LeaPS: Learning from the Past to create a Sustainable society
Lead Research Organisation:
Northumbria University
Department Name: Fac of Engineering and Environment
Abstract
Access to information and data is a key requirement for achieving sustainable development. Cultural heritage - both tangible and intangible - connects us to the past and provides invaluable insights into our identities and evolution. It can play an important role in economic growth, poverty reduction and sustainable development. The importance of heritage tourism for the African economy has been well recognised by the World Tourism Organization and Unesco, and it is believed that appropriate knowledge of cultural heritage can promote ethnic and heritage tourism and thereby contribute to the economic development of African countries. Traditional medical knowledge, which is hidden in the collective heritage of a particular indigenous people or local community, has social, cultural and scientific value and is important for many indigenous peoples and local communities in Africa (WIPO: http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/tk/en/documents/pdf/background_briefs-e-n6-web.pdf). Finding, recording and imparting indigenous and traditional medical knowledge, which is often hidden in cultural heritage content, through education and training can boost the health and wellbeing of people in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The key objective of the LeaPS project is to promote access to and use of digital cultural heritage content for classroom education which will enable people to promote tourism and tackle health and wellbeing issues by learning about traditional and indigenous medicine and healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa. It will undertake a series of creative and innovative fieldwork and engagement activities with key stakeholders in the partner countries to understand the key challenges at both demand and supply side of cultural heritage content for school education in Sub-Saharan Africa, and assess its potential impact on different sectors in particular tourism, and indigenous and traditional medicine and wellbeing of people. In order to achieve this, it will:
1. Explore how innovative digital learning and training materials can be developed by bringing together cultural heritage content and service providers, educators and policymakers; and
2. Engage with key stakeholders to understand the potential benefits and impacts that will arise from delivery of cultural heritage education in schools in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The project will address the following inter-related research questions:
1. Use of cultural heritage content in education: Can the cultural heritage content that has already been digitised be accessed and used for classroom education in Sub-Saharan Africa? What are the policies of government/education departments, academic institutions and others in this context, and what changes are needed?
2. Teachers' training: What kind of training is required for teachers to be able to use digital cultural heritage content in classrooms? Whether the Unesco Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Framework (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/image`````s/0022/002246/224655e.pdf) or the training materials developed in Europe based on the Europeana collections [8] can be adapted to suit the training needs of teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa in the context of this project?
3. Beneficiaries and impact: What are the potential benefits of using cultural heritage content in education in Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular:
a. tourism departments/industries who can benefit from having trained human resources in the use of cultural heritage content, for example, for creating specific applications based on cultural heritage content for attracting heritage- and eco-tourism;
b. government departments, businesses/industries and public bodies concerned with health and wellbeing challenges that can be addressed through an understanding of indigenous and traditional medicine and health practices that may be hidden in cultural heritage content.
In the long term the project will have a significant impact on people and society in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The key objective of the LeaPS project is to promote access to and use of digital cultural heritage content for classroom education which will enable people to promote tourism and tackle health and wellbeing issues by learning about traditional and indigenous medicine and healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa. It will undertake a series of creative and innovative fieldwork and engagement activities with key stakeholders in the partner countries to understand the key challenges at both demand and supply side of cultural heritage content for school education in Sub-Saharan Africa, and assess its potential impact on different sectors in particular tourism, and indigenous and traditional medicine and wellbeing of people. In order to achieve this, it will:
1. Explore how innovative digital learning and training materials can be developed by bringing together cultural heritage content and service providers, educators and policymakers; and
2. Engage with key stakeholders to understand the potential benefits and impacts that will arise from delivery of cultural heritage education in schools in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The project will address the following inter-related research questions:
1. Use of cultural heritage content in education: Can the cultural heritage content that has already been digitised be accessed and used for classroom education in Sub-Saharan Africa? What are the policies of government/education departments, academic institutions and others in this context, and what changes are needed?
2. Teachers' training: What kind of training is required for teachers to be able to use digital cultural heritage content in classrooms? Whether the Unesco Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Framework (http://unesdoc.unesco.org/image`````s/0022/002246/224655e.pdf) or the training materials developed in Europe based on the Europeana collections [8] can be adapted to suit the training needs of teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa in the context of this project?
