Implementing Digital Technologies to Support Remote Learning During the COVID-19 Crisis: Lessons from Egypt (episode in English)

[Music] Hello and welcome to our series and lessons learned from four education. From the pandemic, we are all too familiar with the education. The difficulties that we are facing, 1.5 billion students all around the world have been locked out from their schools. One of the things that are taking away from this experience is that learning is not a place but an activity that education systems need to become a lot more resilient. And that technology and education must work better together. But you also know that real change often happens in deep crisis. So this moment also holds the possibility that we don't just get back to the status quo when things return to normal. And this is exactly what the series of conferences is about. The OECD, the World Bank, the Global Education Innovation Initiative at Harvard University and the Innovation Pioneer 100 have worked together to compile an amazing set of examples of successful transformations. These are education systems that have not just continued to do what they have always done with technology means but that have used the momentum actually to create new educational experiences. And one of those is Egypt and we are fortunate to have with us Minister Tarek Shafke. And Tarek, actually you have been a long term pioneer for digital transformation in education. This is not a new topic for you but what many saw perhaps as your hobby has suddenly and overnight become the lifeline for educational success. In your country but all around the world for example the Egyptian knowledge bank for perhaps a nice to have add on to a basic education now sort of it's the heart of education is perhaps the only way for many young people in Egypt to access the curriculum. So let me turn over to you and sort of get a sense of how you got from this first day of the crisis in this initial period but also what I'd be particularly interested in is how you kept teachers on board in this kind of scale transformation. Well that's a good question I like your comments Andreas the world has been discussing prior to COVID-19 a lot about digital divide about the value of technology and all of those things but now this has changed dramatically after COVID-19. Let me say first that I can proudly state that in Egypt we have been fortunate to leave no child behind in the entire education system every child from kg one until grade 12 has been has completed the school year and has been tested. And move to the next year so that's what we managed to do if you allow me to just share with you few slides very quickly on what we did since this has started. I hope you can see the slide now schools we were struck by school suspension exactly on March 15th and that came to us as a shock and I guess all around the world so we had to really manage this our goal was to proceed with learning and assessments for all students not to finish the year abruptly like that. And you said we were fortunate to have been working for a while since 2014 on the digital transformation we started a big project with the World Bank also on that and we're building a new education system they came handy but we had to really be creative here so let me tell you that immediately almost the second day we told every student in every grade the amount of curriculum that they are responsible for we ended the curriculum. On March 15th we held them responsible for whatever they studied until that date and we elaborated the details in those images you see to the right then as you said we had the Egyptian knowledge bank but we scramble within a week in less than a week we put together a new portal we call it study dot ekb dot e g this is where we compiled all the content all the curriculum material or the digital learning objects from KG one until grade 12 so every student found what they wanted this is subject by subject school by school school grade by grade they found digital learning objects in science and mass and languages and so on. To study from and the access rate here in the first two weeks was over 180 million. The interesting technology has jumped dramatically then we had to tell everybody whether they are in elementary school year in middle school year in students abroad in technical education what the assessment criteria will be so we had to resort to new creative ideas we had our investment in high school all our high school students have tablets in grades 10 and 11 and the sum of those students is 1.4 million and we were experimenting with electronic exams prior to COVID-19 so for those we told them you will be using your tablets will deliver the exams to you at home and we're giving them here instructions to do so. For others we talked about project based assessment and we gave we thought. What's the concept of a project how to do a project how to write an abstract project body to do the research from the digital library which I mentioned earlier so here we had the components the library the projects. The templates all from home so they could study and we gave them templates to use it was a learning but to help them we also put together in April a month later as streaming platform for virtual classrooms each classroom was taking 10,000 students live was their teachers from grade 7 to 12. We also installed in 50,000 schools one month before the suspension what we call a social learning platform by it module it's a we created over 2 and a half million virtual classrooms so we mimicked the physical classroom all the students share the same space with their teacher so they had and they access them on any device they have from a mobile phone a smartphone to a tablet to a desktop to any anywhere so they had all the ingredients the digital library the social learning platform the streaming and here we had 11 and a half million students enrolled 1.16 million teachers on this social social learning platform and also parents about 3/4 of a million parents here so lots of details but we also showed them how to upload the projects 15 million projects were done by the students and uploaded digitally we also delivered the only school year which we had to do on the ground was grade 12 the exit exam which for which we had lots of preparations but we also did grades 10 and 11 electronically and we showed the parents how are we going to take care of their kids going to the school on the to the exam on the ground that exam is near done we have a week to go and it's moving very nicely we also put the last thing here a digital platform of video