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Doreen Bogdan-Martin 

Is this thing on? Can you hear me?

Technical Moderator

Yes, we can, loud and clear. Thank you.

Welcome to the latest episode of the UNconnected, a podcast series about information, communication technologies and development with Doreen Bogdan Martin, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin 

I am so happy to have with me today, His Excellency, Minister David Sengeh.

He is the Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education. He's also the Chief Innovation Officer for the government of Sierra Leone. He's also a known Afrobeats rapper, and a fashion designer too.

Minister David, it's so nice to have you here with us. You got to tell us how you do all of those amazing things you do.

We here in the ITU’s Development Sector are gearing up with many of our partners and sister UN agencies for the Transforming Education Summit, which of course will take place in New York, at the end of September. And of course, who better to have with us today than a true role model — someone who's been working tirelessly to transform education in his country through very innovative methods.

In the past, Minister, you have mentioned the need to use technology to promote equity in education. You've described the possibilities for radical inclusion in this vein, and of course, ITU and UNICEF's Giga school connectivity initiative — that we're so happy that you are part of — is very much focused on that transformational potential of connectivity and digital technologies to ensure that learners are exposed to information, opportunity and choice.

Giga has connected 1.6 million students in 19 countries, and Sierra Leone is a critical partner. And we're looking forward to our Giga Accelerate to connect 77 schools over the next couple of months. And, of course, we’re take Giga to the next level with our host country of Switzerland, and our Technology Centre opening soon in Barcelona. AI would love to hear your views as well, on Giga.

So, Minister David, let me get to the first question, let's perhaps start by talking about your vision. In a World Bank blog earlier this year, you describe the hybrid EdTech strategy and the vision that you have for Sierra Leone. Can you share a little bit about this vision for our listeners?

H.E. David Moinina Sengeh

Yes, thank you, thank you very much Doreen. It's such a pleasure to be here and have a conversation with you about such an important topic, which is education transformation in our countries and across the world as well.

There cannot be a better time to think about what works well, and how we learn from each other, and how we amplify those lessons in education.

For us in Sierra Leone, really President Bio had vision and the framework for ensuring that everybody can access education. So when he came in 2018, he launched the free quality school education, which focuses on access. And really, it's about equitable access and ensuring that all learners can have access to quality teaching and learning — that's materials, the teachers, the curriculum.

And in that process, we had to come up with a policy on radical inclusion, which then said: Yes, we can make sure that all learners can access school. But we knew that there were certain barriers that existed for special groups — those are girls, those are parent learners, those are people with disabilities and special needs, seen and unseen. Those who are poor, and those who live in far and hard to reach areas.

And one thing that became clear is that when you’re building for radical inclusion, and you, you have to deploy technology, and I have also been saying that when you deploy technology, you have to use hybrid technology. That means you go from the pen to the spaceship, and you go from a book to the metaverse. And we know that space is where Internet connectivity comes from a lot. But so, when we speak about learning, we have to make sure that kids are connected, but they also have to have the basic pen and pencil to write with.

And you see in the COVID era and post COVID, even though we brought hybrid solutions, we have online learning solutions, we have radio teaching, we also developed content and paper in books that we send to communities that did not have access — that the effect what you saw was post COVID, we actually had more people come back to school, we had more girls enrolled in school in Sierra Leone, post COVID than before COVID. And this has to do with the hybrid methods that we used.

Technology plays a critical role in this. When we speak about quality tuition, connectivity then becomes very important for us. And this is why the Giga project is really central to what we do and to our vision to ensuring that kids far away, kids in remote areas, kids with poor backgrounds, can have solutions that work not just on the smartphones, but also just basic SMS and USSD.

One solution, for example, that we created, was a result checker. And what that does is, when a child takes the national exam, they used to spend up to 10 bucks or 10 US dollars, or it takes between four to seven weeks for them to access their results. Many of them do not know which schools they are placed to. Today, anybody with a phone, just a simple dumb phone, SMS, can access the results, immediately as the results come out. And we see that in the first half day, that we launched results for primary school this year, over 200,000 people were able to access that.