3. Beneficiaries and impact: What are the potential benefits of using cultural heritage content in education in Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular:
a. tourism departments/industries who can benefit from having trained human resources in the use of cultural heritage content, for example, for creating specific applications based on cultural heritage content for attracting heritage- and eco-tourism;
b. government departments, businesses/industries and public bodies concerned with health and wellbeing challenges that can be addressed through an understanding of indigenous and traditional medicine and health practices that may be hidden in cultural heritage content.
In the long term the project will have a significant impact on people and society in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Planned Impact
The LeaPS project has been triggered by some of the key findings of an AHRC GCRF project (NetDiploma) (Grant Ref: AH/R004277/1; www.northumbria.ac.uk/netdiploma) which produces an account of what has been digitised in the leading memory institutions in the partner countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, and how they can be made available through the Open Acces (OA) mode. So, it is appropriate to undertake a follow-on research to explore how such OA cultural heritage content can be used to provide cultural heritage education in schools in Sub-Saharan Africa that can contribute to sustainable development.
The LeaPS project is a collaboration between arts and humanities disciplines, and other academic and national institutions in the UK and four African countries viz. Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Nigeria. It will explore innovative ways to enhance engagement with key stakeholders in the partner countries, and assess impacts from specific applications, arising from the ongoing AHRC GCRF project NetDiploma. The focus of the project is to study how cultural heritage content can be used in school education that can subsequently contribute to sustainable development, especially in promoting tourism, and health and wellbeing of people, in Sub-Saharan Africa. It will undertake a series of creative and innovative fieldwork and engagement activities with key stakeholders in the partner countries to identify the the major challenges to be addressed at both the demand and supply side of cultural heritage content for making it suitable for school education in Sub-Saharan Africa, and its potential impact on different sectors in particular heritage tourism, and health & wellbeing of people.
The project will demonstrate how cultural heritage content can be brought to the classrooms in Sub-Saharan Africa in promoting awareness and skills of schoolchildren in the use of cultural heritage to promote tourism and improve knowledge on indigenous and traditional medicine and health practices. It will demonstrate how cultural heritage information in classrooms can benefit schoolchildren and young adults in developing their understanding and thus benefiting from traditional and indigenous medicine and health practices. It will demonstrate how cultural heritage education can benefit tourism industry in Sub-Saharan Africa in the longer term by creating a workforce equipped with the necessary knowledge of cultural heritage and digital skills that can promote tourism at local and national level by developing novel products and applications. It will also identify the key policy and capacity requirements for bringing cultural heritage education to classroom. This will benefit content providers like libraries, archives and museums at the supply side, and schools and educators at the demand side. In addition, the LeaPS project will produce a website for facilitating longer term engagement activities and discussions amongst members of a multinational team and general public in Sub-Saharan Africa who are interested to bring cultural heritage content to classrooms. The project website will be maintained by members of the project team for two years after the project ends, and then by one or more interested stakeholders in the longer term.
In the longer term this project will have a significant impact on the life and wellbeing of people in Sub-Saharan Africa through learning of cultural heritage, and utilization of knowledge from the past in addressing some health and wellbeing issues, and sustainable tourism development. It will also benefit tourism and health sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa.Thus, in the longer term the project will contribute to several SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals): SDG 4.7.1 (Education for Sustainable Development), SDG 8.9 & SDG12b (Sustainable tourism and creation of jobs and promoting local culture and products), SDG11.4 (Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage).
The LeaPS project is a collaboration between arts and humanities disciplines, and other academic and national institutions in the UK and four African countries viz. Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Nigeria. It will explore innovative ways to enhance engagement with key stakeholders in the partner countries, and assess impacts from specific applications, arising from the ongoing AHRC GCRF project NetDiploma. The focus of the project is to study how cultural heritage content can be used in school education that can subsequently contribute to sustainable development, especially in promoting tourism, and health and wellbeing of people, in Sub-Saharan Africa. It will undertake a series of creative and innovative fieldwork and engagement activities with key stakeholders in the partner countries to identify the the major challenges to be addressed at both the demand and supply side of cultural heritage content for making it suitable for school education in Sub-Saharan Africa, and its potential impact on different sectors in particular heritage tourism, and health & wellbeing of people.
