In the world’s global economy, English has emerged as the widely accepted language of business. However, many places and people in the world are still left without access to the tools or resources to learn the language. Lenovo’s technology and global footprint provide a rare opportunity to bring education to people in remote areas. Through a recent donation of 280 tablets to the NGO 40K PLUS, Lenovo enables 40K PLUS to spread their English language learning software to school children in Cambodia.
“We are so thankful to the team at Lenovo for making tablets available to students in villages in Cambodia who could only dream about such technology,” said Clary Castrission, 40K Group CEO. “In our first year launch, we have worked with the Cambodian government and can now say that there are 1,200 students who are learning in a way that they could not have before.”
40K PLUS’s software is game-ified and fun, creating an engaging learning experience for a wide age range of students. Most importantly, the software and tablets provide a personalized learning experience for children to learn from a native English speaker and at their own pace. In remote villages with no internet and unreliable access to electricity, Lenovo tablets are providing crucial access to English language education.
Castrission shared the account of Sreytey, one of the Cambodian students: “When I study with the teacher, I have to follow the teacher’s process of teaching. Sometimes it is too fast, and sometimes it is too slow. With the tablet I can learn for as long as I want, and as fast as I want. If I need to clarify something I can go back to the lesson on the tablet. I can’t do that with the teacher or a textbook.”
For the individual students featured in this video, Lenovo hopes that exposure to 40K PLUS’s language learning program will provide long term opportunities and success, as proficiency in the English language is becoming a determiner of candidate competitiveness. According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, individuals who speak above average English in their countries earn 30-50% higher incomes. While learning English is a means of individual advancement, the effects of widespread English language education has been shown to improve national economies. Both gross national income and gross domestic product are shown to increase with the amount of English language speakers in a country.
Lenovo’s partnership with 40K PLUS is enabling opportunities for children in rural Cambodia, but it also creates an example and pathway for remote learning, no matter how educational demands or the global business environment change in the future.
