Code Ear – In Pakistan, an education unparalleled

In all honesty, Pakistan’s public education system is nothing short of an embarrassment, particularly quality wise. The outdated and defaced curricula or the archaic teaching methodology make for only the tip of the iceberg; the massive boulder of ice that is our nation’s blatant – yet strongly denied – inaction over the matter.
In such a system, to expect anything more than a production line of mediocrity might be a tad ambitious. With that train of thought, one can relate to how it difficult it could be to expect any major improvements in a schooling system catering to one of the most marginalised communities of our land; a community wherein a meagre percentage among millions would ever have a shot at leading a life that may just come close to what we, the insouciant privileged ones, view as a birth right.
However, one visit to a Deaf Reach school – for us, it was the Karachi campus in Gulistan-e-Jauhar – was all it took to realise the great folly of our notions. Besides serving as a haven for deaf children who struggle to find a similar sense of belonging in their homes or neighbourhoods, the curriculum, methodology and level of instruction offered by this complete support centre for the hearing impaired, honestly, gives even the very best institutes for the hearing a run for their money.

A class apart
As a web page loads up across the screen, the boy who has been patiently orchestrating its production procedure turns around with a tentative look of triumph, his gaze set determinedly on the teacher, a stocky middle-aged computer professional, who stands beside us.
There is a tense calm as the teacher, though clearly suppressing a smile, remains still, scanning the monitor screen intently. With the check complete, a flurry of hand signals follow as, through the interpreter, the now beaming teacher congratulates the boy on a job well done, before settling down to help him identify and redress a few minor glitches.
As the eight or so more students around the room remain engrossed in their screens, one can’t help but admire the novelty of this particular computer lab, for it is, indeed, one of its kind.
This is the hub of the Deaf Reach Program’s latest venture, Code Ear, a collaborative effort initiated in partnership with an up and coming Karachi-based tech company, Grocode.
In their own words, the initiators term it “a movement to give over a million Deaf children access to cutting-edge computer science education in Pakistan”.
Aimed at providing students exposure to computer science education, the Code Ear Program was initiated this year, with a group of 12 boys and girls now on their way to becoming the first ‘coders’ from Pakistan’s Deaf community. For now, the students have designed and developed their own web projects. A testament to these efforts can be seen on the Code Ear website - www.codeear.com - where the first batch has published their own personal profile pages, developed by each student individually.
Still in the pilot phase, the program, for now, remains limited to the Karachi campus, but plans are afoot to expand it across the entire Deaf Reach network via video conferencing facilities.
A concept as intriguing and full of potential as Code Ear commanded attention and The News sat down with Rishadullah Shaikh, one of the program’s founders, to find out more.

All about Code Ear
The News: How did the idea of Code Ear come about? Who are the main people overseeing it? What would you say is the core driving vision behind it?
Rishadullah Shaikh: I was simply blown away the first time I visited the Deaf Reach school. Their system is unique and they engage the students in such a variety of different meaningful activities that their children have developed a love for learning.
Seeing the kids in action, we really came to understand that deaf children can do anything, even code. With our (Grocode) interest and capabilities in technology, we thought it would be a great idea to teach these children how to code. We believed the kids, since they are so eager to learn, would be keen on getting involved so we grouped together a class of 12 and just got started.
Code Ear is a collaborative initiative of Deaf Reach and Grocode. The people involved and overseeing it include myself, Jawad, Hasan and Rehan from Grocode. The school management has been very welcoming to the idea, as they are a very forward looking organisation and have extended us all possible support to help us get started and make this happen.
The core driving vision behind Code Ear is to avail the opportunity to put this marginalised group at an advantage. There's hardly any school in the country with a focus on technology like this, and this is exclusively for the Deaf. Even in the US, 90 percent of the schools don't offer the kind of computer science education that today's children deserve. Learn-to-code movements have just started to gain popularity over the past two three years. So at a time like this, we feel giving this opportunity to the Deaf will actually put them at a competitive advantage. The idea is to eventually enable them to break into the tech sector as professional programmers, pursue engineering-related fields and even become tech entrepreneurs.
Even for those who will not go on to become professional coders, exposure to and understanding of how the technology driven world of today works is essential, and something that Code Ear aims to impart through these programs.

