Around 50 per cent of today’s jobs require some element of digital skills. By 2030, that figure will jump to 77 per cent, with a host of new technologies changing not only the types of jobs we will see but also the skill sets required to succeed in them.

Echoing this is McKinsey’s August 2021 Opportunity Youth report, which notes that the next generation of youth in the MENAP region will be entering a radically changed labour market.

Today’s students will need more than just a diploma: they will need digital savvy and real-world skills that make them more employable in the future of work context. As a result, education systems will need to nurture traditional IQ alongside digital literacy and skills, while also equipping learners with the tools they will need to independently innovate, create and collaborate in a global digital economy that will require agile, resilient mindsets.

Remote learning opened new doors of opportunity

During the pandemic, we witnessed first-hand great collaboration between ministries of education, Microsoft and donors such as UNESCO, UNICEF and Global Partnership for Education, joining together to provide solutions for remote learning. Indeed, the pandemic opened the door to much-needed innovation in the education sector. According to a recent YouGov survey commissioned by Microsoft, 82 percent of educators agree that this past year has accelerated the pace at which technology has driven innovation in teaching and learning.

While the education sector turned to technology to enable remote learning, the radical shift that the pandemic presented is not just about technology as a simple mechanism for the delivery of learning. Technology should be viewed as a robust mechanism for culture building; a way to redesign learning that fosters creative, cognitive thinking, independent innovation, and the ability to collaborate effectively. Education technology should be embraced not only to enable teaching, but to enrich the experience as well.

Education enrichment through tech

Promoting active versus passive learning is one way that tech can help better engage learners in a new remote or hybrid schooling environment. The past year has brought the social-emotional aspects of learning into the spotlight, with higher-level cognitive and technical skills being given greater priority alongside more traditional curricula. One example is how an increasing number of educators across the region are seeing the value of gaming when it comes to promoting active learning, enhancing student engagement and enriching learning. Using platforms such as Microsoft’s Minecraft: Education Edition, educators have been successful in encouraging collaboration, team creation, and leadership values, with excellent results.

Equally, technology can help support learners in new ways by offering tools to combat new challenges. Across different parts of the world, remote learning triggered a decline in reading skills – a trend that is of particular concern for many countries in Africa and the Middle East, where the battle to improve literacy rates has been long and hard-fought. But the introduction of free tools such as Reading Progress will help students improve their reading comprehension at their own pace. Teachers can also review assignments quickly and accurately using built-in-auto-detect features. The Education Insights dashboard then provides educators with a holistic view of students’ progress, including key trends such as typical mispronunciations and omissions.

The time for action is now

It is time to move beyond a blend of traditional teaching and online instruction, to something more. The hybrid model combines the best of in-school and remote learning, with digital engagement. It is more than a quick fix to disrupted learning. It is a way to enhance and accelerate learning by providing student-centred approaches to meet diverse learners needs. Technology has been a critical enabler for learning and should also play a crucial role in moving towards quality learning in a hybrid model. Educators are fast putting into place systems to make sure that the gains made are solidified through clear educational transformational plans. This is the strategy we need to work towards enabling across the continent.