Transformative Education for Displaced Youth - A Conversation with Holli Ghaisen, Louie Barnett and Amala students, Christine & Motasim

Welcome to the Future Learning Design Podcast.

When you're like a refugee in like a country that isn't your home country, I would never be 100% part of that place. That's why I always just take care of the people who are around me. But that kind of changed when I came into Amala because kind of made me want to, you know what, let me help the society but in my own way.

Hi, and thanks for joining me for this final episode of 2022. The Future Learning Design Podcast is brought to you with the support of Notosh. For this final episode of the year, I'm speaking with the team from Amala, which is an organization that has developed the first international high school curriculum for young people who are displaced. Formerly known as Sky School, Amala was conceived in 2017 in response to the gap in quality education provision for displaced youth. Their high school diploma and changemaker courses focus on areas such as peacebuilding, ethical leadership, and social entrepreneurship. Joining me to talk more about the diploma and the experience of being a student at Amala is Holly Gaisen, Louis Barnett, and then two students, Motsesim from Sudan, currently living in Jordan, and Christine from Uganda, currently living in Kakuma, Kenya. As learning lead for Amala in Kenya, Holly Gaisen believes that the Amala High School Diploma is not only the answer to the high demand for education in Kakuma, but that it also offers solutions to the community's problems. He's worked for organizations such as Jesuit Worldwide Learning and the Lutheran World Federation. Louis Barnett is Amala's Education Lead based in Singapore. Louis got involved with Amala as the Course Leader for Peacebuilding in Your Community in 2018. As Education Lead, he's responsible for leading the development and delivery of Amala's educational work and improving the impact Amala programs have on student outcomes. Well, thank you all for joining me. It's an absolute pleasure to be able to have a little kind of Future Learning Design party with the Amala team and some students here. So we've got Louis and Holly and Christine and Mottasem joining us on the Future Learning Design podcast. I'm so happy to be talking about Amala and the amazing work that the Amala team and the Amala students are doing across the world, particularly in Jordan and in Kenya. And just to start off, I'd love to invite one of you, Holly or Louis, just to give us a little bit of a sense of the concept behind Amala, just for anybody who hasn't heard of the school and exactly what you're doing there, just to kick us off, and then we'll, we'll think about what the student experience is like with Christine and Mottasem.

Yeah, great. Thanks, Tim. It's great to be here as well and to share about Amala and particularly to be on with Holly Mottasem and Christine as well. I think, yeah, just to give a bit of context as to what Amala is and why it was developed, it basically emerged from, you know, the idea that there's a gap in terms of upper secondary level education for a lot of refugees and people who've experienced displacement who have missed out on that high school education. And particularly for people above the age of 18 who in a lot of situations are then not able to access the local education system, and they kind of miss out on that quite important 2 years that also lead to that high school credentialing that a lot of pathways require. So that's kind of where, where it emerged from, and it's very much rooted in the idea of developing agency. So it's not just focusing on pathways. The whole idea as well should be that all of the learning is life-worthy so that it matters in the lives that our students lead. And I'm sure we'll expand on it more.

Brilliant. Yeah, no, I mean, it's amazing when you see the content of the courses involved in the diploma, it makes me want to take the courses myself. So I mean, it's an amazing thing you're doing. So Holly, is there anything you wanted to add there?

Yes, actually Amara came as the right fit for actually many refugees here in Takum Bai. There is actually a big gap between the students graduating from primary school going to high school. You find only, say, 16% of the students actually are having access to high school, and the rest are just like dropped out, maybe because they can't afford to get into schools, to pay their school fees. So we find it's really a good fit for us here in Kakuma, and these opportunities have really enabled many students to go back to school and access high school. And not only that, Amala became the best fit for us because from the students we have graduated so far, many of them are already involved in several, uh, pathway activities, and it is because of the way the curriculum is designed to make sure that the students are able to develop agency, they're able to manage complexity and address issues. So we find some of our students are joining universities, some are implementing their own projects, and others are already getting opportunities for work. So we find, uh, Amala actually became the right fit for us in helping That's amazing.

Yeah, and it feels like it really opens up opportunities and choices for people, you know, perhaps who haven't had them and have, you know, challenging circumstances. But even compared to your standard pathways in a standard high school in whatever country, it just, it feels like the way that you've structured it really opens up interesting opportunities, which I'd love to, yeah, explore a bit more a bit later. But thank you. And so maybe then just to spend a bit of time on what does it feel like to be a student at Amala? So welcome Christine, mata sem. Could I ask you Christine first, just to tell us a little bit about how did you first come to know about Amala firstly, and what was it that, as Holly was saying, it kind of, there's a nice fit. What for you, what was it that particularly attracted you or made you feel like this would be a useful and important step in your kind of academic and professional career?

Thank you. For me, I learned Tamala from a friend who was also planning to join. And at first we doubted it because it's a new program. It's a new way of learning and it's not the usual way of learning here in Kakuma, so we decided to come and check it out. And what made me join and be really interested in it is that the system does not like look for specific qualifications. As long as if like you dropped out from high school, you finished your primary school, you are good to go. Because it's— I think it's different because when you find like, let me say here in Kenya, if you study from another country, if they cannot interpret your results, they'll tell you to just repeat the a primary school, and if you, you feel like, you know, you're losing time, you'll end up dropping. So Amala's system was welcoming to all countries, the qualifications. As long as you want to join and finish your high school, you are good to go. So that's what made me like join Amala.

