FlashAcademy® has been awarded a significant grant from Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency, as part of a Government initiative to help learners catch-up lost learning due to COVID-19.
Millions of children and adults who do not have English as a first language have lost critical learning time, creating a concerning Education divide and further disadvantages for employment opportunities amongst this community.
Learning Labs will use this prestigious grant to develop a fully digital ‘English Proficiency’ assessment to assist teachers to maintain learning progress outside the classroom. The project is seeking to save a proportion of the c.2m hours of teacher time spent each year using paper-based assessments, providing real-time access to data and reporting, and offering a better understanding of learning gaps to help boost learner catch-up time.
The company is also part of a unique Inclusive Economy Partnership BOOST programme, bringing together business, civil society, and government to tackle the UK’s most pressing social and economic problems through cross- sector partnerships.
Funding will also contribute towards a learning platform for business, working closely with manufacturing association, MAKE UK. FlashAcademy® Workplace will support businesses whose employees do not have English as their first language. This new form of digital training will focus on Health & Safety by removing language barriers to technical vocabulary. Migrant workers are twice as likely to die on a construction site and a key factor is their limited English proficiency, so FlashAcademy® Workplace is set to play a key role.
Baroness Barran, the Minister for Civil Society, commented:
“The Inclusive Economy Partnership – convened by the Cabinet Office and DCMS – is supporting 18 front-line organisations to scale and deliver impact in our communities through mentoring, workshops and access to new partners. We are thrilled that FlashAcademy®, one of these organisations, will be able to support more young people through this grant. FlashAcademy® is an excellent example of how innovative UK tech companies can help support our recovery and resurgence out of the coronavirus crisis, supporting our young people to catch-up lost learning and improve both their education and employment prospects.”
Veejay Lingiah, CEO of FlashAcademy®, commented: “We’re delighted to be one of only 800 UK companies to be awarded a Government pandemic innovation response grant, especially after 9,000 companies applied. We’re determined to make a significant social impact with our digital English learning platform, for all age ranges and to better support educators across our school and College network too.”
Fluency in the English language has been shown to dramatically improve education and career outcomes. With the level of current disruption to the Education system, it’s clear that Education technology will play a vital role to ensure that learning can happen from anywhere.
