Connect to Educate (Conectar para educar): Multimodal Preschool Education
How do we reach scattered rural populations with limited internet access to offer remote preschool services? This project will support the entities of Colombia’s Cross-Sector Committee for Comprehensive Early Childhood Services (CIPI) as they solidify the scalable version of the Conectar para Educar strategy to offer multi-modal preschool services. It will offer educational content via different channels to promote the development of children and their families, as well as remote training (for caregivers, educators, and preschool teachers).
Problematic
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in risks for early education and preschool services. These risks include potential developmental and learning losses because of the lack of in-person and structured educational experiences in enriched environments, as well as exposure to psycho-social pressures at home, which can lead to stress or episodes of domestic violence among family members or against children. These risks can also arise in other emergencies, like natural disasters, that limit in-person early childhood services.
Solution
To mitigate these risks and pursue comprehensive development for Colombia’s children, the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar— ICBF) and Ministry of Education (MEN) have turned to remote service strategies. However, the effectiveness of these strategies is curbed by the lack of knowledge about providing this type of service and/or by internet access gaps. These obstacles can be viewed as opportunities to strengthen distance learning systems over the short- and medium-term. With the IDB's support, the CIPI, ICBF, and MEN launched phase 1 of Conectar para Educar to address this issue. This phase focused on designing the strategy (identifying the best channels for reaching scattered populations without internet access and compiling and validating distance learning content and resources) and designing a technological tool for remote human resource training. Phase 2 will strengthen the strategy with the scalable version of all parts of its operational implementation plan. The project will use rapid and iterative methods to design and validate all components.
Evaluation and Impact
The project takes an iterative approach to implementing and evaluating its strategy and operational plan, using rapid and streamlined assessment methods to continually redesign pilot implementation strategies according to the needs and preferences of each region (iterative design-testing-adjustment cycles). The project will implement a pilot version in around six municipalities that mirror the true conditions of areas with scattered populations and/or limited internet access in the country.