No, that's great. And what would have been if it wasn't for Amala? What would have been the other opportunities there for training or further education in Kakuma?

It's not easy. It's not— I would say it's not easy to like finish with the system of here. Because you'll find, even though like you studied up to like a secondary school from the countries you came from, they will tell you to go back to the, to the lower level, primary level. And you'll find that if there are opportunities, like let me say vocational centers, you'll go and like get trainings in different skills. But you'll find that when you go and apply for a job, they'll still want a secondary level. Like you'll have to have finished your high school even though you like qualify, you have the skills and everything. So I'll say The opportunities are there to study, but then when you find like after like studying those vocational, you'll need the high school diploma, the high school certificate to get a job at the end of the day. Yeah, so I said there are opportunities like there are vocational centers around teaching skills like hairdressing, computer, but you'll find that if you apply again, you have to have a high school, a high school certificate, and you'll find that difficult to join the high school of here if you do not have that primary certificate of the same country.

Yeah, okay. I should have asked you, where have you come from to arrive in Kakuma?

Uh, I came from Uganda, and you'll find that in Uganda the primary school ends— we only like study for 7 classes, which is different from Kenya. They do 8 classes. So when you come, we study different subjects. Like, for us, we only do 4., and you'll find that here they do 5 including Swahili language, which is not studied in Uganda. So the, the certificate, the pass slips, is a bit different. So if they do not understand it, like, you have to sit for qualifiers examination, and you find that if you have the Ugandan certificate, primary school certificate, you are not qualified to sit for those qualified exams. So you have to go back now to your primary school.

Yeah, thank you. And Mottasem, how about you? What's your experience? So just if you could give us a brief introduction, where are you coming from? And, and you're now in Jordan, as I understand.

And how did you also find out about Amala to start with?

Well, it's actually a funny story. I was born in Sudan in 2004, actually one year after the war in Darfur, um, that took place. My mother was a, was a doctor in the University of al-Fashr, so she got the opportunity to study PhD of physics. That was her major, PhD in physics in Jordan. In the Jordanian university, and she took me, my brother, my father, and we are currently living in Jordan for now, almost 16 years. I spent literally my, my whole life in Jordan. As I came, I was just 2 years old. I studied some elementary school to set up to almost secondary school, but didn't finish it because first of all, I didn't like school in general. I, I used to always run from school. I used to just take my bag, throw it off the wall and climb the wall and run away. Sorry, Mom, if you want to hear this, but I literally used to do that a lot. So when I first come to hear about Amala, it was from my brother who actually someone told him about Amala and he took the chance and he was accepted. He's now part of the third cohort diploma program in Amala, and after that, by 6 months, I got the chance to join Amala. So I'm now part of the fourth cohort diploma in Amala. So great. Yeah, fantastic. It is actually great. Like, the people out there are so nice. Like, I'm not saying this just because someone here— I generally think them as a second family for me. A lot of the students have different backgrounds. A lot of them also dropped out of school. Some of them came because of the war. Some of them didn't finish school, you know. So it is kind of hectic, but it's great at the same time.

Yeah, interesting. And maybe from there, could you just tell us a little bit about what What are some of the actual courses? And the, I mean, the, the titles of the courses are amazing and really kind of interesting, broad range of different things you can think about and study. What has been a particular favorite for you or something that you're focusing on within your courses that you've particularly got a lot from?

Uh, we just finished our first two courses. The first one was Social Entrepreneurship and the second one was Ethical Leadership. And last week we just started two new courses. One is called Peacebuilding in Your Community, and the second one is Economics for Change. So I didn't experience even half of the programs that they give us there, but I can give you like what I liked about the first two courses. I took like a certificate from the UNICEF in the entrepreneurship kind of work, and I also have some background in life skills that I also took from the UNICEF, so it was kind of familiar type of information I got from there, but Also, I was surprised by some of the stuff that I didn't know or I didn't expect to have different views on. For example, philosophy. I always thought philosophy was just someone who would just sit down, be smoking some type of weed, and just be talking about life and this and that. But it actually, it changed my view on philosophy a lot. And that's just one topic I can give you on the top of my head. I have so much more.

But that's brilliant, thank you. And how about you, Christine? What courses have you taken and what have you particularly gained from them so far?

Uh, so far I've done like social entrepreneurship, ethical leadership, peacebuilding, living peacefully, societal change, economic for positive change. I think, you know, I joined earlier than him.

Yeah, amazing, you've done a lot.

And yeah, yeah, I think I'm in the second cohort.

What's one thing or a couple of things that particularly stand out for you in terms of your learning, or maybe the style of the learning, or, you know, just what that— how has that experience been for you?