lessons for for grade 12 students because it's a very critical year and that platform all those platforms were done after COVID-19 and the the access rate is incredible because we have 22 million students in the community and online keeping social distance wearing masks how we sanitize schools how they put shoe covers pass through gates to sanitize each student across the country this is going on as we speak and that's the only grade here where they went down to the exam but all others have been treated from home so what happened is a digital and education transformation here this picture formation here. This big which shows a multitude of platforms, electronic exams, libraries for digital lessons, interactive e-books, parallel to our World Bank project where we are building a whole new education system. But COVID-19 was a disaster, except that it really helped us change the culture very quickly towards liking and benefiting from technology. And we are moving ahead with the rest of the story. So in summary, we have the digital library for all courses, it's a treasure, really, for all 12 years in Arabic and English and French. And we have online exams for now 1.4 million students to whom we deliver 10.4 million term with like 12 million members, video lessons, streaming. These are the ingredients, so maybe that's enough of the slides, but this is what's taking place as we speak. - Absolutely fascinating, Dariq. I really think this is an amazing example of education transformation and also how you can use the crisis as a context for really innovating education, the learning environment, the pedagogies. I like the transformation of your exams, you know, moving away from, you know, just the reproduction of subject matter content to getting young people to do research projects. But I have still sort of my question. I mean, you were in a very fortunate that you had the infrastructure in place. I mean, most of this you didn't have to invent, you had a really good platform because you invested in this before. But how did you get people to actually use it at scale? Yeah, what did you actually do to actually, you know, mobilize the kind of education workforce to become part of the solution? - Well, the biggest obstacle here is changing the culture about learning, the concept of learning in the minds of parents, students and teachers. So we had to reorient teachers to what is happening. We were in the communication was very important. We were talking all the time with the parents. Those images I showed you quickly, we were talking on social media and on television to parents around the clock at showing them explaining. There was a huge fuss about projects and platforms and how do I use this and that and so on. But at the end, people responded because of the pressure we were all under. They were fearful for their kids not to leave home. And that's why they subscribe to this. That helped us a lot. But and we were also fortunate that people in Egypt are really well connected to a large extent relative to other countries. They used all kinds of devices. They're very creative. They used smartphones. They used the tablets. They just found a way to get access. But the numbers I showed you show exactly that people responded very positively to this. At the end of the day, we received nearly 15 million done projects. This is a great number and we graded all of them and then delivered all the exams that were done at home. We had problems, of course, with cheating sometimes and with people trying to take the easy route. But in general, the culture has changed dramatically to the point that parents of kids going to grade 12 were begging us to do the exam electronically instead of having them go out. So imagine that I was talking to Jaime about the fact that we were talking in February and people were resistant to technology. In May, they were begging us to use technologies. So that's a tremendous switch. I was looking at Britannica. Britannica is one of the members we have on the Egyptian knowledge bank. The access in the first quarter on their Britannica academic was about 50,000 articles or 50,000 downloads. In the second quarter of this year, it's 5 million. So it's because of COVID-19 that the interest in electronic material has sharply gone up, which is really something we couldn't have done without this set of strange circumstances. Yeah, absolutely fascinating. And I do think the numbers are very, very compelling. I think the scale of this operation is just amazing. You mentioned Jaime. We are fortunate to have Jaime Saveda-Vizas, Director for Education at World Bank and Jaime. You have accompanied many countries in this crisis in the educational journeys. And what do you think can the world take away from the Egyptian start? So thank you very much Andreas and thanks, Tatek, for sharing with us many of the things that have happened in the last four or five months. But actually, what I want to reflect is what happened in the previous four years to these four or five months. So as Tatek, I mean, sometimes one really takes an opportunity from a crisis. And it is true. I mean, you were able to use this crisis and opportunity for parents, for instance, to accept much faster the need to do assessments online. And even this changing culture that is needed to switch from the regular tests to a research project. Because now, I mean, suddenly parents were interested and their kids not going to school and not to do what they have been doing during the last 20, 30 or 40 years. However, in order to be able to make that switch, there was already a huge machinery already in place that had already started fighting with this changing culture that was needed in order to introduce the use of technology first. But more important than that, it was a fight that has been happening during the last four or five years. Not, and probably the most important thing is not the introduction of technology. But the most important thing is the changing culture of teachers, parents, and students that education is not about memorizing stuff. But it's about understanding things, understanding concepts. And hence, at some point, we were discussed with Tatek two years ago. So I mean, what, how do teachers and students receive the possibility of having an open book exam? So you receive the questions, and then you can consult any material that you want. Because the questions are about reflecting about it on an issue. And that's something that had a lot of resistance in the Egyptian system in the previous years. So I think the first lesson is that we derived from this, is that