Open Learning Exchange (OLE) Ghana Awarded ‘All Children Reading’ Grant from USAID

Open Learning Exchange (OLE) Ghana, has been awarded a grant by USAID to implement its Ghana Reads innovation. This is part of USAID's 'All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development' program. OLE Ghana was among thirty two awardees whose innovations were celebrated during World Literacy Day Celebrations in Washington, USA. The Ghana Reads' program is expected to drastically improve the literacy outcomes among Ghanaian children.

“The majority of our world's two billion children lives in or near poverty and have little or no access to a quality education. This is an unsustainable injustice and an intolerable waste of human talent,” said OLE Ghana Executive Director, Kofi Essien. “Since the ability to read is the most basic skill required to overcome such poverty, one of humanity's greatest challenges is to invent ways to ensure that all of our children are reading. If we fail, tragically, their vast potential will be lost to all of us.”

Over the next two years, pupils and teachers in an initially selected twenty schools, in partnership with the OLE team, will work to transform their traditional, rote learning classrooms into dynamic, interactive centers of learning through the use of the innovative OLE School BeLL (Basic eLearning Library) System. The BeLL which is powered by the $35 Raspberry Pi sever is designed to work on and/or off the electric grid as well as the Internet, ensuring that the most marginalized students in resource-limited areas have access to high quality, learning resources. The feedback functionality worked into the BeLL system which sends usage data to a central location from where such data is made available to educational authorities, curriculum developers, resources developers etc will greatly enhance improvements in the quality of education delivery. OLE Ghana will be carrying out the implementation with the support of Open Learning Exchange International (OLE Inc), based in Cambridge, MA.

Dr. Richard Rowe, CEO of Open Learning Exchange International, points out that “Ghana Reads is not a program that relies on technology to magically improve education, rather it begins with coaches who help teachers transition from "instructors" to mentors. OLE's low-cost technologies support this pedagogical shift by radically increasing their access to high quality, interactive learning resources and, through the use of very low-cost hand-held devices, allow children to climb their own learning ladders at their own pace.”

Open Learning Exchange is a global community of educational entrepreneurs creating and freely sharing innovations that can be scaled to all children, especially the most marginalized, in ways that unleash their immeasurable talents.

For more information on OLE Ghana, visit http://www.ole.org.gh/. For more information on OLE International, visit: http://ole.org