I think the style of the learning is different and it's interesting. It at least accommodates what you are facing right now, because you'll find that the topics you're learning about, like, let me say, social entrepreneurship, ethical leadership, is building the things we need right now in our situation, because As for me, I'm a refugee in the refugee camp, and you'll find that the knowledge you are being given, the knowledge you are gaining right now is helping us a lot in like opening up like CBOs and solving problems. Like, so we are like gaining like skills in the problem solving, you know, communication skills. And I think it's helping us in the real life in our refugee camps here because Brighter like made a lot of innovative fellow students who are already like changemakers and problem solvers, and they have like their own organizations. And right now the knowledge is actually helping us solve the problems in the community. So I think that that's the topics we are learning, a bit different from the usual topics, like let's say math, let me say geography and history, is the things you need right now as a refugee, because the knowledge, like when you learn it right now, you are going to use it the next moment. Yeah, and also being like, it's, let me say, in person and also online accommodates some of us because you'll find that most of us like who dropped out right now are also earning somewhere in some income. So I think it helps us to come and have like 3 days in person and communicate with the instructors, and then other days you, you do it online on your own free time as well as like you're looking for some money right now to sustain your life. So yeah.

Amazing. Yeah, that's so interesting that how relevant it is immediately that you can put it into practice, which is fantastic. I mean, that was— I would love that for every learner in every school everywhere in the— across the world. I think that's so important. But also, as you said, that ability to juggle these other pressures you have if you're, you know, earning money, you have part-time work. Trying to do that and learn at the same time is a challenge, right? It's a challenging juggle. So to be able to do the hybrid on some online, some in person, that sounds very interesting. And there's a component, as I understand it, within the diploma that is alongside the other courses is your personal interest project, right? Could you perhaps tell me, Christine, a little bit about what that means for you? How is that structured and what is your particular focus for that project?

Uh, right now I have like two projects running, different things. One is educating the mothers because I'm a digital marketer, I work online, so educating the mothers like computer literacy, English, and also making them at least know a little bit of digital marketing. And the other project is like reskilling people with living with disability because I've worked with Humanity and Inclusion and I also have different skills. So I think like addressing skills and business skills, and we are trying to like train these people. So here, like, the personal interest project and the help given by the, by the Amala facilitators and everything is like helping us like further our projects and understand what we can do, how we can better the projects, and how we can like get the funds, what we are doing wrong and where we are supposed to improve.

So that sounds amazing. And how did you come up with that as your project? Where did you see that need?

It was like a group. We came up with the project as a group. I won't take the credit.

Okay.

And we saw the need because we'll find that right now people who are earning— because I have like my team and some other friends, you'll find that they're earning like 30,000 right now, which is not someone— most people who earn like an incentive in the refugee camp and like 5,000 only because you don't have the working permit. But when you work online, you are not limited because of your status as a refugee. So, uh, we found that if we We are to educate the other mothers and like help them like, you know, gain these skills. Like, let me say, the youths and they're like female, because, you know, mostly you find that men are there, but females— impact them with like the knowledge, like let me say entrepreneurship knowledge and digital literacy. I think they will become independent and also like not be limited by their statuses as a refugee. So we found that there are people— we have many who like also finished their high schools, but will be unemployed because of the lack of opportunities. The jobs are not enough for everyone, and you'll find that even when you get a job, the money, the income coming in is not enough to provide for the families you have right now. Because you find most of us have like big families. Like, let me say I have like a family of 8, and not everyone is working. And also, we also— the other projects, the one working with people living with disabilities, you find that most of the people living here, especially in this— in our situation, saying that can't— you'll find that they are not taken like provided with the education-wise. They won't go to like school. And so you find that if we like to educate them with like skills, like hairdressing, business skills— they are talented people. And you find that when you communicate with these people and get to know them, there are people who are— who have different skills, who are gifted in different ways, but they're lacking. There are the people you'll find that they are low-income earners, they're named later for like these jobs. You don't find them in the jobs provided here in the country. And my team decided to like, you know, reskill them and give them the necessary skills to be independent, to be able to open up their own businesses and create their own, like, businesses than wait and, like, apply and we found that there is— I mean, yeah, we found that there is a need for themselves.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Wow, that sounds amazing. And it's just so interesting to hear that as part of your learning, you're immediately, you know, kind of paying that forward, you know, you're putting those social entrepreneurship skills that you're learning into immediate practice. To pass that on and to kind of help build capacity in other places where you see need. And that outward-looking kind of perspective is so interesting. And I think, again, so important for other education contexts to learn from, that so much is often about what do I need and me gathering all these skills and competencies and knowledge and not actually paying it forward and giving it back to the community or in ways that we can support. So I think that focus is really interesting. Brilliant, thank you so much. And Mothesem, how about you? Where would you like— because I understand the structure of the diploma, there's also this pathways component that— where— so what do you hope that you will be able to do, you know, as a result of the Amala High School Diploma? You know, what's your— what are your ambitions?

For me, I think I want to make a community project to help my local community. For like, there's not a certain aspect I want to help in, like I have more than one idea. I I want to help kids, I want to help in education. Like, I'm still hanging up in the air. I haven't decided what I want to do, but maybe I'ma think of something that have— is related to women and women's rights and women empowerment. So yeah, yeah, interesting.