The project will demonstrate how cultural heritage content can be brought to the classrooms in Sub-Saharan Africa in promoting awareness and skills of schoolchildren in the use of cultural heritage to promote tourism and improve knowledge on indigenous and traditional medicine and health practices. It will demonstrate how cultural heritage information in classrooms can benefit schoolchildren and young adults in developing their understanding and thus benefiting from traditional and indigenous medicine and health practices. It will demonstrate how cultural heritage education can benefit tourism industry in Sub-Saharan Africa in the longer term by creating a workforce equipped with the necessary knowledge of cultural heritage and digital skills that can promote tourism at local and national level by developing novel products and applications. It will also identify the key policy and capacity requirements for bringing cultural heritage education to classroom. This will benefit content providers like libraries, archives and museums at the supply side, and schools and educators at the demand side. In addition, the LeaPS project will produce a website for facilitating longer term engagement activities and discussions amongst members of a multinational team and general public in Sub-Saharan Africa who are interested to bring cultural heritage content to classrooms. The project website will be maintained by members of the project team for two years after the project ends, and then by one or more interested stakeholders in the longer term.
In the longer term this project will have a significant impact on the life and wellbeing of people in Sub-Saharan Africa through learning of cultural heritage, and utilization of knowledge from the past in addressing some health and wellbeing issues, and sustainable tourism development. It will also benefit tourism and health sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa.Thus, in the longer term the project will contribute to several SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals): SDG 4.7.1 (Education for Sustainable Development), SDG 8.9 & SDG12b (Sustainable tourism and creation of jobs and promoting local culture and products), SDG11.4 (Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage).
| Description | Based on a series of online meetings and a 2-day workshop at Northumbria University (on 3rd and 4th June 2019), the project team agreed to engage with a small set of schoolteachers in the partner countries to co-design a mobile app, as a proof-of-concept that can be used by the schoolteachers to select African cultural heritage and indigenous content in classrooms. The design activities were led by the project team in the UK and Nigeria, while members of the other project teams participated in the conceptualisation and design of the LeaPS app as a proof-of concept. The project developed the initial prototype of a mobile and web app that would allow schoolteachers select quality digital cultural heritage content for preparing lessons and reading materials in classrooms. We co-designed this prototype with schoolteachers in four African countries - Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Nigeria. Overall, the initial observations and comments from the participants taking part in the trial runs in all the partner countries, as well as the participants taking part in the group discussions, were very positive and encouraging. However, a few common points were noted through the comments and feedback from almost all the participants, and various stakeholders, which included the following: 1. The LeaPS app empowers schoolteachers in selecting relevant digital indigenous content for classroom education, and this will provide better learning experience to the schoolchildren in Africa. 2. Although the LeaPS app and the associated toolkit is very simple and easy to use, its success depends on the development of digital collection of relevant and quality-assured content that can be selected by the teachers for use in their lesson plans 3. The collections of digital content, to be used by the schoolteachers for selecting the relevant content for a class/session, need to be built further to increase the volume, variety and quality of the digital content 4. Content for more subjects and disciplines should be added to the collection so that teachers in every subject can select and use digital content in their classrooms 5. Content in local languages and their description/tags in local languages would improve the usability of the collection and the overall system 6. More training is required for optimum use and applications of the mobile app for school teachers, and the web app for the school managers/administrative staff. 7. While the mobile app is very simple and user-friendly, its use is dependent on the nature of the device, e.g. a smart phone, and the internet connection which is not uniform and easily available in every school - teachers and children. Hence alternative approaches, for example local collection and storage of digital content may be useful for accessing the content in an offline mode 8. Culture and practices of education, and people involved - schoolteachers, students, education management and policymakers need to influenced and changed for adoption and use of the LeaPS toolkit. This can be achieved through wider engagement and advocacy. 9. A multi-partner and multi-stakeholder approach is needed to develop content and run the toolkit in all different kinds of schools - private and public, in different locations - urban and rural, and in all different subject areas 10. The selection and co-design or content as well as use of the app should include key players/stakeholders from multiple fields of application like tourism, health, science, agriculture, etc., that may benefit from the use of the app in the long run. |
