Jazz Celebrates the Success of its Smart Schools Programme

Synopsis
A ceremony was held to celebrate the success of the Jazz Smart School (JSS) Programme Shafqat Mahmood, Federal Minister for Education, Ursula Burns, VEON’s CEO and Chairman, and Saif Chi, Huawei’s CEO graced the occasion to commend the team behind the programme and encourage its adoption in all middle schools of Islamabad. Under Jazz sustainability programme, 25,000 young middle school girls and over 900 teachers have been trained to learn via blended learning tools. As a result, they will be fully equipped digitally, in a public school context where not many of them had used any digital device before.

Summary
Launched in October 2017, the JSS programme has been hailed a success story so far.
A digital sustainability initiative under VEON’s ‘Make Your Mark’ programme, the JSS programme focuses on deploying a smart learning solution through a digital blended learning platform. Launched as a two-year pilot with Knowledge Platform, the programme has recorded significant improvement in five areas: student learning outcomes; teaching quality; student engagement; expanded use of technology; and improved accountability and monitoring of results.
In Pakistan, where 38% school going students hardly know how to string a sentence in any language or do basic math, the programme has successfully taught 28,000+ middle school girls in 75 public schools of Islamabad. Over 800 female teachers have been trained on how to use technology to teach using JSS’s smart learning platform. Since the programme, both the assessments of students and the training capacity of teachers have improved considerably.

To celebrate this success, a ceremony was held, where Shafqat Mahmood, Federal Minister for Education, Ursula Burns, VEON’s CEO and Chairman and Saif Chi, Huawei’s CEO graced the occasion to commend the team behind the programme and encourage its adoption in all middle schools of Islamabad. The ceremony was also a way to recognize top performers from amongst the programme. 100 top performing students received tablets and certificates by Burns and Mahmood.

On the need to expand such digitally enabled educational initiatives across the country, Mahmood stated,

“Digital skills are a priority for us because they enable learning on a larger and more effective scale. We will be able to bridge the digital literacy divide in Pakistan with programs like the Jazz Smart Schools.”

“The results clearly confirm how Jazz and Pakistan Federal Directorate of Education is committed to the digital transformation of Pakistan’s youth. Digital education is the future and I’m very pleased to see that the students at Jazz Smart Schools have taken to it like any other child in the Silicon Valley. We hope that this program is now implemented across the country, as it is in line with not only the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030 but the Pakistan government’s strategic vision 2025.” said Burns.

VEON’s CEO and Chairman encourages the government to adopt the program nationwide