From Dubai to Tel Aviv, the digital revolution is transforming education

From Dubai to Tel Aviv, the digital revolution is transforming education

In recent years, digital education has been gaining ground in the MENA region, helping to offset existing imbalances through innovation, while promoting the integration of societies.

Digital education, a booming sector

Like the rest of the world, the Middle East is no exception to the major upheaval  represented by the digital revolution applied to education. By inventing new learning devices  to compensate for the disparities in terms of tools and resources allocated by governments  to traditional education systems, thanks to AI and virtual and augmented reality, the digital  revolution is therefore responding to real needs.

UNESCO estimates that there are 100 million students in the region, where access to quality  education is highly unequal, leading to a particularly high level of home-based learning.  According to the World Bank, almost 60% of 15-year-olds use private tutoring (in Egypt  alone, more than 40% of private educational expenditure is devoted to this).

In Jordan, the Ministries of Education, Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship collaborated  with private companies (Edraak, Mawdoo3, Abwaab and JoAcademy) to develop e-learning  platforms, following the temporary closure of schools. In Israel, the start-up nation par  excellence, however, visionary entrepreneurs did not wait for the turning point of the Covid 19 pandemic and its decisive impact on teachers and students before embarking on the  adventure. The sector, though niche, is dynamic and attracts foreign investors, like  Microsoft, which has invested in the EdTech Israel hub, founded in 2017 and since attached  to Start Up Nation Central, the NGO that promotes the Israeli tech ecosystem.

With some forty start-ups and a booming market estimated at nearly 7.6 billion by 2027, ed  tech reveals a wealth of regional potential.

Innovating, encouraging, and bringing people together
 

Anand Kadian, CEO of KITMEK, the Middle East's first interactive digital school based in  Dubai, understands the challenges and developments at work. For $1 a month, his platform  offers students multilingual teaching covering the entire curriculum from kindergarten to  college, in a metaverse with AI-created teachers. Accessible without an Internet connection,  on a basic telephone, it also gives underprivileged children free access, thanks to a  sponsorship system.


Manal Hakim, Founder and CEO of Geek Express

Winner of Cartier's Women Initiatives in 2021, Lebanese entrepreneur Manal Hakim is  behind the Geek Express platform, dedicated to learning science, technology, engineering  and mathematics (STEM skills) through personalized coding programs, home DIY kits and  access to an online community that spans from Egypt to the Gulf. The entrepreneur proudly  notes that 60% of learners are girls, for a field of study that accounts for only 25% in the rest  of the world. Many of them use this tool as a springboard to university. In a region where  girls' access to secondary and higher education remains a major challenge, ed tech plays an  emancipating role, corrects inequalities and even inspires vocations.

At the level of civil society, digital teaching and learning tools have also facilitated the  promotion of dialogue and encounters between communities. The Israeli LingoLearn  platform, for example, aims to be the first online Arabic school for a Jewish audience, hiring  Palestinian university students to teach their mother tongue.  

From Dubai to Tel Aviv, via Beirut and Amman, digital education is a veritable breeding  ground for innovative, high-impact initiatives that transcend national, social and cultural  boundaries.

Sources :

Accelerating the EdTech ecosystem in the Middle East and North Africa (worldbank.org)

The Futures of Teaching in the Arab States and beyond: The International Task Force on Teachers,  UNESCO,
and Hamdan Foundation reflect on the changing nature of the teaching profession |  UNESCO

Middle East and Africa EdTech and Smart Classroom Market to Grow at a CAGR of 9.8% to reach US$  7,626.1
Million from 2020 to 2027 (theinsightpartners.com)

MENA: EdTech’s Sleeping Giant. by Nafez Dakkak and Mujtaba Wani | by Mujtaba Wani | GSV  Ventures | Medium

Manal Hakim - Geek Express - 2021 Fellow for The Middle East & North Africa (youtube.com)

Comment l'IA et l’apprentissage à distance transforment l'éducation au Moyen-Orient | Arab News  FR