yes, this crisis was an opportunity to consolidate many changes. But it was possible to consolidate many changes in the Egyptian system because before, right? We, the Egyptian system had already had tried to address two things. One is that changing culture regarding education is not about memorizing education is about thinking and understanding. And that also, I mean, there has already been all the investments in trying to start into close a digital divide. It was not completely closed, right? This crisis actually implied a rush to close the even faster. But in many other countries, and most of the low of middle income countries, we have been saying during the last year, look, there was a digital divide. There is a digital divide. Some kids can access, an entry in ad can be connected to the world. Many kids cannot. And this crisis has been for most countries, kind of a slap in the face, and sorry for the expression. But it was like, look, there was a digital divide. You knew there was a digital divide. We didn't act at the point as fast as Egypt had been doing in the last years. And there you go. These are the consequences in most low and middle income countries, in which is much more difficult to switch, either way, Egypt have been able to switch because of those investments that didn't happen before this crisis. So in a way, we're talking about this. The systems have to be more resilient. Well, the Egyptian system was not completely resilient, but was already much more resilient than many others. If you think about countries that haven't made that kind of upfront investment that Egypt clearly puts out in a position where it could manage a crisis, many of your countries are not in that position. What can they take away from this experience? Well, I think at this stage, there are a few lessons that are clear from this, from this pandemic. And some of those lessons were thought by Tarek and his team beforehand. What is what I was saying? That the digital divide has to be closed. Second, that education is not about memorized education. It's about understanding. But third is that at the same time that technology could be very important, if we are thinking about education as a social process in which children have to be and youth, right? They have to be-- creative, they have to have an inquiring mind, right? They need to be able to interpret and understand events and derive lessons from those events. That is something in which even if technology could be extremely helpful, God requires teachers that can engage in a completely different way. So I think another lesson, not only from Egypt, that from the pandemic in general, is that parents now should be able to understand that for the type of education that we need, teachers are absolutely critical, right? I mean, it's what even even the case of Egypt, even if we have invested a lot of technology, but it's not that the don't technology is going to replace the teacher, right? It's not that because of machine learning or artificial intelligence, then we can use robots in order to convey education. We can use the robots to provide information, right? But not to teach and not for the magic of that teaching and learning process that is an interaction between the student and the teacher. That will be enhanced by technology, but now we have a much better understanding that teachers are absolutely critical. Hence, huge investments will be needed both for in-service training and pre-service training for teachers to be able to do that, right? To be able to use technology in the right way, but then try to engage in this different education process that is what we need for the future. Thanks so much, I'm in order for really your leadership in this field internationally. Let me turn to Nelly Elsayat, she is co-founder and director of Newton Education Services and actually there's a lot of work also on the early years, early childhood education policy. We can all imagine how online learning, remote learning works in court, particularly with older children. But what role can technology play in the early years? What are the lessons there? We all know that actually education and learning in the early years is perhaps the most important investment that we can make in children, but it's the part that probably is hardest in this pandemic and maybe in the future. Nelly, I'd be really interested in your thoughts on how we can advance in this area and your experience in this field. Thank you, Andreas. Thank you all in mind. Did I be here with everyone on this important conversation? Dr. Todd, it's as Jaime explained. Technology is not the goal in itself, right? It's a tool that we're using for vision and I think all keep in mind, whether it's in response to COVID or post-COVID or any point of time. What really matters is the actually learning experience and the teaching. The teaching is happening for understanding and it's not happening for passing a test or just memorizing and growth learning, right? So for the younger years, it's harder because you want the younger kids to learn to play, to learn to project, to learn to see work and so this becomes more challenging when it's moved online. But I think what we had achieved in Egypt and was that the entire transformation of the education system which we referred to as education 2.0 started with the younger years. It started with kindergarten up to grade one in the first year that it started and then in the end of the year it went up to grade two. So all the children who were in the system between kindergarten and grade two had already been exposed to a completely new curriculum and new system of education that encouraged you know critical thinking that encouraged acquiring skills rather than accumulating knowledge. I think it encouraged multidisciplinary learning and I think what happened with the COVID situation is that we were on some level, although this is in no way anything less than a global crisis, but we were on some level fortunate that we were able to sort of unpack this vision and to cover you know grade levels and more children in the system. By introducing this idea of having the project research projects replaced the end of year exams for the great three children onwards, I think this was a huge achievement not only because it was a good solution you know to find a way for the children to move from one grade up to the next, but it was actually exactly what this vision we have for Egypt's educational system you know for it to cover a larger number of students and a larger number of children in the system. So here you are now you know explaining