And do you feel like— have you always had that sense that you wanted to kind of help and be a part of something and, you know, help support change, or has that come as a result of the experience of being with Amala?

I mean, it's kind of a mix of both for me, because when you like are a refugee in like a country that isn't your home country, you're dealing with people that like— how would I put this? It is kind of crazy because wherever I go, I would never be 100% like part of that place. For example, when I'm with Sudanese, I don't think I'm 100% Sudanese because sometimes they, you know, like tease me about some stuff and like, yo, you didn't have that, you Judaic experience there. So I kind of feel sometimes excluded, as I might not think I'm 100% from them. And when I hang out with Jordanians, I'll be like, they are still not my people. I don't feel 100%, you know, like I'm part of that, or like I'm, I'm in there. So it is kind of crazy, you never be 100% part of something. So that's why I always kind of like washed my hands of it, as I just take care of the people who are around me, people who just, you know, I know that they accept me and love me. But that kind of changed when I came into Amala because I see people from different backgrounds— Iraqis, Azerbaijan, Jordanian, Somalian, Yemen. Like, literally we have like 6 or 7 nationalities just in our cohort alone. Yeah, along the other cohort. So it kind of made me wanna, you know what, let me help the society but in my own way. Now, my own ways, I don't know what it's going to include, but I want to help them in my own way.

So that's amazing. Yeah. And I mean, of course there's no rush, you know, you will understand that at the right time. But that's so interesting what you're saying about belonging and, and feeling part of something. But also then, yeah, yeah, as you said before about make, you know, a second family, you come into this community, you know, with a Nimala, and that inspires you in, in other ways.

It is actually like They gave us, I think like last week in peacebuilding, it was like the first session called Identity, and I really like that session because it is kind of gave us a deeper meaning of identity.

And yeah, wow, interesting. I mean, that's a huge topic for everybody across the world as well, I think, right now. Yeah, you know, also considering big questions about identity and who we are and who we want to be. So yeah, fascinating stuff. Thank you, Madsem. So maybe then we could switch over to you, Louis, just take a slightly wider view of Amala, because this is, I mean, amazing so far hearing from Christine and what's in terms of the experience. But perhaps we could also then look at what was some of the thinking behind it and the planning in terms of as you actually built out this amazing diploma design that you've created, rather than just taking something off the shelf, the IB diploma, or, you know, other qualifications that you can just grab off the shelf, as it were. You decided to go all in and, you know, really develop your own bespoke diploma, which is a huge piece of work anyway, but also then what was the thinking behind why you've gone much more into the agency and the social entrepreneurship, the peacebuilding and these incredible topics that you've structured it around?

Yeah. So that initial structure came about from the co-founders and our founding education director, Stuart McAlpine, who was a director of teaching and learning at University of SCA. You know, they recognized the challenge and the need. And made a real commitment to say, well, the people who really, really matter are people with experience of displacement. So they made a massive commitment to seek those people out and speak to them about their needs and what their restrictions were and things like that. I think Christine alluded to it. There's things like, well, we can't study, you know, 30 hours a week, 7 AM to 3 PM, because I've got to look after my kids or I've got to work to sustain myself. So we can't do that. And that kind of rules out quite a few programs.

Yeah.

And it was that kind of thing, basically understanding the needs and the constraints that kind of said, well, okay, we probably need to design something a little bit different and a bit more flexible. And that's why you've got that very flexible— we have 12 hours of in-person a week and 8 hours of independent work. And then to answer your question around The courses again very much emerged from the founding team, again really rooting things in, in agency. And they were also heavily involved in the Education 2030 project with the OECD from the start, where agency is at the core.

Yeah.

And the other concept that really drives is life-worthy learning. So learning that is likely to matter in the lives, um, from David Perkins matching the lives our learners lead. And again, that's coming from speaking to people with experience in displacement who say, look, these are the skills that I would have wanted, or these are the skills that I need if I was going to do a program. So we kind of built it out of that, as well as also sort of marrying that with what does the literature and the research tell us about what people are likely to need, right? There's a difference between what you want and what you need. And we're trying to find the middle ground where what people want and what people need crosses over.

And a now and future tension as well. And just that question about life-worthy learning and learning mattering is more and more, it's becoming a much more difficult question to answer. I was having this exact conversation yesterday, even.

Yep.

Someone talking to her 16, 17-year-old daughter, trying to answer the question, why does this chemistry stuff I'm learning matter to my life? And as things progress, wherever you are, with your displaced person or, you know, privilege, whatever context you're in, that question is becoming even harder to answer, I think. And so the fact that you guys are out there already, you know, putting into practice some of the things which are deeply mattering, right, they, they deeply worthy to learn, in my opinion. Maybe not everyone would agree, but I think that experience is much broader appeal and, you know, implications for other, other educational contexts, I think is fascinating. Holly, could I perhaps just ask you, just what Louis was saying there about those in-person hours, well, online as well, but particularly the in-person hours, what's that like as you are there in Kakuma in terms of the educators who are working with you, the learning spaces that you're using, what, what are some of the dynamics around that or the challenges, the opportunities that arise doing that kind of in-person education in a refugee camp like Kakuma?

