Global leader in solutions to enhance and simplify communications and collaboration Avaya is helping the over 250 million children out of school in Africa to access virtual classrooms and stay on track with their studies through its all-in-one video collaboration app for the digital workplace, changes the way works gets done.
The app helps bring together distributed groups of people instantly with immersive work spaces where they can message, meet, share content and manage tasks from a browser or mobile device and provides an easy, secure and effective way to collaborate in the cloud.
Earlier this year, Avaya Spaces was offered for free to educational institutions worldwide, giving them all the meeting and team collaboration features they needed to keep students learning and curriculums on track.
With Avaya Spaces, African schools such as Icon International School in Ghana, Charter College in South Africa, and Waldorf Woodlands in Kenya, have kept students safely engaged in their education by using the app to create virtual classrooms that can be accessed securely from anywhere on any device.
Analysts and researchers have noted the importance of easy-to-use collaboration tools for education institutions to maintain their connections with students, to support bright futures in the face of todays challenges. Investing in training and education is the best way to secure the future prosperity of the African region and, according to Practise Leader, Enterprise Advanced Digital Services, Omdia, Adrian Ho, the COVID-19 pandemic has made its struggles more challenging and harnessing technologies like Avaya Spaces will help bridge the training and educational gaps of the future workforce in Africa, allowing the region to be globally competitive.
“The crisis has forced educators across Africa and around the world to adapt in order to avoid losing educational progress made throughout the first half of the academic year, said President, Avaya International Nidal Abou-Ltaif.
“With our Avaya Spaces offer, we have helped teachers and students continue to focus on education, and were proud to have played a small part in seeing off worries of a lost generation of learners.
Icon International School, a leading Ghanaian institution that caters to learners from multiple grade levels, is one such school that has turned to technology to ensure the continued delivery of education for its students. Initially getting by with various freemium consumer apps, the school eventually put in place a comprehensive remote learning program for students using Avaya Spaces. The cloud-based video and collaboration app enables Icon to seamlessly deliver a Montessori-style education across geographies.
“With Avaya Spaces, teachers are able to attend to the individual needs of every learner, said Proprietress, Icon International School, Elizabeth Owusu-Bennoah.
“We have found the task management features particularly effective, as they enable us to plan, type out assignments, and follow up on them all within the same app. Previously, there was a lot of copying and pasting between various different apps, but now everything is held within an easy-to-access online space. With Avaya Spaces, we are able to create a rich and academically stimulating environment that students can access from the safety and comfort of their own homes.”
In South Africa, Charter College International High School moved classrooms online with Avaya Spaces to enable continued learning amid a shutdown of schools across the country. Working with Avaya, Charter College deployed business licenses for its teachers and staff enough to support over 1,000 student users in virtual classrooms.
