The Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development (QRF) announced on Thursday the launch of ‘Karim and Jana - Our World’ a free mobile application that aims to promote the development of social skills in young children.
Encouraging learning through play, the application introduces children to basic social skills and increases their readiness for school, while also raising parents’ awareness of their children’s socio-emotional development.
The application’s launch follows the success of QRF’s first Karim and Jana app, which focused on developing children’s numeracy skills through the interactive adventures of friendly local characters, Karim and Jana. Since its release in 2017, the first Karim and Jana application has reached 300,000 users and been played over 3 million times.
The new application is part of QRF’s ongoing efforts to support early childhood education and to bridge the educational gap among Jordanian children, caused by low enrolment rates in kindergartens and nurseries compared to other middle-income countries.
Through a series of stories, songs and games specifically designed for children between the ages of three and six, the application promotes key aspects of children's social and emotional development, including self-confidence, self-awareness, relationship building, emotional and behavioural management, health, self-care, and understanding of the world.
The application also offers practical tips to parents on how to engage with children through learning activities, increasing parental awareness of the importance of their child's socio-emotional development.
“Since launching the numeracy-focused Karim and Jana application, we have grown further convinced of the urgent need to tap into the mobile learning revolution and provide more free educational resources in the Arabic language,” said QRF CEO, Bassem Saad.
“Our children in Jordan suffer from an immense gap in opportunities for early childhood education, but hopefully, through technological innovations, this gap can be bridged and equal educational resources will be provided to children across the country,” he added.
In conjunction with the launch of the application, QRF will conduct awareness workshops for parents on the importance of early childhood development within different stages, explaining what to expect throughout each stage and demonstrating interactive learning methods.
To guarantee further exposure in the upcoming weeks, a dedicated team from QRF will deploy to several locations across the kingdom to explain the benefits of the application to parents and assist them in the downloading process.
‘Karim and Jana - Our World’ was contextualized and developed by a team of early childhood education experts in accordance with international standards.
Since its founding in 2013 by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan, QRF has served as a leading resource on educational challenges in Jordan and around the Arab world, and an incubator for innovative initiatives in this field.
Stemming from its firm belief that education is the foundation of economic, political, and social development, QRF’s mandate focuses on identifying gaps and opportunities for developing new education programs, with the aim of influencing policy and creating educational change on the ground.
Karim and Jana - Our World is available for free download for Android from Google Play and for iOS from the App Store.
For more information: www.karimandjana.com/ourworld
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Google Play: