Research pick: Remote learning in Central African Republic - "Proposal of algorithms to make up for lost school and university years in post-conflict African countries in the face of Covid-19: case of the Central African Republic"

There is significant social, economic, and educational imbalance in most rural areas of the Central African Republic. This region is in the midst of a 12-year civil war that has precluded many years of education for its children, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the problem. New work published in the International Journal of Mobile Learning and Organisation, looks at how algorithms to drive chat bots might be used to remediate this situation allowing students living in rural parts of the country to catch up on lost years of education through remote learning.

Ghislain Mervyl Saint-Juste Kossingou, Bessan Melckior Dégboé, Samuel Ouya, and Gervais Mendy of the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar in Dakar, Senegal, explain that the imbalances that exist in CAR society are most apparent between the rural areas and the capital city, Bangui. Given that many young people of school age and university age have many lost opportunities in education because of the politico-military crises in their country, the team has sought a technological solution to this problem. They have modelled two algorithms and developed a chat bot that could help with remote learning and educational self-assessment. The approach should allow learning at different levels and in various areas to be undertaken remotely.

Other researchers have, of course, investigated the use of chat bots in education, but the specific needs of students in this part of the world are markedly different in many ways, the team suggests. Their system is focused on those specific needs but is also flexible enough to be adapted to a given situation on demand. Fundamentally, the tool allows students living in remote, rural areas and perhaps under social distancing rules to be largely autonomous in their education even if they have been forced to drop out of education through the politico-military strife. Ultimately, the team hopes their approach will redress the educational imbalance between rural CAR and the capital and allow the nation to grow in the post-conflict, post-covid world.

Kossingou, G.M.S-J., Dégboé, B.M., Ouya, S. and Mendy, G. (2022) ‘Proposal of algorithms to make up for lost school and university years in post-conflict African countries in the face of Covid-19: case of the Central African Republic‘, Int. J. Mobile Learning and Organisation, Vol. 16, No. 4, pp.507-525.