Thoughts after a long silence.
The shutting down of schools — especially in underdeveloped and economically deprived countries like ours — crystalizes and makes even more urgent the inequities we’re dealing with in the system.
The 15,000+ kids we work with across rural Armenia and Artsakh are already so deprived economically, left out of any educational opportunity, and lack basic necessities for learning. And to give you context, we work with only about 10% of students who are faced with such challenges.
Yes, we should absolutely think of leveraging virtual learning. And I’m glad to see some private and affluent public schools in Yerevan doing this for students. But what about the rest of the country? What about the majority of our students? Thousands upon thousands of kids do not have access to a backpack, notebook, or shoes, let alone a computer or tablet. How do we ensure ALL of our kids are learning?
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For one, we can urgently ask our tech companies to refurbish, sanitize, and donate their technology to students and their teachers living in economic hardship. This will begin to enable learning to happen, albeit not perfect, but a crucial start.
PicsArt, VOLO, Synopsys, ServiceTitan, Globbing, just to name a few — would you come together in urgent response to this looming education crisis our kids are faced with now? This will have impact far beyond what we can even know at this point. We’ve got to do something.
To those reading – please feel free to share, message, reach out. If you work for a tech company, please feel free to put your management team in direct touch with me. If you’re management of a tech company, let’s set up a Zoom call to discuss!
Larisa Hovannisian
CEO & Founder,
Teach For Armenia