We also have a dictionary, we take the dictionary for granted, perhaps in many other parts of the world. But it’s important. We all use it as adults, to spellcheck and everything else. And we have an SMS based dictionary that you can use to check a word and also USSD solutions. So these low tech solutions are also very important to improving [the] quality [of] learning that exists.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin 

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that. I mean, it’s fascinating, and I love that pen to spaceship and book to metaverse, but maybe just a quick follow on because you’ve mentioned something that’s not the case in most countries. And that’s the piece about girls — having more girls — post COVID. Why do you think you were successful? Because we’ve seen the numbers of girls that were impacted, lost out on education, and the numbers of girls that are likely never to go back. So how do you think you were able to up your numbers, when it comes to girls’ education?

H.E. David Moinina Sengeh

I think political, and policy, and then just engagement with stakeholders. At the political level, the President is a champion of quality education and girls’ education.

There is no opportunity that the President has to speak anywhere, on any topic, in which he does not speak about education, and about girls’ education specifically.

So, this means that the President goes around the country [and] invites local leaders like paramount chiefs of staff. They know as well what the President likes to hear. So they speak about education and girls education. And so everybody's incentivized at the highest level in government to the local council. And people speak about that.

And for us, as a ministry, when COVID was coming, when we knew we're going to lock down, we went around the country and soon after, to engage people, we have what we call, ‘zero school girl pregnancy campaign’. We went to each district, met all primary teachers, all religious leaders, all parents and said, look, what happened during Ebola was that a lot of our girls, several thousands of girls got pregnant and they dropped out during the school closures. We also know that there's high pregnancies during the long break when girls take transition exams from primary to secondary, or from junior secondary to senior secondary.

So, we wanted to make sure that these girls were not staying at home longer than they needed to be, such that people can take advantage of them. And we also, with radical inclusion, welcomed back pregnant girls to school, engaged on comprehensive sexuality education in the curriculum, and everywhere just really met with pregnant women, bike riders, motorist union, trade union, religious leaders and said: we have the responsibility. You go to church and somebody's preaching about radical inclusion; you go to a mosque, somebody's speaking about how we need to protect our girls. And this is why.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin 

That's amazing. And you're sort of leading me into my next question, which is focused on impact. In the context of Sierra Leone, can you give us some examples or stories on how the use of digital technologies and education concretely can change the course of someone's education?

H.E. David Moinina Sengeh

I think there's one example as well linked to similar partnerships that we have with UNICEF, with Microsoft, is learning passports. And the learning passports is a framework where we can build an online-offline, offline as well, app where children and parents and everybody can access content, digital content, to support their learning, and we have rolled this out in Sierra Leone.

And for the first-time people can, for example, access past papers for exams so they can practice and prep and understand. They can access curriculum material that they never had access to. They can access books…that they never had access to. And this speaks through technology.

The radio teaching programme is another one that's really transformational in Sierra Leone, where there’s radio everywhere, and you have very high percentages, I think 80% plus in many districts during COVID and post COVID, listening to the radio teaching programme. We also use a radio teaching programme to help teachers with their professional development – we  read books there, we ensure that children are asking questions and getting responses. So, radio was a good example of how we used technology.

And I mentioned SMS solutions were built, SMS solutions like a dictionary, Word of the Day. I am signed up to Word of the Day for the advanced level. And I learn these words that I don't know myself every day.

And so, you have all these kids around, who on their parent’s phone can access Word of the Day, and they can learn but they can also use the dictionaries through USSD and SMS solutions.

I think when it comes down to it, really, it’s about sensitization and making sure that people have access to the right information.

Look, I’m the Chief Innovation Officer for the country as well. And four years ago, I remember going on the radio and speaking about technology, and everybody says: ‘Ah, leave us with technology. Wow, can you speak about technology when quality education is so poor, when health is so poor?’

And today, everybody, everywhere tells you: ‘Oh, my God, thank you so much for the technology in education, because I can check my results immediately when it comes out.’ ‘Oh, my God, thank you so much for technology in education because I can see the past papers and prepare better for exams.’

And with impact, to your question, we can really only drive impact when we solve challenges that people themselves did not know they needed was at the top of their priorities, they did not know that it needs to be solved. But once we solve their challenges, they can't live without it.