to such students, parents, the teachers that by the way you could assess students in a way that is different from sitting for an exam. There are other tools that you can use for a session that actually might give you better results that might actually might enable you to really see whether the student understood or not because this research project required them to use very different skills and what they have been used to. They required them to put together different subject matters from you know obviously they used the language to write the research paper but they had to use math and science, social studies and sort of combine them together and I think you know if it wasn't for on some level if it wasn't for COVID-19 we wouldn't have have really so quickly to a large number of students. I think and you know I think this is what we should really always remember. We have tools, we have the technology, it is the understanding and the learning experience that we're after, not only using the tools and I say that you know as someone who's worked on education 2.0 very closely with the team that put it together but I also say this as a mother you know as a mother of the children who had to go through this themselves this year and do the project instead of the exam and I must say it was a much more enjoyable experience for the children despite the stress you know of the general situation but it was a more meaningful experience for them to put together everything they had in this final research. So interesting Nellie I really think you have a lot of experience to offer in fact just a few days ago the meeting of ministers of the G20 had this as a main focus they were all struggling with you know how do we leverage technology in meaningful ways to education to educate the youngest and this is not just about you know on screen experiences but it's also how to communicate and socialize and how to build kind of learning communities how to better you know educate teachers and so on I think your experience is really quite amazing in this field. We have lots of interesting questions and from our audience let me just pose one to you Tarek and that is actually very challenging how will you compare the quality that you do through this new system through e-learning quality of learning where is the quality that you you know was achieved through on-site learning in the past sort of that's going to be a big question that's going to come up you know I learn I I use students learn learning different things are they learn the same things in different ways how are you going to sort of look at progress I think you're on mute Tarek. Oh sorry I think this is a very good question we do need time to assess the data we have to answer this more precisely but as Nelly said as as a mother really a lot of parents have indicated that their children have been more excited have researched the the libraries we put at their disposal which is something they have not done before they have taken the lead in doing those projects and we allow them to working groups a virtual groups using the platforms the assessment we I showed very briefly for the outcomes of great ten and eleven electronic fact showed that the level of their performance have increased by a big margin over the previous exam which was prior to COVID-19 I guess when when parents spent more time because of COVID-19 with their children at home guided them mentor them when all the resources they discover the resources that were available before the COVID-19 and really dependent on them all the numbers we get show that millions and millions of people have accessed all these resources for the first time they have done research they have put amazing projects together I mean we have received projects we are thinking of doing an exhibition of projects from grade three and four and five. So as Nellie said, the fact that they are thinking, working in teams, doing something very different than the in-class exam is a new learning paradigm. And the parents have also assumed a new role of mentoring the kids. These are things that we haven't had the chance to do before COVID-19. So we are, again, to give you a very solid scientific answer as to the quality of learning that needs a bit of time to research the outcomes of the spirit. But all early indications are very positive. Even the feedback, people want this to continue, want projects to be the way to go as an assessment tool. So I think while we were moving with a certain pace doing the new education system, COVID-19, as my colleague Nellie mentioned, have allowed us to expand the benefits to grades above that, who are still on the old system, but also as per the comment by Jaime, we move them all to the understanding of content rather than the memorization. They were all at home. They could look at the books, look at the references, and they all did that from grade three, all the way to grade 11. They have been working at home researching, which is all new, to the students and the parents. So we are very excited about this. And I have to tell you that I've been the leadership in Egypt, represented in the president himself, has a lot to do, deserves a lot of credits for all of this, because without the belief, the political will that was there since 2014, we wouldn't have been here. And 10 days ago, the president said that, we are without COVID-19, we have to leapfrog with the system, benefiting from this experience. So our plans for next year will be a lot more than what I showed you. And if we have time, I can tell you what we are planning to do, but it's to really go more much deeper in the understanding area, in the activities, in the teamwork, in stilling new skills. So we are trying to really make a positive out of this crisis through all this. Very interesting, but it brings me to another question raised by our one of our participants here. Surely I take your point, learning on the digital kind of platform can be more engaging, more interesting, more interactive, more fun, but surely it requires from learners that they have learned how to learn, that they can manage their learning process, that they can set their own learning goals and actually be active learners rather than passive consumers of educational content. So that's not going to work for everyone. And what about the digital divide that you see here? Like, and I'm not so interested in the first digital divide, like technology access, I'm more interested in what about, you know, the students that have not been prepared for this, that may not have the kind of environment for this, the supportive