Well, in-person learning is actually a good opportunity for the students to come to this learning center, interact with the facilitators among themselves, and get to learn from each other and really have a great time in the learning center. However, of course, there are also challenges associated with it. In Kakuma, we have students who are coming from far end of the region, and it becomes a challenge to really have all the students transported to the center. Mari is actually helping, uh, transporting some students, but still adapt to really have all the students coming from the far end to reach the center. And just like I said earlier on, there is a big gap of students accessing high school opportunities, and you find there are more students who really need these opportunity. And the fact that we have our learning center, we have only few classrooms that can accommodate a few, fewer number of students at a specific time. So what we do is to have classes running in the morning and also classes running in the afternoon. So this not only help the students to actually be flexible in their schedule, come and attend classes in the time that is convenient for them, to allow them to also take on the responsibilities that are there for them, either it be with volunteer activities, with personal commitments, work, or any other short trainings they can do. That one, the in-person learning, the way we really allow the students, our schedule to be flexible to accommodate the students, still a challenge for us. We have few students already finishing their sessions and they want to extend the hours within our learning center. Becomes difficult because we have another round of students coming in and, uh, there's that kind of a challenge because we have to tell these students, okay, okay, now you have to work outside the shed. The others actually do this, uh, use the classes. So that's actually a challenge.

Yeah. Interesting, isn't it? Because I mean, it's the same in other places as well. You've got this, the online space gives you loads of opportunity to reach more people and, you know, assuming people have the connectivity, you can, your numbers potentially are less limited. Whereas, as you said, if you're using physical places, getting to the physical place, the amount of space you've got, and you— when you want to really increase your capacity and reach more people, that is a very real constraint, isn't it? So yeah, fascinating. And just a question, if I could ask, about the facilitators. How are you bringing in facilitators for some of these courses? Because I would imagine it's not your standard training pathway for teachers, educators who have been through their own teaching preparation in, you know, wherever, in Kenya, in Tanzania, or, you know, Uganda, wherever they're coming from and have been trained in terms of their background, they're perhaps not very deeply familiar with the ideas around social entrepreneurship, peacebuilding, ethical leadership, et cetera. How do you navigate that? Are you training them, bringing people in and training them yourselves? What kinds of backgrounds of those facilitators?

Well, so far, the kind of facilitators that we bring into the program, most of them are really experienced facilitators. They have maybe facilitated a program somewhere or have taught somewhere, and they come in with experience, with their skills. And when they join us, we also have this onboarding where we take them through an orientation program for 2 weeks for them to really understand how the program works, and how everything is actually working within NALA and how we are supposed to approach sessions and classes. And one good thing is that we already have a notes or planners that guide the facilitator on how the facilitator is supposed to be performing certain activities in classes. Procedures are already laid down, so it's not a difficult task for the facilitator anymore to really think of planning. The only thing we can do is to try to contextualize the content, you treat the level of the learners or the space or whichever thing he sees fit for him to contextualize the learning plan.

And it's interesting even that you're calling them facilitators and not teachers, because as soon as you call them teachers, people come in with a very different perception of what that job is, right? How important is that to you?

Well, you find that most of our students are You find these are adult students, and the best thing you can do is to always allow them a chance to think, to be creative, and to learn by themselves. And the work of the facilitator is just only to come in and guide, you know, maybe introduce concepts here and there, clarify something. And that is what makes it even more interesting.

Absolutely. The irony of focusing on agency, but then trying to teach people agency. Thank you, Holly. Perhaps Louis, could I ask you then about some of the assessment piece as well? Because you've got this amazing diploma design, but then you're also talking about using the OECD's transformative competencies as some of your outcomes framework. So perhaps you could tell me a little bit about what does that look like? How are you tracking, monitoring, supporting the development of those competencies? As part of some of the kind of outcomes of the overall diploma?

Yeah, it's a good question. I think definitely the, the definition of agency drives us and we're using that idea of positive influence over your own life and the world around you. So that's why there's always this chance to, okay, so what are you actually going to do with this stuff you're learning to either influence your own life or the world around you, recognizing both are important. And at a very early stage, those transformative competencies They, they informed both the curriculum design. So a lot of the courses in the course descriptions say learners will manage complexity by, they will create new value by, and then sort of, you know, those higher level learning outcomes linked to those. It also influenced the design of our competency framework, which is very much our kind of assessment framework. So we have 7 competency areas and each competency area has about 3, 4, 5, 6 competencies. And those are the things that we actually, I guess, measure. Um, if that's the right—

it's a dangerous term, isn't it? But yeah, I know what you mean.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's that type of thing. And we kind of, we break those competencies down into, at the moment we've settled on the term success indicator, no particular reason. And we probably will review that, but those things are a bit more sort of concrete measurable, right? So an example would be Identify and frame real-world issues as a competency and just breaking that down into something that's a bit more concrete for facilitators and students to understand. But definitely we didn't limit ourselves to those transformative competency buckets. It's more like they're tracked through that competency assessment process.

And that's— does that come from a kind of portfolio building, reflection building on behalf of the student? So there's a— the student is owning that process of evidencing those success indicators, let's say?

