In a bid to improve access to the learning platform of Waka Moana, the Institute of Education, in collaboration with UNESCO and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), has launched an initiative to distribute tablets to two schools in Tonga.
The receiving schools had earlier participated in piloting the program, where both teachers and students could use the tablets to access and draw learning resources from the Waka Moana moodle website, the Waka Moana repository, and the Waka Moana offline learning platform.
The distribution of the 45 tablets will be used to support teaching and learning, with the Waka Moana platform richly loaded with teaching and learning materials.
This will provide students with access to a wealth of learning resources, improving their academic and learning skills performance, and overall educational experience. Representatives from the Institute of Education noted that it was just the beginning of a broader initiative aimed at improving access to these educational resources.
Waka Moana’s learning platform has been established for six Pacific Small Island Developing States, namely: Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Tuvalu.
Of these six countries, three countries (i.e. Tonga, Kiribati, Marshall Islands) were chosen for the piloting.
The Waka Moana is focused on the development of the regional open-source learning platform for distance and blended learning, establishing the regional repository of curriculum-aligned teaching and learning resources, and developing the capacity of teachers and other educational personnel in the Pacific region.
The Waka Moana Learning platform has been established and designed using the curriculum of the six Pacific Island countries in Year 7/Form 1 Mathematics, Science, and English to identify the core common topics among these countries.
The initiative serves as a testament to the importance of collaborative efforts between the Institute of Education, GPE, and UNESCO to address pressing social and educational issues and bridge the digital divide to make access to resources efficient for our students.