ecosystem around them, the parents who encourage their learning. Don't you see there's a risk that this new environment that puts so much more responsibility on the learner itself is going to, you know, exasperate inequality and education? Well, this is a very good question and probably this is why the crisis has helped us because if we discussed exactly what we are saying now, like back in January, we would have raised all those questions and we would have been scared to try. But the crisis has forced us to try and the response was much better than we thought. But you're right, Andreas, and the question itself is that we are thinking now of working very hard on teacher orientation, teaching teachers how to mentor the kids, how to teach them what, how to learn rather than what to learn rather than instructing them. We have plans to engage parents. That's why the Modu platform allows parents to be part of the virtual classroom. We want them with us. But what COVID-19 has really helped change the culture in much faster, much faster pace than we could have done otherwise. And everybody now has to do this. So they are really keen to do it. But you're right, the students need a lot of help, especially the younger ones, how to handle all the new paradigm of education. But what I'm trying to share with you is that what we saw on the ground, and we're talking about nearly 60,000 schools here, we're talking about the poorest areas in Egypt. And when I said, no child is left behind because every child has done it, even those who don't have access to technology, were allowed to do the projects and understand the material and do it on paper and deliver it to us one way or another. So, with or without technology, we have taught them new assessment methods, self-learning, working in groups. And they've responded. They've responded very positively. I guess my advice would be to be courageous, to go for it, take a step instead of just fearing from change. Because in a country like Egypt, which we have people who are really poor in remote areas where all these problems are magnified, but they have responded admirably. And they are really keen to learn. So they all submitted projects that percentage a rate of attendance was 98 percent. People who delivered the projects, people who took the electronic exams, people who are now in the street taking the exit exam are large, large numbers. So, in spite of all difficulties, they go for it. They're really keen to learn. I think it's a really great experience. And I can also see that children from disadvantaged, this kind of project-based approach might have even been more amenable to their kind of background in context. So, real things with real people on real projects, real consequences rather than sitting in a classroom learning system, a very remote from the realities. I think it's a great concept. And it's so interesting. People have talked about this kind of project-based learning for 20 years. We haven't seen it happening. We have seen it happening in a moment when it became a necessity. There was no way around it. And I think you have been able to leverage that moment very, very, it's probably. And it's a good question that we should ask ourselves. Why can't we do those kind of changes in normal times? That our sort of status quo in education has so many protectors that are actually often stronger than what we know about good pedagogy and what we know about good policy and practice. Hi, I just wanted to bring you in here like, again, looking at that transformation in the context of other countries. What do you think are, I'll take a way. So let me compliment a couple of the things that Tarek was mentioning. I think the over-arching principle was to change the culture and change the mindsets of teachers and parents about what the type, what is the type of education that we want. And that is reflected on the way we can assess, right? And you necessarily have to assess with that example, with the typical exam that we have been used in the last decades. But you can assess through a research project and you can learn through a research project. But the key, the other key point here is that we need to be flexible and adaptable in terms of how to implement these and be patient that this is something that might take time. And I think the way that Egypt has approached it and also on that regard, many other countries have approached this pandemic is that we are seeing in many places coherent multi-channel strategies, right? In the sense that in the same way that Tarek was describing it for Egypt, yes, we try to use as much as we can online resources. But if there are no online resources, we use mobile phones and smartphones and if there are no mobile phones and we use TV and radio. And if there's no TV and radio, we use paper, right? So even for the delivery of the research projects, I mean, great if you can do it online, even though you go to pencil and paper, right? And that's correct. We need to do, we are still in a transitional period, right? Maybe a few years from now, the whole world is going to be interconnected and every one will have a device, but that's not the case today. And despite that, we need to make sure that we reach absolutely everyone. So I think one important strategy of this pandemic has been that in both in Egypt, but in many other countries, I think education systems have been creative in the sense of saying, look, let's use all the possible channels that we can and we can and let's try to complement with the different channels, right? You can deliver, right, and broadcast information and content through TV but at the same time through smartphones you can provide information to teachers and parents and to students on how to organize better those contents and make a better sense of those concepts that you receive in creativity. So the good thing now is that we have several platforms that were not available a few years ago. So many more people will have a smartphone that brought back at home, I had probably turned it at home, but complementing the different channels, I mean, one could be effective in terms of reaching both urban and rural areas. Right. Now that has to be complemented that that's something that I think was part of the strategy of of Tatec so many many years, many or months ago, that has to be complemented with a very strong communication strategy. Right. Because I mean, you really need to make sure that parents and teachers understand what's the purpose of this. What are the objectives. So a communication strategy parallel to all the educational efforts. It's absolutely