Yeah, very much so. And Holly and the students can probably speak to this as well. It's definitely been one of the most challenging areas, I think, of the whole qualification because it's often new to students and new to facilitators and, you know, new in many ways. But essentially students are supported and learn how to sort of document their learning and the the things that emerge from taking action, right? And they're then supported to, to kind of use the competency framework as a reflection tool and start to, you know, oh, I've just done this piece of work and this is what I've got. What does it actually mean? What does it show that I can do? Because there is this piece around, one, being able to connect it to, to something that's an abstracted level up helps you navigate your learning. It helps you think, oh, I can do that, so what's my steps, but also helps you signal your learning to others because, you know, let's face it, an important outcome of a diploma like this is that you can tell people your skills, your capabilities, what you're good at. You can evidence it and you can use it to access pathways. But yeah, it's definitely a— students keep a portfolio in whatever way they see fit, and often it's just putting it in Google Drive and then pick out those artifacts, connect them with success indicators. And importantly, they often, we encourage them to justify the connection and then facilitators will kind of say, well, yeah, that we think you've met that success indicator. So, you know, great.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that is interesting, isn't it? And that metacognition, you could say, but stepping back from it, able to talk about the learning as well, as you said, has important impacts for the learning, but also for the way that their agency and, you know, the way that they're communicating that to other people. I think that's really interesting.

Yeah, and I can just add to that. It's something I just thought of, a conversation with a student a few weeks ago. And another thing we do encourage is the evidence doesn't have to come from the Amala Learning Programme. So the evidence could come from past experiences. It could come from the fact that you're at work and you've, you've done something and you can capture evidence, or you, you know, you've done something in the home or something with your family. And what was quite nice is I spoke to a student And she said that the competency framework— she asked, how, you know, was the competency framework even useful? Is it all very well if it's useful for us to track you and tick things off, but does it help your learning? And she said actually it helped her to make sense of some of her achievements and accomplishments, or, or be able to sort of take the things she's done and go, oh wow, okay, that kind of shows I can do that, and I didn't even think about that.

Definitely. Yeah, it sometimes takes I mean, that's the role of a coach or different, you know, other mentors or people that support you to be able to almost give a different perspective on what you've done so that you can see it in a different way and actually understand it a bit more deeply. I think that's really important. Holly, did— was there anything there about your experience there, or Christine, or Mottosen? What does that feel like from the perspective of either you, Holly, managing it, or Christine Mottosen being part of it, having process of trying to evidence things that you're developing there?

For me, the whole concept of evidencing, for me, is— was for me unique, to be honest. I, I really liked it because it is different from just getting, you know, paper and exams on, oh, you gotta do this, because I always used to fail in that. But to be honest, I really like the concept of evidencing as it encourages you to go and like make change or really prove that you learned it, not you just was sleeping there and maybe snoring, dreaming about, oh, what can I do this and that. So yeah, it is actually cool. I really like it.

That's great. How about you, Christine?

I'll say at first when we're told like we won't be having exams, we're so happy and we thought we're gonna sit out in this course and just graduate at the end of the day. But you'll find that The way they are assessing us, the evidencing way, is, you know, making us like having to prove, having to go to the community and doing it. Like, like, let me say, like, you know, go investigate this community. It's like, you know, pushing us to do it, and we are gaining experience. And at first we thought it's going to be, you know, when you're like used to the high school system and they tell you no examinations, you think now this is the best, you know. But I'll say that has helped us like to Like Louis said, like, you know, having to prove and knowing that if I can do this and if I can like solve conflicts, then I, you know, feel it makes you also feel good. Like you understand actually, like, let me say, like culture, you're understanding other people's culture. We are learning and we are practicing it, and let me say we are living it. And I'll say the evidencing system has really helped us to— yeah, it has pushed us to like do and practice. It's not, it's not just writing and saying, it's, it's about doing it and proving that, you know, I've done this, you know. And some people are like joking that right now we are taking more pictures and like recording more videos because you never know when you need to prove that, you know, you have done it. So I think it's interesting and it's wonderful.

Yeah, that's really good. No, I love that idea that you're living it rather than just, you know, memorizing to put it back out in an exam, which would be the other, you know, the alternative. But you're really living that learning. That's amazing, thank you. And Holly, how about you? Just from more administering the program, what are the challenges, or for the facilitators, how is that?

Well, it's like Justin said, when you introduce the concept to the students at the beginning and the students are still new to the whole concept, I see it as really for them to understand how everything is and understand some few terms that we use when we are referring to Is dancing and you're telling them you have to like produce proof of your life, what you have learned. And it's a bit difficult at the beginning, but the students progress in the courses, they get to enjoy actually writing about what they have learned and reflecting on how they have applied what they have learned and coming up with this. So it gets better as the students progress ahead in the courses. The challenge that we have been having is sometimes when, because like they need to share what they have produced with the facilitators, and all this require them to put them in either Google Drive or share the content through email or whichever way that they can share it with the facilitators. And that is where the challenge comes in because not all the students have access to the internet in their homes or have access to smart laptops or even tablets or computer. That is where the challenge is, and that is what is mostly sometimes dragging the students behind. So we are trying as much as we could to really allow the students to do a lot whenever they come, uh, the Learning Center, because they have access to the internet, the laptop, or the tablet. And it is something that we have been helping in this work, the students to document their language.

