REACHING LAST-MILE LEARNERS IN THE PHILIPPINES THROUGH THE SAMSUNG SMART CLASSROOM

The Philippines has more than forty thousand (40.000) public schools across the archipelago, which around a ninth are located in very remote areas with no electricity, transportation infrastructure or internet connectivity. These are the so called off-grid schools, with an estimation of 900,000 students. These schools are situated in communities that are composed mostly of indigenous peoples or tribes. The school children in these schools lack of learning resources, and the schools themselves have very low enrollment rates and high dropout rates.

Samsung Philippines partnered with the Philippine Department of Education (DepEd) to reach these last-mile learners through the Samsung SMART Classroom program. In early 2015, Samsung and DepEd started establishing the Samsung SMART Classroom program in six selected schools in these remote, inaccessible areas. The solar-powered Classroom included equipment such as learning tablets and laptops, a charging station, mini-server and wireless access points. More important, the Samsung SMART Classroom also included e-learning modules which the teachers and students can access offline. These learning modules provided instructional and assessment tools for the teachers. They supplemented traditional materials and covered Grades 1 to 12. Teacher training was also regularly provided to the teachers and school administrators, to improve their pedagogical approaches. Students were encouraged to study at home in the evenings through the use of individual solar-powered lamps, replacing the hazardous kerosene lamps that they used at home. In 2015, six schools were covered by the program, with around 1000 school children and 80 teachers and administrators.

Initial evaluation by Samsung and DepEd indicates that the Samsung SMART Classroom is bringing positive results in terms of increased engagement, higher test scores, increased enrollment rates and decreased dropout rates. Students have also improved their communication and collaboration skills. With the use of e-learning modules, teachers have developed teaching materials that are more suited to the particular tribe or indigenous group that the children belong to. The Department of Education has recognized the changes brought by the program and is scaling it in other off-grid schools.