Saudi Arabian and MIT link-up learning wins big at 'Oscars of education'

The winning project, Full Steam Ahead, was established as an online hub of resources during the Covid-19 pandemic

The project provided online learning materials to pupils, teachers and parents immediately after schools switched to distance learning due to Covid-19. Getty

An education initiative backed by a Saudi philanthropist, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, took top honours at the 2020 Reimagine Education Awards – known as the Oscars of education.

The project, called Full Steam Ahead, won in the category for innovation in kindergarten to grade 12 education.

It was developed by Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab, known as J-Wel, at MIT as a rapid response to the need for online resources after the Covid-19 pandemic forced schools to switch to distance learning.

The programme provided educational content to pupils, teachers and parents who were struggling to find resources, tutorials and activities immediately after teaching in classrooms was suspended.

Data from the UN show that the coronavirus pandemic affected nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries. The closure of educational institutions affected 94 per cent of the world's schoolchildren.

J-Wel is a project by MIT and Community Jameel, whose chief executive is Saudi philanthropist and businessman Mohammed Jameel.

Community Jameel is an international organisation that runs social and economic sustainability projects in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Many departments, labs and centres at MIT worked on the Full Steam Ahead project.

It was led by Claudia Urrea, J-Wel's senior associate director for pre-kindergarten to Grade 12, and Prof Eric Klopfer, J-Wel faculty adviser.

“Thanks to a shared commitment to leveraging MIT’s wide range of existing K-12 resources, we were able to bring this project together with great speed, and to draw on the
talents of our community, especially our student teachers, to create new, engaging activities and experiences,” said Dr Urrea.

“We are so proud to have this work recognised with the Reimagine Education Award, and share this honour with the many colleagues and collaborators who helped make this project possible.”

More than 200 independent judges evaluated the various projects.

They looked for innovative approaches that enhanced pupil learning outcomes and employability.

The judges awarded Full Steam Ahead the highest honours for its solutions to distance learning during the pandemic.

Other than gathering existing resources for children, parents and teachers, Full Steam Ahead also creates weekly packages of educational material. These include videos as well as online and offline activities for pupils in different grades.

MIT is looking to broaden the project’s innovative scope by creating a set of useful resources for adults related to workforce learning.

The Reimagine Education Awards recognise innovation in learning, offering $50,000 in funding to the winners.

The awards were presented during the annual Reimagine Education conference on ­December 10, by Quacquarelli Symonds, the education analytics firm, and Alfred West Jr Learning Lab at Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

The conference was sponsored by a number of institutions, including King Khalid University, King Saud University, Prince Mohammad bin Fahd University, Khalifa University and Canadian University Dubai.