Smart Communities in Education: Ensuring #NoLearnerLeftBehind

Education is one of the most effective ways to improve the lives of people and create a better future and Smart leverages on its technology and connectivity to bridge the digital divide by democratizing access to inclusive, quality education for all.

With the pandemic prompting the massive shift to e-learning, Smart was at the heart of enabling the digital transformation of the education sector, providing digital solutions for government, academic institutions, teachers, and students, even those in hard-to-reach areas, to ensure that teaching and learning continued and that no learner gets left behind.  

By investing in education and industry-academe linkages, especially in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, Smart invests in the next generation of professionals that will join its diverse workforce and ensure that the Company will remain competitive, the industry will continue to flourish, the country will continue to develop economically, and society will benefit from new ideas, innovations, and technologies.

Under its education advocacy, Smart bridges the digital divide by providing learning communities access to technology, connectivity, and education resources; building capacity around technology; and fostering community-based innovation that enhance basic to tertiary education and ensure lifelong learning.    

Programs

School-In-A-Bag

• A portable digital classroom that provides last-mile schools access to mobile devices, internet connectivity, and training on a STEM-focused pedagogy

Central Visayan Institute Foundation - Dynamic Learning Program (CVIF-DLP)

• An innovative disaster-resilient pedagogy that develops students into independent learners

Infoteach

• A digital literacy training program for various sectors of society to empower them with 21st century skills

Innovation Generation

• An innovations program that enables young Filipino innovators to develop technology-enabled solutions to help rebuild their communities by mentoring students on technopreneurship 

Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program (SWEEP)

The longest-running industry-academe linkage program in the Philippines that helps schools produce industry-ready graduates or technopreneurs

Quick Figures (to date): 

Basic Education: 

• Deployed 644 School-in-a-Bag packs to last-mile schools
• Bags reached 113,739 students
• Program trained 4,377 teachers
• Trained 15,394 teachers on CVIF-DLP pedagogy with 1,081 schools implementing it

Tertiary Education: 

• Supported 52 SWEEP partners over 20 years
• Trained 41,095 faculty and students
• Accommodated 4,194 student OJTs
• Immersed 551 faculty in operations
• Hired 1,130 graduates
• Produced 2 Startups
• Received 234 entries to Innovation Generation Seasons
• Reached 1,241 students and 234 faculty from 110 tertiary schools

Lifelong Learning: 

• Trained over 30,000 participants in InfoTeach