by Md. Afzal Hossain Sarwar (a2i), Iqbal Hossain (UNICEF Bangladesh) and Tom Kaye (EdTech Hub)

In recent months, the EdTech Hub has produced a range of documents to support and guide countries as they develop and implement plans to help students keep learning during school closures. Some of the work we have produced includes:

• a guide to a five-part response to COVID-19
• our analysis of effective COVID-19 response plans
• technical notes on zero-rating and virtual learning environments
• guidance on using technology to support gender equity, social inclusion and out-of-school learning. 

In this post, The EdTech Hub joined up with Md. Afzal Hossain Sarwar from a2i and Iqbal Hossain from UNICEF Bangladesh to highlight how Bangladesh has so far responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and lessons learned along the way.  #

As schools began to close earlier in the year, at the EdTech Hub we started to look at how governments pivoted to distance learning, with a number of country case studies exploring this shift. While the full case studies will be released soon, this blog gives an overview of the first of these into India’s response.

The onset of COVID-19 dealt a huge blow to the Indian education system —  one of the largest in the world. In this blog we ask: How has the system responded? What technologies have been put in place to support distance learning?

Over the last months, the Hub has been collaborating with the Central Square Foundation (CSF) to document the Indian governments’ education response to COVID-19, particularly the use of technology to support distance learning at the primary and lower secondary level.