Daily Times

The Government of Pakistan has launched the Smart Village Pakistan project with the support of Huawei to overcome the extreme disparity between the urban and rural development indicators. The Smart Village project aims to achieve digital transformation in remote rural areas by closing the gap in access to technology and services between urban and rural areas – a transformation that is made possible through Huawei’s expertise and expansion of wireless broadband network coverage.

The first village to experience the digital transformation is the Gokina Smart Village, a small hamlet near Islamabad. There, Huawei provides cutting edge technical solutions to connect the unconnected, allowing partners in education and health to serve the previously underserved community.

The Smart Village Pakistan project aims to digitally transform remote and rural communities by connecting them and empowering the citizens with better access to a range of digital services that can meaningfully improve their wellbeing and livelihoods in accordance with the government’s vision of Digital Pakistan. Reduced inequality will lead to improved well-being and access to better jobs through digital services. This approach involves a new design and implementation framework that is demand-driven, user-centric, flexible, and is focused on sustainability, scalability, and multi-sector collaboration.

Huawei continues to be the leader in Pakistan in expanding outreach in rural areas under the broader Huawei TECH4ALL commitment to enable an inclusive and sustainable digital world. Aligned with the UN SDGs and Huawei’s vision and mission, TECH4ALL is a long-term digital inclusion initiative and action plan to innovating technologies and solutions that make the world a more inclusive and sustainable space for all.

Approximately half the world population is digitally connected while the other half is not, a division that has implications that became glaring apparent during the global pandemic when digital networks and access to the internet meant continued access to fundamental rights and critical services like health and education.

TeleTaleem is a social enterprise focused on enhancing quality of education services at the grassroots level, through innovative use of technology. While TeleTaleem has reached a good mix of users in urban and rural settings – reaching out to 60 different districts across all four provinces and the AJK, covering 4,000+ schools and directly impacting skillset of more than 6,000 teachers and 1,000,000+ children, one of its proudest accomplishments is the recent partnership with Huawei and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) under the Smart Village Program.

Upon visiting the school in Gokina, TeleTaleem discovered a pressing need for science teachers, particularly for students in grades 8, 9, and 10. Specializing in the design and delivery of e-learning systems and services, using a variety of delivery mechanisms and blended learning platforms, TeleTaleem has implemented multiple interventions, covering a broad spectrum of primary to secondary school systems, teacher education and training institutions in both public and private sectors.

The solution for Gokina was TeleTaleem’s Online Teaching Model, which provides the school with two digital classrooms equipped with internet connectivity from Jazz and power backup systems. Through this setup, the school was connected with specialist science teachers based at TeleTaleem. Now, the students in Gokina are benefitting from daily science classes, including subjects like chemistry and biology, along with regular assessments of their learning activities.

This initiative aims to bring quality education to remote rural areas, and the foundation of innovative, tech-based solutions are digital connectivity. The Smart Village project aligns with the TeleTaleem vision to provide quality education where it is needed the most under our “Education without Boundaries” approach.

The project has received an overwhelmingly positive response from both students and teachers. The school head has been incredibly cooperative and supportive throughout the implementation of these activities. The Federal Directorate of Education, responsible for the school, and the Ministry of Federal Education & Professional Training have expressed their great appreciation for the efforts of TeleTaleem, Huawei, and ITU in selecting Gokina School as a pilot site under the Smart Village program.

While the challenges of infrastructure are real, the opportunities are immense. In Pakistan, the young, underserved population spread across vast rural tracts is the ideal target and ultimate beneficiary of enhanced digitalization and increased usage of telecom services.

Around 37% of employment in Pakistan is in agricultural, forestry, or the fishery sector and COVID-19 has disrupted conventional business operations and led to closure of many traditional markets. Not only so, but 13% of the youth from these areas do not enroll in secondary school, and only 15% of households have access to a computer at home for e-learning. The literacy rate of female youth (ages 15-24) is more than 14 percent lower than male youth literacy rate. Additionally, the employment rate is around 11% higher for women than it is for men. With access to connectivity and ICT, the Smart Village Project looks to tackle all of these issues.

Inclusive digital transformation can be a crucial enabler for rural development and with Huawei laying the foundations for social enterprises and service providers to reach the unserved, the future is bright.

The author is the Director Program at TeleTaleem, a social enterprise delivering innovative solutions for improved educational services at the grassroot level.