From the MILLEE website:
The MILLEE research project aims to enhance access to literacy among children of school-going age in the developing world. More specifically, we aim to complement the formal schooling system by applying mobile learning technology to augment educational opportunities in out-of-school settings.
In order to make the literacy challenge more tractable, however, we are currently focusing on English language literacy in rural India. But we expect our lessons to be applicable to other languages and to other developing regions throughout the world.
English is widely seen as a key to socioeconomic success in India. English is taught in almost all schools: as a second language in public schools, and as a first language and the medium of instruction in most private schools. Fluency in English can almost be equated with membership in the middle and upper classes. A recent article states that mastery of English is the "single most influential factor that determines access to elite educational institutions, and hence to important avenues of economic and social advancement." Language competency is also the biggest barrier to technology empowerment, e.g. 90% of the indigenous web content in India is in English.
Our approach recognizes the limitations with the government school system and seeks to complement it through out-of-school learning made possible by mobile technology. In particular, low-income children from these settings need to work for the family in the agricultural fields or homes and find it difficult to attend school regularly. Several teachers who are required to teach English are also not able to communicate with us in English.
References / Past Projects
Read more about MILLEE on the MobileActive blog.