Mexico City is dense urban area with large parts of the population living in vulnerable communities (C-, D & E Mexican socioeconomic classes are below the urban poverty line). The youth living in these areas have been traditionally served by the public education system, which is underfunded and cannot give them access to access to new technology and much-needed ICT skills to compete with more privileged youth from private schools in other areas of the city.
We believe that by installing Solar Learning Labs, we can benefit the community, by giving them access to quality learning experiences promoting STEM subjects & ICT for children and youth.
Within the lab, we will be teaching the children and adults in groups of 20; they will study ICT and robotics, programming, mechanics and many other available courses in our curricular proposal, for example, entrepreneurship, coding, servers maintenance and English to name a few.
The new lab in Mexico will be the country’s second, after one at an elementary school in Mexico City. The current lab offers ICT training and STEM education to kids and adults in the community, as well as a broad curriculum that includes robotics, entrepreneurship and life skills.
The 2018 study “Contextual Attribute Variables in the Use of ICT in Primary Level Students from Southern Sonora, Mexico” (Mortis-Lozoya, S. V; Tánori-Quintana, J; Angulo-Armenta, J; et al.) found that you were more likely to use ICT in primary school if you attended a private school. The self reported study showed that of students who identified themselves as not using ICT, 86.2% were attending a public school as opposed to the 13.8% who were attending a private school.