If you tell them that when the results come out, they will not be able to check it on their phones, automatically, no matter where they are, they will think you're crazy. They will think: ‘What — what do you mean, it's not possible?’

And if you ask people about now, one of the solutions we are also rolling out is in the health sector. This is wearing my Chief of Innovation hat– where we are building solutions to register pregnant women so that pregnant women can use their phone to get messages about appointments and to know when certain things are due. And those things that are possible, then the impact is it will lead to reduce maternal mortality, which is something we care about.

So, the way I think about impact is solving people's immediate problems and problems that they themselves felt was impossible, that they just accepted as problems, but when you remove them, it will change just how they experience government and life.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin

Amazing. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you for that.

Let me ask you: In terms of advice or recommendations before, you had stressed the importance of that government leadership commitment — the political will. And as we approach this Transforming Education Summit, would you have advice for the international community? And maybe to add to that, recommendations for the UN? And of course, those of us working on school connectivity?

H.E. David Moinina Sengeh

Yeah, I think it's such an important question. You know, I am writing a book called Radical Inclusion: Seven Steps Toward Creating a More Just Society.

But one part in radical inclusion, in those steps, speaks about identifying your role, your who and when. But a critical part to that is also about knowing when not to lead and knowing when not to be the person who’s representing and championing something.

I think with our development partners, and international partners, it’s understanding that in whatever coalition that exists, it’s about knowing when you are not the right messenger — the message, we all align in the message — but you might not be the right messenger is really important.

And it requires some sense of self awareness, understanding other people’s ability and the respect within the partnership. I think as we seek to transform education, and we all care about shared goals, we all care about connectivity, digital transformation, healthy and safe schools, skills, and teachers and finance. They assign things within the context that we find ourselves.

We may not be the right messengers, and if we’re not the right messengers, we should be humble enough and supportive enough of the global vision to transform education to say: ‘Oh, no, you know look, I’m not the right person to do this, Doreen! I think ITU should be the one who’s having these conversations in these other rooms.’ And when we’re over here, you can say: ‘Yeah, David, I think now’s your turn, you are the better person to lead this conversation.’ And when we do that, I think we'll be using our right energies to move the best levers to really transform education.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin 

Really important thoughts there — I look forward to reading the book and to learning more about those seven steps, but really important points there. Thank you, Minister David. So finally, this is my last question that I like to ask all of my interviewees. What was your first mobile device? And how did it change your life?

H.E. David Moinina Sengeh

It's very interesting. It's a, it's a game, right? But cell phone connectivity was a Nokia, I think, 2210 or something, it was Nokia 3210 [maybe], one of those very early Nokia solutions. And I remember that I played lots of Snake on it, but also used it for messaging a lot. And I didn't own a personal computer until I went to college in the U.S.

And I think it's an element where we think about connectivity, we think about connectivity, just in the infrastructure means often, you know, the internet, the cables, the lines. But these devices – connectivity is also just about connecting people, connecting ideas and connecting us to, between solutions and problems — connecting us in ways in which it's about a network of people, who work trying to solve problems in our countries.

Now, as I mentioned it linking back to Snake. Snake was building, right. It's about building as much long of a chain within a defined space that you can find.

I don't think it was teaching me back then for connectivity in our world now, but I can see how it really is important that we learn how to connect, individually with people within our networks, within our societies, connect to the problems that exist, not just our problems, also other people, and see how we solve them. And that's what I always remember about the device that I had.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin 

Great. Well, thank you. Thank you for sharing that with us.

Thank you so much, Minister Sengeh, our leader of radical inclusion. Really thank you for spending the time with us today. And thank you for all that you do to bring education and technology to all. I think you're a real inspiration to all of us and grateful for sharing those fascinating stories and insights.

H.E. David Moinina Sengeh

Thank you.

Doreen Bogdan-Martin 

And finally, to all our listeners, I'd like to leave you with a fitting track by Minister David himself called ‘Power to the Youth’.

[Music playing]

Doreen Bogdan-Martin  That concludes this episode of the UNconnected podcast. Until next time, let's all stay connected.