critical. And finally, one additional point that some countries are being able to do better than others is that you need to be ready to troubleshoot. Right. I mean, you are as as as I was saying, you're being audacious here, you're being bold, you're trying new things. And when you try new things, something might go wrong. Right. Even for those who have internet connection, they have to upload their research papers. Well, I mean, I'm sure that in many cases, they have loaded didn't work well. Right. And that happens even when you interact with the bank, right. I mean, that happens anytime you will do an online transactions. Well, you need to have hot lines and you need to have, I mean, help desks and different mechanisms through which people can solve those problems. Right. The successful multi platform or multi channel strategies that we see usually will have a help desk will have this type of mechanism through which one can troubleshoot. Right. And one really has to be ready for that because given that we are attempting so many new things in a short in a short time, it's impossible. Everything is going to be working perfect. It will not. Right. But almost by definition. So being being ready for that being ready to trouble shoot and help when things go go. Are going wrong. A couple of things. Well, let me stop there. And maybe you know one of the. I mean, troubleshooting is essential, but maybe in a crisis, we're also willing to accept higher levels of risks and uncertainty as parents as coach. And education. So that actually when things go wrong, we're not immediately there to sort of blame anyone. I have a few number of questions relating to integrity of exams on the digital platform. And that's a quite obvious question. And Tariq, any thoughts about how you deal with this? Yeah, that's a tricky question. Well, integrity of the exams and the projects is part of the cultural change. Andreas and we are willing to take the risk in Egypt, as Jaime said, and try in the interest of doing something better. We knew that when we deliver electronic exams, we were happy. Yes, the technology delivered and we have all the bandwidths and that we did that we delivered it. But of course, students are not used to this. So they sit at home. They can. They have open book and everything, but they used to do more than that. They used to some of them, not all of them. And we used to agree with the teacher to send them the answers and it's like electronic cheating really, but we knew some of them do that and we could follow that up. We we see them. We know we told them and we sent them actually with their performance cards. A note. You know, you didn't do that yourself, but we are giving you a wise advice to try to learn. It's all about learning, not about the grade. So we use that to really emphasize what time you was talking about that education is not about the piece of paper. It's not about the grade. It's not about a score. It's about the skill and and it's a lifelong process. It doesn't end that grade 12 or at end of college. But so we let them do it and the percentage of those who violated the integrity of the system is somewhere in 20, 25%. So there is 75% or serious about learning and that's important. The others we communicate with and as Jaime said, and I mentioned at the beginning, we really intensified our communication strategy. We talk to them. We say, why do you do that? We address the issue. We face it. We want them to think about it. If you are at home, I delivered the exam to you. It's in your lap. You have access to your computer to your book. Why then do you need other help? Why are you happy with your grade if you haven't earned it? So those blunt questions are part of the changing culture. And I think when everything is said and done. There was a what I mentioned was was really a very elegant way of describing a state of war we had since March. I mean, that wasn't easy. Yes, the projects to make them in a very short time understand what is required how to deliver it. I don't have access. How do I do it on paper? Some people were even asking me is it okay to write with a blue pen or a red pen? I mean, just we can go to all kinds of details. But at the end of the day, they did it. It's the talk of the town. So the fact that education is headline news for three months is an incredible achievement. And the questions Andreas, we used to talk about in conferences and events and intellectual thing, thanks and all of that have become everybody's talk rich and poor. And you take a taxi and the taxi driver would tell you about his daughter doing a project and uploading it on the platforms and that's a huge step forward that this is the talk of everyone. So all these issues you're right. I mean, we need to really assess that experience methodically and get lessons learned analyze the numbers and the questions you're receiving are very, very wise and thoughtful. And I'm now thinking that we have to look back at those three, four months and assess that in the interest of everybody because I'm sure around the world there were many steps forward. I think we leapfrogged about 10 years of progress in the course of these three, four months in terms of changing culture and acceptance of new technology and even establishing in the minds of many what is learning about they all had to think about it because of the crisis. And actually interesting, we have very similar reflections in the context of our apisa assessments, you know, our vision is also to design our exam so that we can give students access to the internet to all the books they like because we don't want to test whether they can extract knowledge from somewhere. We want to tell them they can think for themselves what was others and I think the future will get us and I think digital technology has become very powerful as a tool to change exams to make assessments more real life like more relevant more valid at the very same time, you know, how do you square that, you know, you rightly say, you know, it's about a culture mindset shift from a culture of, you know, walking towards the test or understanding the process of learning. But, you know, in the Egyptian context, if I think about your university system, that's probably the most conservative part of, you know, the entire education culture and if that is the goal post, how do you change the mindset of parents and students in school to engage in new kind of learning and exam culture and at the end of the day, they don't see that goal post changing. Well, if I might respond to that, Andreas, I mean, I'm talking to my colleague