People in Central Asia, as everyone around the world, have been hit hard by the spread of the Corona virus. It has had consequences at the individual level, for families, and for the societies as a whole. People have lost parts of their incomes, have suffered the loss of their own health or even of relatives and friends, and have had to accept the consequences of intransparent information and measures taken to stop the pandemic. The education sector was strongly affected by the closure of formal education institutions and the challenges or sometimes lack of digital offers. ALE providers have strong potential to contribute to mitigating the consequences of the crisis, but were forced to adapt their offers and their modes of working quickly to the new context.
In response, DVV International in Central Asia with its partner organizations have reorganized their activities to face the current challenges by:
- developing online capacity building opportunities for ALE practitioners;
- expanding digital learning opportunities, including the creation of platforms, developing non-formal trainings and (certified) online courses;
- investing in digital infrastructure of local ALE providers and providing digital devices for participants from vulnerable groups.
- increasing the coverage of ALE offers by promoting and accompanying them through social networks and channels;
- providing opportunities for joint thinking about the global responsibility and active citizenship.
In the work of DVV International in Central Asia since the spring of 2020, new training offers to raise the capacities of adult educators using digital means were developed and introduced in all three countries, some of which are described in our country sections below. Also the capacities of DVV International staff itself in this field were built, and the potential to conduct e-learning by our offices and some of our partner organizations was improved through the purchase of equipment.
One concrete example is the Laboratory of Innovative Education by the Institute of Youth Development in Kyrgyzstan (see the article below).
In most cases our partner ALE providers had to temporarily stop all face-to-face training measures, which led to reactions to the crisis and contributions to the fight against the virus in other ways – see below for instance an article on the work of local volunteers who had been participants of the different courses and programmes of the Community Learning Centre in Nurek, Tajikistan.
Another reaction to the obstacles to face-to-face learning was the development of a number of thematic trainings conducted online in the field of citizenship education.
The team of DVV International in Uzbekistan with its partners has also included recorded video lessons by trainers for a number of professions into supported vocational education courses for youth and adults, and is making them widely accessible, including for self-learning.
A particularly creative reaction to the challenges of the pandemic which you can read more about below has also come about in Uzbekistan – the office there launched the contest marathon ‘Adult Education against COVID-19’, to motivate ALE providers and individual stakeholders in ALE to engage in public awareness creation and education projects to cope with the pandemic.
For further information:
Read more about DVV International's work in the context oft he pandemic across the globe and a head office’s programme statement, which can be read in various languages, including Russian, on our website:
https://www.dvv-international.de/en/our-work/reaction-to-corona-pandemic
https://www.dvv-international.de/fileadmin/files/Inhalte_Bilder_und_Dokumente/Corona_News/Crisis_Response_Update/Crisis_response_DVV_International_ENG_Update_new.pdf
Link to DVV International’s video podcast with an episode by Akmaral Satinbaeva, Executive Director of the youth organisation “Youth of Osh”:
https://www.dvv-international.de/en/our-work/reaction-to-corona-pandemic/video-podcast-adult-learning-and-education-in-times-of-covid-19