Online learning platform Edraak celebrates fifth anniversary

AMMAN — Edraak, a Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development (QRF) initiative recently celebrated its fifth anniversary. 

Launched by Her Majesty Queen Rania in 2014 as an open online learning platform, Edraak aims to grant adults and school students the opportunity for continuous learning and high quality K-12 education by providing online Arabic courses developed by a group of regional and international experts and academics, according to a statement from the platform. 

Today, Edraak reaches more than 2.3 million learners from around the MENA region, of which 1 million were registered by 2017, the statement added.

Over the past five years, Edraak has issued more than 250,000 completion certificates for learners enrolled in more than 110 courses offered on the platform.

“The rapid yearly increase in the number of enrolled learners — especially among women, who make up 49 per cent of those registered — reinforces that open online education is indeed a flexible learning tool that allows individuals of all ages and backgrounds to acquire the knowledge they desire and overcome barriers such as time, place, language and financial capacity,” Edraak CEO Shireen Yacoub said in the statement.

Edraak also embarked on a new journey last year that reflects Queen Rania’s vision for better education by combining advanced technology and quality educational content to launch its K-12 platform in collaboration with Google.org — Google's philanthropic arm, the statement read. 

The organisation extended a $3 million grant and the participation of specialised Google employees towards developing technology that offers teachers and parents distinct online learning experiences. 

The K-12 platform includes kindergarten through 12th grade mathematics curricula, offering more than 1,200 instructional videos and 7,500 exercises of various difficulty designed to engage learners through gamifcatoin and active learning strategies. 

Moreover, Edraak received a grant from the Jack Ma Foundation to develop the English-language digital curricula for grades seven through 12. This new K-12 stream will be launched in September 2019, while the remaining grades are set to be released in the summer of 2020.

The K-12 platform will target not only students, but also teachers and parents by offering customised video lectures, interactive questions and exercises and remedial education. 

Today, the K-12 platform reaches more than 124,000 teachers and 230,000 students from different grades. Commenting on her experience, Eman, a teacher from Jordan, said: “The K-12 platform is a free databank for teachers. It has helped me to follow up on my students and keep in touch with parents, all the while maintaining privacy and keeping learning fun.”