast has been produced as part of ScalED Scalable Education Solutions for Global Markets project (ScalED – Digitaaliset koulutusratkaisut koulutusviennissä -hanke). The project is funded by Pohjois-Pohjanmaa Council of Oulu Region (Pohjois-Pohjanmaan liitto).

ProLearn Podcast is a podcast produced by Oulu University of Applied Sciences’ School of Professional Teacher Education.

Guests, Specialists: Elina Lehtomäki, Mari Kontturi
Host: Kimmo Kuortti
Script: Elina Lehtomäki, Mari Kontturi, Kimmo Kuortti
Director, Recorder, Editor, Mixer: Tommi Karjalainen
Music: Juha Pousi
Producers: Kimmo Kuortti, Tommi Karjalainen, Mari Kontturi, Elina Lehtomäki, Jussi Haukkamaa
Production: STUDIO AMOK; School of Professional Teacher Education, OAMK; ScalED Project
Production Year: 2023
Podcast License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Links:
UNESCO – Open Educational Resources, best practices https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/open-education-week-shines-light-implementing-unesco-oer-recommendation-best-practices
ANGEL Conference 2023 https://www.unesco.org/gem-report/en/articles/angel-conference-2023-global-education-just-peaceful-and-sustainable-world
eLearning Africa 2023 conference https://www.elearning-africa.com/conference2023/
FinCEED – The Finnish Centre of expertise in Education and Development
https://www.oph.fi/en/finceed-finnish-centre-expertise-education-and-development
https://www.oph.fi/fi/opetusalan-kehitysyhteistyon-osaamiskeskus-finceed
Abilympics https://abilympics-france.fr/en/

School of Professional Teacher Education (Oulu University of Applied Sciences – OAMK):
https://www.oamk.fi/en/study-at-oamk/school-of-professional-teacher-education
https://www.oamk.fi/fi/koulutus/ammatillinen-opettajakorkeakoulu/
https://www.facebook.com/oamk.amok
https://www.instagram.com/oamk_opekorkea/
https://www.youtube.com/OuluProLearn

Resurssin ylläpitäjä(t):

Sivu päivitetty 17.04.2023 10:56