Committee: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

Agenda 4: Ensuring Quality Education & Increasing accessibility to e-learning for children.
Name: Niza Chadha,
Delegate of South Africa.
Quality education is a type of education that emphasizes on the all-round growth of a child –
mental, cognitive, social, emotional, and physical, irrespective of caste, race, gender, etc. It
prepares children to face life, not just exams. Enrollment in primary education in developing
countries is currently at 91%, but 57 million children do not attend school even now, more
than half of which live in Sub-Saharan Africa. E-learning is an alternative solution to
traditional classroom learning, by the usage of technology to support and augment learning.
It can be as simple as students watching a video in class or as multifaceted as a university
course done online. E-learning goes together with technology, making the potential
boundless. According to the 2019 South Africa’s General Household Survey (GHS), there
were roughly 14.6 million pupils in schools. The Human Rights Measurement Initiative
(HRMI) found out that South Africa is satisfying only 72.1% of what it should be fulfilling
towards educational goals based on the country’s income. Since the start of higher
education, nearly all South African universities have been reliant on on face-to-face learning.
However, student protests and the pandemic posed many challenges to the country’s
education system, some of which they overcame, some of which became major hurdles.
The Jakes Gerwel Fellowship (JGF), a university scholarship that helps top students to
become skilled teachers has partnered with WEW, as the South African country partner, to
support local schools with the simplification of their online events. The process of e-learning
is now evident in Africa, which, with accordance to UNESCO, has 30 million primary-age
children not attending school, which is over half the global total. According to a fresh report
from Ambient Insights, Africa is a region in the world where e-learning revenues are highly
likely to increase, which South Africa on top of the market. The country’s tactic to e-learning
must become accustomed to the local challenges, like lack of internet access and electricity,
and slow or expensive internet. South Africa’s universities have been fronting a crisis, with
learning centers being closed due to students protesting fee rises. This is where e-learning
steps in, and helps the students to continue with their education. The University of South
Africa (UNISA), which teaches by the method of distance learning, has over 310,000 South
African and international students registered, which is a major step for South Africa to
expand its horizon regarding e-learning.
There are many organizations which are now stepping forward in the development of
education. UNESCO is helping to create an intercultural dialogue through global education.
They also launched the COVID-19 Global Education Coalition in March 2020. UNICEF has the
aim to fulfill global education goals such as the 2 Millennium Goals that focus on education,
and accomplishing equity in education. Education International, as a part of their campaign,
help to combat racism and xenophobia, and encounter several kinds of discrimination. The
Global Partnership for Education states that they have assisted in enrolling 22 million more
children in school, improved literacy rates globally to 81% in 2010, and increased primary
school completion to 75% in 2011.
To increase the quality of education, the following steps can be taken: Ensuring the
attendance at the schools, prioritize the concept of ‘learning for all’, implementation of
policies, and teach the children and parents the importance of education.
To help achieve the goals of e-learning, we can do the following things: Keep the sources
visually simple, with the right colours and fonts (to make it pleasant), use microlearning,
consider social media to engage students and facilitators and use diverse social platforms,
engage with the learners, etc.
REFERENCES:
 https://palnetwork.org/what-do-we-mean-by-a-quality-education/
 https://leverageedu.com/blog/quality-education/
 https://www.bellevuecollege.edu/elearning/start/intro/
 http://idp.bl.uk/4DCGI/education/e_learning/index.a4d
 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-00603-x
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_South_Africa
 https://www.gov.za/about-sa/education
 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-38717976
 https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/education/
 https://www.un.org/en/academic-impact/enabling-quality-remote-learning-during-
pandemic
 https://borgenproject.org/7-organizations-supporting-global-education/
 https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/featurephilia/story/role-of-education-
global-development-1366470-2018-10-11
 https://elearningindustry.com/increase-elearning-engagement-9-simple-steps

Thank You!