Yeah, that's interesting. And I've heard that previously as well in other contexts, but often it's not the idea that's the challenge. It's just some of the very practical basic realities of, you know, yeah, if you don't have access to the internet in your home, you can't capture those photos or videos in the same way that you would if you just have privileged access to Wi-Fi and you take it for granted. Yeah, thank you so much. And perhaps just kind of bringing it around then towards a close, one of the things I'm also interested in, you know, I see a lot of schools, universities, different educational organizations being held accountable in different ways, right? In national systems or through accreditation systems in the international education world, particularly. That is obviously some, a challenge for you as well, I imagine, because you have built your own diploma in this incredible framework, but you also want it to, as we were saying at the beginning, be genuinely valuable as a currency for learners to then go on in their pathways to other places. So it needs to be a passport to somewhere else as well as being this incredible learning experience. So maybe, Louis, could you just tell us a little bit about how was that experience? Because I've also observed when you have particularly transformative, progressive education ideas and concepts that are being put into practice. Sometimes they find it challenging when they start having to fit themselves into the boxes of the system, one could say, right? I recognize the system doesn't exist as this, this monster, but there is a reality that you want to be held accountable. You want to hold yourselves accountable, but you also want to get this credibility from the High School Diploma so that Christine Mwatsim can go on and apply for amazing university places if that's what they want to go and do, and they have a diploma that will take them there. So how was that process?

Great question. And I just want to, um, one of our outcomes in our theory of change is that alumni have increased chances of accessing further education and livelihood opportunities. So I think the first answer is we, we don't limit our idea of pathways to university.

Yeah.

Um, you know, sort of think about further education, but we recognize that for a lot of students, that is a reality, that that's what they want. Although interestingly, we've just redesigned our student survey to ask a bit more explicitly about pathways and 40% of the respondents selected pathways other than kind of university as their desired pathways.

Interesting.

Employment. Yeah. Employment and entrepreneurship, but still even employment, there's a level of recognition that's needed. So it's definitely an area where we're, we're looking into it and there's various, it's a very strategic thing, right? So we, we work with the Mastery Transcript Consortium. Because they do a lot of recognition work themselves. So we kind of leverage that. And obviously also working with them has helped us develop our assessment framework in many ways, utilizing their expertise. We also seek out accreditation. So CIS and MIASC, you know, two accrediting agencies are actually basically, um, yeah, pro bono. We're going through their accrediting process and they've been absolutely fantastic and supportive and there's things we're taking away from that. And it's also reciprocal because they're also learning as they do, because they're, you know, thinking, oh, it's a non-traditional system. We, we will learn something from this. So that's been fantastic. And of course, once you've gone through that quality assurance process with those people, that builds your recognition. Oh, that's quality. The other piece I think is just tracking where our students go, what they do, and to what extent did their time with Amala help with that so we can tell those stories and those students tell those stories. And of course, yeah, I mean, the most important thing is that if it is quality, students will tell people that it's exactly—

yeah, absolutely. And is there a funding implication there as well? Because obviously, you know, there is a need to support this amazing work that you're doing, and that, you know, education costs money wherever you're doing it.

Yeah.

Is there a, is there a funding implication there of that, the accreditation, or, you know, those, those aspects?

Yeah, I mean, linked with recognition, right? People aren't just gonna throw money at things. I mean, we were very lucky with the Catalyst Foundation at the start. They saw, look, this is a gap, there's nothing there as far as we, we know, you know, let's take a bit of a risk. And they did. But obviously to access that higher level of funding where we can scale, because you don't want to scale education without knowing it's going to be quality. Yeah, right. And it's one of the things we found that, that in-person learning really sort of kind of is quite important for our students. And so that is expensive in many ways. So to access that higher level of funding, yeah, we are going to have to show this is quality, students are having good outcomes. I mean, and that's also just for our own— we don't want to do it, don't want to do any harm to students. It's got to be a good quality thing, right? And you have to have that evidence for funders because—

but as you say, there's more importantly, potentially there's sense of you wanting to just get better at what you're doing. So you're leveraging other people's expertise to hold you accountable, to hold yourselves accountable, to say, we are doing great stuff. You know, it's obvious from what people are saying, but how could we do it better? Because we're not, we're just not happy with doing an average job at this. This is really important work and we just want to do it in the best possible way, in the most cost-effective and all those things way that we possibly can.

Yeah, I mean, there's always room to get better at what we do, right? Always. As soon as we stop improving, that's going to be— that's going to be a problem. I'd be interested to see a snapshot of sort of what things were for the first cohort versus what they are for this cohort.

Absolutely. Yeah. And just, I mean, maybe to wrap up, Holly or you, Louis, what's the vision? You know, where would you like it to be? And obviously, you know, Polly and Mia and, you know, the founders of Omala, this is a big question for them and the board, but personally, where would you like it to be in 10 years or, you know, 20 years' time? Or, you know, what are the kinds of discussions you're having around scale? Because, you know, clearly it's an amazing thing you're doing. You're in Jordan, you're in Kenya, but it's a big problem. There are many displaced people who lack access to opportunities and pathways. And, you know, it's a huge, complex challenge. So, you know, where would you like to play more of a role in that?

