PROMOTIONAL: UNICEF joins forces with Microsoft and Cambridge to tackle education crisis
On 26 September, UNICEF announced a new partnership with Microsoft Corp. and the University of Cambridge to address the education crisis affecting displaced and refugee children across the globe.
UNICEF’s Office of Innovation unique collaboration will see the development of an online ‘learning passport’, with the aim of facilitating learning opportunities for over 75 million children within and across land borders.
The learning passport will be a digital, personalized, accredited learning platform aimed to enable children, who have had their learning disrupted due to displacement or other circumstances, to access educational resources.
UNICEF said they will be testing and piloting the digital platform scheme in countries hosting refugees, migrants, and internally displaced persons, such as Italy and Greece.
In the long term, the learning passport will help to strengthen domestic education systems so that governments see themselves as a guarantor of accessible schools for their citizens, instead of abdicating that vital role.
It should push for partnerships between government and business to boost domestic resources and make sure every child has the right to a quality education.
The announcement also expands UNICEF’s digital child protection case management system, as all three parties will also be working to develop other new innovations to protect young people affected by emergencies.
The Innovation Office is driven by an interdisciplinary team of individuals tasked with discovering technologies and practices that strengthen the organisation’s work.
Innovation is vital to UNICEF’s mission statement, which is to advocate for the protection of children's rights, to find solutions to the evolving challenges affecting all children, and to expand young people’s opportunities to reach their full potential.
Access to information is essential to UNICEF who push to connect the world’s most marginalized populations across continents, so that they have entry to the most basic needs, as well opportunity and choice.
About UNICEF UKC
UNICEF works to provide both emergency aid and long-term development projects to some of the most vulnerable children in 155 countries.
UNICEF helps children receive the support, healthcare, and education they need to survive the threats of childhood poverty—such as preventable diseases or malnutrition—and grow up to become healthy adults.
UNICEF on Campus (University of Kent) is a student initiative supporting the work of UNICEF through both fundraising activities and awareness-raising events at the University and in the wider community.
Like the organisation itself, UNICEF on Campus aims to build important partnerships to help highlight the key issues facing young people across the planet. By working with other clubs and societies on campus like the Kent Caribbean Union, UNICEF on Campus are able to discuss these issues in depth and find new ways to fundraise and spread their message.
To find out more about UNICEF on Campus and their upcoming events visit their Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UnicefUKC/
Follow them on Instagram: @unicef_ukc
To donate online, visit: https://www.unicef.org.uk/donate/
