A proposal co-created by Finn Church Aid, UNHCR and Teachers College, Columbia Unbiversity has reached the last round of the Amplify Refugee Education Challenge, a competition launched by IDEO.org and the UK Department for International Development asking people and organisations around the world to design innovative education solutions to improve the education quality for refugees around the world.

The proposal focuses on using mobile technology to support teacher training in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. The mobile-learning and mobile-mentoring strategies are part of a broader support concept that includes comprehensive teacher training materials, in-service support, teacher learning circles and participatory research.

The goal is to transform learning and ensure that every teacher, and every student, has access to quality education. This will bring about quality professional development, support and mentoring for refugee teachers, while enhancing content knowledge and pedagogical skills after the teacher training.

The proposal is among the final ones selected by Amplify to receive funding and support from IDEO.org and continue to the next phase. Next month, FCA, together with UNHCR and Teachers College, Columbia University, will initiate a prototype phase in the Kakuma Refugee Camp. In this phase, the team will test the m-learning and m-tutoring model and assess its impact on the quality of education and the skillset of refugee teachers. The final results will be presented to the Amplify team by the end of this year.

The Amplify programme is a series of 10 innovation challenges that will be launched over the course of 5 years with the aim of finding solutions to some of the most critical global issues. Amplify is hosted by OpenIDEO, an open innovation platform for people to work together in developing their ideas and solutions.

For more information on the refugee education challenge, please visit http://www.openideorefugee-education.com/