Ah, well, like I said, there's still a gap, either be it in Takuma, and I think it's worldwide. And the other thing is like the curriculum, the Amara curriculum is quite unique. It really opens up opportunities for a lot of students. And one thing that I would want to happen in the future is to really have more access for many more students worldwide. It's not only happening in Kakuma, Jordan. This, this problem that's happening in very many countries worldwide, and maybe having Amalah have these opportunities to people around the world, it will change in some way. That I look forward to.

Yeah. And, and do you just specifically, do you actually turn people away in Kakuma? I mean, do you have more demand than you can cater for in Kakuma specifically?

Yes, he actually— we have a high number of students applying and we have to like calm them down, take less. Like if we have around 300 students showing interest to join and we can only provide opportunities for, uh, 75 or 80 students, so it's still a huge number. And there are also others who have not applied because of the distance where they are Coming to the learning center is, is, is a challenge. Yeah. If we expand and have these centers around near them, then it would definitely be very, uh, yeah.

Just as a very specific example of what you were saying, that the scale of the need there, but even just in your specific context in Kakuma, there's a much greater need than currently you are able to provide for despite, you know, all of your best efforts. So yeah, that's really interesting. Thank you. And Louis?

Yeah, and I think linked to that, our ambition is to scale, but again, we want to scale with quality. And the original idea always was to eventually work with partners. So at the moment, you know, we've effectively designed a learning program and a qualification, you know, the learning program being those courses and the qualification almost being the competencies and the assessment model that leads to this award of a diploma. And we kind of had to start two schools almost. I don't think they'd see themselves as schools, but you know, it's just a term that everyone knows, right? But actually, you know, to scale, there are plenty of excellent partners, community-based organizations. In Kakuma, we've got partners who run 10-week changemaker courses and, you know, they're excellent. So our vision is definitely for partners to be able to use our learning program to support the students in their context to get this diploma, right? And our role, Amala, is a more global brand and the recognition piece around, look, this is quality, this is how we quality assure, et cetera, et cetera, and enabling those organizations on the ground who maybe don't have quite the privileged network that we might have purely because, you know, if you can't leave a refugee camp, you're going to have less networking opportunities. So, and we can enable that. So. That's kind of the vision, right?

Yeah.

In 10 years, I think it's lots of partner organizations making it their own.

Yeah.

While still being able to get the diploma so that everyone can contextualize it, which is the whole point as well.

Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. And that's the hope, right? As I was talking to Polly, Amala, Amala meaning hope or a derivative of the Arabic word for hope. So that's the hope for sure. And, um, just if I can, just my passion is transforming education, right? As you know, and I think from talking to Polly, that's also a shared passion. I think there's a, there's a broader vision as well that the work that you are doing is proof of concept that this social entrepreneurship and changemaking and ethical leadership, all these things are vitally important for a relevant future-focused education system. And so there needs to be some kind of closing the loop back into what we could call standard education so that there's not such a big gap between the type of experience you'd get in a standard high school compared to the Amala experience. You know, there's so many things that you're learning, I think, that would be incredibly valuable for committed educators in the more standard system to try and adapt and, and learn from and implement in their context. So I would love to see that too.

Yeah, for sure. You know, and I think there are— there's definitely things that we're learning that we will at some point be able to share when we have capacity, right?

Yeah, exactly. No, it's brilliant. Thank you so much. Absolutely, it's an absolute pleasure to be able to speak to you. Modestem, you want to say something?

Yeah, I just wanted to add something that Louis and you said, that you are planning to transform education. For me, that's like, I'm with you, to be honest. Like, the whole education system needs to be, not say changed, but I must say restructured as it needs to be better. And I think Amala and even some of the facilitators that we have here are doing a great job in doing that. Actually, one of our facilitators' name is Majd. He's actually part of the first cohort, you know. He's actually working to make a project called Scholoscope, which is actually like a website that students put their information in and He is, you know, trying to get universities to see that, oh look, there are students who are qualified in this and this and this that wants to join your university around the world. So it's like kind of a LinkedIn for student in some way. And Majid also like made 5 universities take Amada diploma in like, or accept students from Amada. So I actually, I really like that. That's amazing. Please, you gotta give me money for that plug I gave you, Majid. So yeah.

We're happy to plug Magic. That work sounds amazing and incredibly important. And yeah, just to your point, Moitassem, back to the beginning, I think people should be climbing the walls to get into school once we've restructured it, rather than climbing the walls to get out of school like you were, right? So no, I completely agree. We're on the same page. We definitely need to do a lot of work around that. So thank you very much. Thank you for your time, Christine. Thank you, Holly and Louis. Yeah, amazing work that you're doing, and I'm so happy to be able to share it on the podcast.

Thank you.

Good stuff. Thank you. All right, take it easy. Bye-bye. We hope you've enjoyed this episode. Please feel free to continue the dialogues with our guests, with us on our blog or on social media, or within your own networks.