| Exploitation Route | The initial prototype mobile and web app needs to be developed and tested further with more schoolteachers and schoolchildren in Africa in order to develop a full version that can be rolled out to African schools. Also more training is required for information professionals working in the cultural heritage information services, especially national libraries and national archives in the partner countries, in or order to prepare them for making more indigenous and cultural heritage information online. |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education |
| URL | http://www.leapsgcrf.com |
| Description | The design activities were led by the project team in the UK and Nigeria, while members of the other project teams participated in the conceptualisation and design of the LeaPS app as a proof-of concept. A final 2-day workshop in Nairobi, Kenya brought together the findings of the development and trial runs of the initial prototype of the LeaPS app. The workshop brought together a number of participants from various organisations in Kenya to discuss the potential benefits and impact of the LeaPS project in Kenya. The two-day workshop was hosted by the Kenyan Co-I and was held at the Kenya National Archives and Documentation Service (KNADS) on 29th and 30th January 2020. The event was attended by 7 project team members and 34 participants from 15 organisations in Kenya. Participating Organisations 1. ALPHABET AFRICAN TIMELINE(K) 2. COMMISSION ON ADMINISTRATIVE JUSTICE 3. GLOBAL GOODWILL AMBASADORS 4. JAMHURI HIGH SCHOOL 5. KENYA NATIONAL ARCHIVES 6. KENYA NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR UNESCO 7. KENYA TOURIST BOARD 8. KENYA UTALII COLLEGE 9. KENYA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION 10. KENYA MINISTRY OF TOURISM AND WILDLIFE 11. MOI UNIVERSITY 12. NATIONAL MUSEUMS OF KENYA 13. OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT /CABINET OFFICE, KENYA 14. PUMWANI BOYS HIGH SCHOOL 15. KENYA TOURISM REGULATORY AUTHORITY 16. National Archives of Malawi 17. Federal University Technology Akure (NIGERIA) 18. Northumbria University The workshop was opened with a welcome address from the Deputy Director of the Kenya National Archives & Documentation Services (KNADS), and this was followed by an overview of the LeaPS project by the project PI, and reports on the activities of the project in the four partner countries were presented by the respective Co-Is. Most part of the 2-day workshop focused on discussing the potential synergy between the LeaPS project and the newly introduced Building Bridges Initiative (BBI), an initiative of the Kenyan government to promote communications and activities among various government departments, ministries, and stakeholders to promote socio-economic developments in the country. KNADS and its new role as a key national institution holding and managing the history of Kenya has been specifically mentioned in the BBI document. The participants were divided into groups. Each group was asked to consider and discuss the following issues in the context of the potential use of the LeaPS app in Education, Tourism or BBI: • what would be the short- and long-term benefits of the apps in the respective areas what content should be included and used through the LeaPS app; and • what resources would be required for development, testing, implementation and sustainability of the apps. All the groups that were represented by experts/professions and policymakers from multiple government departments, international agency, NGOs and education institutions, concluded that a multi-partner and multi-stakeholder approach is needed to develop content and run the LeaPS toolkit in all different kinds of schools - private and public, in different locations - urban and rural, and in all different subject areas. It was also emphasized that the recently introduced BBI could give an excellent opportunity for the LeaPS project team, and especially the national Co-I and the national project team to continue to engage with various government departments and stakeholders to take the key idea of the LeaPS project forward in promoting access to, and use of, digital cultural heritage content for classroom education which will enable people to promote tourism, especially heritage tourism, and tackle health and wellbeing issues by learning about traditional and indigenous medicine and healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa, and especially in Kenya. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2020 |
| Sector | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | Teachers' training and evaluation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Usability testing and Workshops Teachers' training and usability testing of the apps: 25th and 26th Sept. 2019, Ondo State, Nigeria Total participants: 20 - Primary school teachers: 8; Secondary school teachers: 8 and 4 teachers in training from the College of Education in the state |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| Description | Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Workshop to discuss the potential of the LeaPS app in promoting the use of African indigenous and cultural heritage content in classroom education especially in the context of developing awareness of tourism and health & wellbeing. Total number of participants: 10 -- 2 Head teachers, 2 Principals, 1 STEM Desk Officer, 1 Director of Quality Assurance, 1 Special Adviser to the Governor on Education, 1 Director of State Universal Primary Education Board, 1 Director of planning, Ministry of Health, and 1 Director of public engagements, Ministry of Tourism |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |