Bridgeit Mobile Technology Program

Pearson is proud to be a partner in Bridgeit, a multi-sector partnership that brings interactive, multimedia education programs to local classrooms around the world.

The result of a partnership that includes the Pearson Foundation, Nokia, the International Youth Foundation, and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Bridgeit combines familiar mobile products and existing wireless technologies to deliver educational programs to teachers and students who otherwise would not have access to these materials. As a result, teachers anywhere in the world have the power to select and receive digital educational programming—videos, pictures, text, or audio files—over mobile technology already in use in their community.

At present, the Pearson Foundation is working closely with teachers, education ministers, and representatives from IYF to introduce a fully localized version of the Bridgeit program to Tanzania. In the next two years, the project will target a minimum of 1,000 primary school teachers and 10,000 rural and urban primary school students. Representatives from schools in four districts—Temeke, Kimono, Bagamoyo and Lindi—are already participating in the program. An additional 180 schools in other districts were reached during the pilot phase, which started in January 2009.

In Tanzania—as has been the case since the program’s inception—the Pearson Foundation helped to define and manage the program’s general educational objectives. As was the case when Bridgeit first launched in the Phillipines, we have managed the correlation of more than 100 math, science, and language arts videos supplied by Pearson’s KnowledgeBox video-based learning program. In addition, we have worked closely with local educators to develop curriculum-focused lesson plans that introduce these materials in the context of the their National Curriculum; we’ve also developed the model for the annual professional development that supports teachers who participate in the program.

This emphasis on local needs and competencies has been key to the success of the Bridgeit program in the Philippines. Bridgeit received two awards from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) in 2004. In addition, an independent study issued by the Philippines National Institute for Science and Mathematics Education Development (NISMED) credited the Bridgeit program with improving teachers’ competence and attitudes in using technology and with spurring school officials, parents, and community leaders to support technology-enhanced lessons. The study also found that students’ performance and attitudes toward science and technology raised significantly as a result of their participation in the program.

These results have made it possible to expand the Bridgeit program every year since it was first introduced. In the Philippines, the program currently provides more than 120,000 elementary school children in more than 210 schools a customized library of timely educational material linked directly to the Philippine National Curriculum. In addition, almost 1,000 teachers and more than 200 school administrators have received professional development training as part of the program.