Education 2.0 Research & Documentation Project - A Wealth of Resources
Recent years have witnessed significant educational reforms in Egypt through the Education 2.0 initiative (often abbreviated EDU 2.0) that looks to expand skills-based learning and digital learning methods. University of Illinois Professor of Education Linda Herrera was approached by Dr. Tarek Shawki, Minister of Education and Technical Education (2017-2022) to work with his advisory team supporting this mass educational reform in Egypt in 2018. Dr. Herrera possessed a skillset perfectly aligned with the goals of this endeavor, as she has regional expertise in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and interest in topics relating to youth precarity and livelihood, the social effects of digital transformation, and education reform in a changing global order. Two main facets of the reform agenda listed in the Education 2.0 Concept Note from May 2018 are better instruction to students and expanded use of information and communication technologies in classrooms. Dr. Herrera proposed to establish a project that would research and document the reform. Thus began the EDU 2.0 Research & Documentation Project, directed by Dr. Herrera, not just a chronicle of the monumental educational reform, but also as an archive of primary source materials about this transformation that intends to benefit students, instructors, researchers, and stakeholders in the education sector.
The Project officially ran from 2019-2020 but was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Relying on dedicated volunteers from 2020-2023, the project has culminated in a website packed full of valuable resources about and for this educational reform. The mission of the website is described on the homepage as aiming “to enhance understanding of the education reform, the ideas and people behind it, and provide primary source materials in English and Arabic.” Materials on the site are largely in English and Arabic, although sometimes just one of the two, and can be of use to different individuals in a variety of ways.
For teachers in Egypt, the EDU 2.0 Research & Documentation Project website not only houses information on specific policy documents and expectations for the new education system but also has plenty of information on understanding and using digital learning tools and platforms. The digital learning resources cover a number of platforms but contain a lot of information focused on The Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB), a free digital resources for everyone in Egypt that launched in 2016. The EKB has become such a significant part of the EDU 2.0 plan that there is a section of oral history videos dedicated to the role of the EKB in education and research. This site further acts as a toolkit for educators by including easy access to the new curriculum frameworks and making guidebooks for each grade simple to view in or download from Google Drive. Student texts and activity books are also divided by grade and then subject or topic on these same pages, making those resources just as accessible. Parents of students can easily utilize these online books and informational videos to better familiarize them and their children with the curriculum, or plan ahead for their education.
Some parts of this digital archive are organized especially well for researchers, in addition to practicing educators and students or their families, especially content like the oral histories videos, primary source policy documents, and EDU 2.0 photo gallery. The open-access nature of these educational resources ensure not only that EDU 2.0 is positioned for success, but that the educational resources that abound on this site can be useful to populations around the world. In addition to the current website, the Project’s team is working on an edited open source book with oral history interviews and research in addition to a dedicated archive that is set to be housed in the University of Illinois Library in the future.
“This website is meant to provide resources for people studying education, digital change, and international cooperation in not only Egypt, but the Middle East region and Africa since Egypt has been a leader on the continent in education reform and digital transformation.” –Linda Herrera
