Digital Utilisation to Deliver Sustainable Education to urban & rural in Myanmar

With uprising COVID 19 cases and underestimating plastic impact, most places in Myanmar decided to coat almost everything with plastic. Plastic is considered a layer of adequate protection from viruses as well as external substances for food and supplies for a very low price. Due to the lack of proper waste disposal practices in Myanmar plastics end up in landfills and through the drainage systems in the ocean. Many citizens have witnessed piles of plastic waste near their neighbourhood and floating plastic bottles/bags during the rainy season in Yangon’s flooded streets. None enjoy the scenery of plastic here and there, but awareness-raising and practical approaches to waste management are crucial, counting in the enforcements.

Prevent Plastics believes that educating generation Alpha by introducing sustainable living styles is a practical approach for awareness-raising. Due to global pandemic conditions in 2020, 2021 & 2022, children in Myanmar cannot go to school to pursue their education in class. To fill in the need for homeschooling option, EU SWITCH Asia project Prevent Plastics collaborated with Myanmar School App to develop a mobile application available for android & iOS version using Myanmar school curriculum for KG to Grade 4 students. On top of the normal subjects from school, Prevent Plastics added a segment called “Nyan Kyal Lay“, aka “Little Genius.”
Little Genius is constructed with four different sessions, including stories, poems & songs, general knowledge and activities at home under sustainable waste management.

The general knowledge session of Little Genius is filled with facts and figures on the current predicament of microplastics, landfills, and the calculation of the foreseeable future in the form of children-friendly graphics. In the story session of Little Genius, there are several kids friendly stories highlighting the drawback of plastic usage, littering and kid-level approach on waste reduction best practices by using attractive cartoon visuals and soothing voiceover. Songs and poems gave the students easy to memorise behaviour to pick up trash and keep the environment clean. The last segments focus on practical & interactiveness for the children to adapt the knowledge they learned from the “Little Genius” segment and utilise it at home with family.

“Although not all the lessons are there yet, it’s a handy tool! I’ve already downloaded for my little brother and some of his friends!” – Hnin May Aung.

The volunteer teachers record the Myanmar school lesson of KG to Grade 4. The app is now in the developing process as the launch took place on the 26th of June, 2021. Prevent Plastics plans to run the app for three years, and the app will be modified accordingly to the user feedback. 50,000 devices downloaded the app within the eight months of the launch, and the pre-launch initial target was set for 10,000 users only. The Myanmar School App is available to download without charges on Google Play Store and iOS.
The application was introduced in rural areas where access to internet connection is limited. Filed facilitators personally assist the family with kids to install the apk version of the app and give a tour on how to use the applications in online/offline versions.

Download the App now – GooglePlay, Apple Store and Huawei Store