in higher education, so that the changes we are doing in pre university education are consistent with what is happening in higher education, I think parents in the classical education system worry about the kids future and in the model they know. The kids future has to do is a great admission to college because the grade is the prerequisite for that and then finding a job that's the old school pass in life. Now we are trying to tell them no, we will we'll change admission to college to a new system to relax that constraint just worry about learning worry about your child really understanding these things having the skills being proper citizens. It's all about character, not just knowledge about character knowledge being a global citizen, as we say, those ideas are not just theoretical they are now thinking about it, but we have to do some changes in higher education and the past to college and allowing students to do what they like not what this core forces them to go to these are major changes, but again, this crisis has accelerated those things made the way they are. And in my last meeting with the president you was talking about. accomplishing all of, he said exactly in words, I'm quoting, "Let's leapfrog and implement our new system in half the time that was planned earlier." But that requires a lot of work on our side and higher education side. And in Egypt, at least we all see it the same way. And my colleague in higher education agrees with me that we are doing a similar transformation in higher education. But then parents will relax about grades. We have to change the culture of grades. And that will take a while. But we have been discussing this with the banks since day one. And as Nellie said, it's not about technology per se. It's about changing the notion, why do we learn, what do I want to be? And that is the biggest lesson or benefit probably from all of us. We have only a few minutes left unfortunately in this conversation. What I'd like to ask the three of you is maybe starting with Nellie then Hymer then Tarik is, "Your reflections on the future, looking beyond the pandemic, what do you think the future will bring when it comes to the integration of technology and education?" Nellie. Yes, firstly I think the future is looking good. I hope I post COVID. I think part of what we do in implementing all of these changes is to sort of export the culture of hope also. There is hope, there are ways to manage and to still learn despite this situation. But moving forward, I think one of the key issues is to not only function in emergency mode, to think of solutions that serve your overall vision for education. I mean, I'm talking about in any context of any country. If the solution is only a quick response to an emergency sort of situation, then it might not be sustainable. But if it feeds into a larger vision and a larger goal beyond responding immediately to a given situation, I think this is then we're looking at something that will last longer and that will be more meaningful in the end. I think in Egypt there were voices at the beginning when schools closed, who asked Dr. Torre and the ministry to just stop here and let's end this year here and let's move. Have everyone go to the next school year because this is an exceptional emergency sort of situation. But this decision to take the more difficult route, that we're not going to compromise on the students learning, and you're not going to compromise on what they understand and what they have accomplished, was an important decision to take. Although it was more difficult to handle, but it's important because it really reflects the bigger vision. This is not just about responding to COVID, it's about beyond that. So I think that's important, moving forward to try. I know that right now it's a bit more challenging, but to try to move away from the emergency mode and to think bigger picture longer, more sustainable. What you say is so true, I think you can say this almost about any type of reform. We can create clarity about the direction for change and ownership for that direction. You get a lot of challenges, but in education unfortunately, too often we change direction every few years, that creates so much disbelief at the front line and change that people are not willing to move out of their comfort zone. I think what you've really shown is that by being clear of what direction is, you can actually move a big system. We always talk about Singapore's and Finland's, but Egypt is a system at a massive scale. I think that's quite interesting. Hi, my. You're a reflection. So thank you very much Andreas, and thanks Nelly for those points. Let me mention one quick issue to react to Tatek and then two structural issues. One is this issue of cheating in exams. Two points there. One is that sometimes changes are stopping by this fear that someone will use the change in a wrong way. Let's not go to online, even regular assessments. I mean, even not going to the research products. Even regularists have no, let's not go to doing them online because people will cheat. And yes, I mean, there will be some people who cheat, but will never be the majority. I mean, the majority of people are honest, right? And there will always be cheaters, but cheaters are always the minority. So sometimes that's great, some paralysis, right? In terms of, I mean, somebody will do the wrong thing. So I think we should not be stopped by that and say, the good thing of technology is that our cheaters can really be caught, right? Because actually with machine learning and machine learning is very easy now to catch someone who is copying a research product. And even when you have multiple answer tests, you can easily analyze patterns and see if there are similar patterns and people are cheating. So that's very easy, right? That's now technology helps on that. So, cheaters beware that you will be caught. So I mean, that should not stop us. And the other more structure points I wanted to make, Tatex, I look at this four months, I mean, we changed like for a decade, right? It might be true, but actually that was because, I mean, the previous three years, right? There had been a change in direction, right? And a clear path that tried to change the culture, tried to change the role of teacher's parents and a use of technology in a different way. So actually, it's not that this happened in these four months. This happened in these three, four years before. But the important thing also is that it was three or four years. It was not three decades, right? So, and that's something that also is an important lesson because sometimes in education, we, I mean, there is this lack of enthusiasm for bold reforms because we're now just to complicate it. It's politically tough, which it is. And Tatex knows very well that politically is very complicated. And it will take decades. So it's impossible to reform public sector systems. So let's try to find something else, right? Because it's impossible to do those reforms. Well, this is, this is approved that that's not true. I mean, it doesn't happen from one day to the other, but it doesn't take three decades, right? You can see changes within three or four years, right? If you have persistency, if you have political will, right? So that I think is a very important lesson. Change can happen relatively quick. If there is political will, if there's financial commitment, and if there's a clear technical direction. And to close, my point is that one phrase that Tatex mentioned is that education is in the news. And it's great that education is in the news, but that doesn't happen everywhere, right? Unfortunately, in many cases, in many countries, education is not in the news, right? It's a silent crisis, right? That there are nobody's dying, right? In the case of education, we're just, in countries where we're not reforming and do have low-performing systems, right? It's a silent death of many children whose futures are compromised, right? Because we're not doing those both political changes. And unfortunately, education should be in the news and it's not in the news. So we still need to have, we have a huge hunger there, right, as international community, of making sure that really education is in the news. Either because things are happening, like in this case, that we're showcasing in Egypt, or because things are not happening, right? But actually, having education is a news, is really a pending homework for all of us. Absolutely. And I think your point about rapid change is a very, very important message. It's not just, you know, that what we're discussing here, you can look to Vietnam, you can look to China, you can look to your own country, Peru. I think we've seen a lot of countries making rapid change in very short periods of time. Tarek, you have the final word, and we have only a couple of minutes left. Well, that has been a very rich discussion, honestly. And I have to tell you, Andreas, I'm like, Nelly, we are optimistic about the future. So we're even excited about the future, in spite of the heavy burden of the challenge. But I think seeing the children are acquiring really, the skills we were hoping they do is worse all the trouble, and worse all the effort and investment. There is no more, no better reward, really. But as for next year, I have to tell you that we have a lot of creative ideas in our sleeves. You're in the world ownership. We are giving a lot more responsibility to the school. As of October and we are beginning a new school year, people are asking about that. Regardless of how the COVID-19 trajectory goes, but we will do our best to start the school year, but differently. We are going to use blended learning more officially and remap the students, classes and spaces in a new way. We found a new way really to overcome centuries, all problems of large number of students in class, the class density problem by having different students in different ages and so on. We have a new school year, and we are going to use blended learning more formally and then attend only a few days and study from home, the remainder of the week. That is not equal for different age groups. Like for education 2.0, they will come every day because the youngsters depend more on the in class activity and so on. We are going to give school calendar to the students and to the parents. The parents will be members of the virtual classrooms. We will teach the parents to own the change to be partners here. We will be working in class, working at home. Parents will know that there is a lecture live on Tuesday at 1 o'clock, even if the kid is at home, they will have to make sure they listen to this. We will use projects online quizzes. There is a project we got the grand approval for to have a device for every child in our education system one way or another. So from force grade to 9s, we will make sure within the next 6 months they will have devices that we will finance over 3 years, we will subsidize, we will give donations to those who cannot afford it. But we want every child for and rich to have access to the technology that we can use blended learning with confidence. So all of this wasn't even in our plan when we held the conference with the World Bank in February this year. But it has accelerated our plan tremendously in all ways possible. I think the crisis had given us and everybody around the world the lesson that we shouldn't fear change because of because of our fears of change, we just have to take a bold step. But I think we hope those reflect in the in the benchmark exams and scores and the pizza and the Dallas very quickly because you will see a marked difference Andreas in the performance of children because of that. But what one thing I want to say is we were able to deliver exams to Egyptian kids living abroad in 190 countries without moving anywhere we use the technology to deliver local exams to our children in Italy and in France and in so on, which gave us the idea that maybe next year we'll have multi nationality virtual classrooms. For example, we will invite few kids from Singapore and China and the states and Europe to the virtual classroom. There is no barrier here and it could be very exciting to invite a teacher from Finland to our physics class one day and and so on and imagine that when we talk about accepting the other and diversity and all of that having the kids open up. In spite of the crisis to how others learn could be very valuable so we have plans like this for the future that's why we are optimistic and excited about it. Absolutely fascinating, Tarek. It's completely original so far the future and I hope you will continue to share your experiences with the world. It's so important that countries learn from each other in this moment of crisis. It's an absolutely fascinating story. I want to thank you Nelly and and Hymer and also my colleagues, Christopher Gober and Stefan Salankhan, who actually put the series together. We're going to continue next week with a very interesting story from Brazil. Thank you again. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Take care. Thank you. Thank you very much everybody. Thank you. Thanks, Christopher, for putting this.