TN: The phase-wise program aims to teach "real-world coding skills" to students. Could you give a breakdown of the syllabus and explain the content?
RS: To start out, we wanted to keep things simple. That is why we didn't really get into developing custom tutorials and a dedicated online platform, although we could have and we will, eventually. Initially, we wanted to run a test pilot project for which we simply grouped together 12 students and started teaching them how to code using the many amazing learn-to-code courses available online. We customised these courses to our requirements and started conducting classes with the help of a sign language interpreter.
After some initial hiccups, we were able to get into the flow and the students started showing their interest and getting the grasp of it. One thing that helped was that we’re not simply about theory.
We’re about real world practical knowledge and that's why we are focused on creating a project-based learning structure for Code Ear.
So, for example, for the first phase we had the group of students create their own personal profile pages in HTML and CSS; both front-end programming languages. We were able to achieve this in a matter of three months with minimal resources.
With proper funding, we would like to create and curate such projects with advancing level of difficulty and build an online forum with classes, courses and discussion spaces to make Code Ear a concentrated and comprehensive learning program for the Deaf community of Pakistan.

TN: If you could state what you feel the students will be walking away - skills and knowledge - with once they've completed the program?
RS: Technology touches almost each and every aspect of our lives in today's world. At the basic level, students will walk away with a better understanding of the world around them. On the other end of the spectrum, you may soon find out that the next Mark Zuckerberg comes from the Deaf community. However, we don't want to get too ahead of ourselves at this stage. We have just successfully conducted a pilot project and at this stage are convinced that this is a game-changing initiative that should be pursued with patience.
The potential is there. Just look at what code.org and other such programs have managed to achieve. We believe we can offer the same kind of training but exclusively focused on the Deaf community. So, as and when we get funding, we will continue to build our program up to the level where it enables any member of the Deaf community to learn these skills. And, the impact that this learning can have is truly limitless.

TN: Who are the teachers? How do they feel about the program's progress so far?
RS: Jawad Mirza and Hasan Mirza have been the main teachers so far, whereas, I have been dealing with management and working on ways to take the initiative forward. We all also work as a team at Grocode.
Overall, the teachers are very convinced of the abilities of the Deaf students and are keen on pushing the initiative forward. We feel that starting from the older kids, in time, we can work our way backwards and teach relevant computer programming skills to children as young as five years old.
The Deaf Reach School is no ordinary place. It is one of the best schools in the country and the students have something that many other schools cannot match; an eagerness to learn, for which, the credit goes to the passionate teachers and the founders of the school.

TN: How has the first phase been so far? Any standouts among the group of 12 boys and girls?
RS: It has been an exciting period for us to get involved in this. We saw different reactions to the initiative. Some students were very confused for the first few classes, but then started getting the hang of things. There were others that couldn't be happier that they finally had the opportunity to do something like this.

Kamil, a first-year intermediate student has, so far, been the pick of the students. He's extremely passionate about learning to code and is seizing the opportunity. The students successfully launching their personal profile pages has been the highlight of the program so far, as it showed the students the results of their efforts, right in front of their eyes. They are still showing off their profile pages to friends and family.

TN: What's ahead for Code Ear, in the short and long terms?
RS: We've got big plans for Code Ear. However, we’re taking things step by step. Our immediate short term goal is to set up a good IT lab at the Gulistan-e-Jauhar campus, which would cost us around Rs2 million, and hire two to five teachers and team members to take Code Ear forward.
Our goal is to raise enough funding to sustain such a team for at least a year. That is an immediate aim which will enable us to take things forward. From there on, we will work on developing the curriculum and getting more kids involved, working our way from higher grades to lower.
Once we have this set up, we also need to build a comprehensive online portal through which we can offer guidance and support to the Deaf community and create a virtual classroom environment to increase our reach and accessibility. Along with this, of course, we will constantly be working on spreading the program across all of Dead Reach School campuses.

An education unparalleled
With interactivity and practical exposure as core values, the term ‘hands-on’ would serve best to describe the teaching style at the network’s schools. Truthful eagerness and interest, on the other hand, would do justice to the students’ attitude in class.
Add exciting programs such as Code Ear to these encouraging attributes and it remains difficult not to foresee future success for this and Deaf Reach’s other ventures.
Most importantly, however, the little under three hours we spent at the campus were enough to make us realise the veracity of the thought that, for these students, Deaf Reach Schools are much more than centres for academics. Institutes of complete, well-rounded education, they are a place where the hearing impaired are understood, appreciated and encouraged; a place where they belong and one that will surely help define their future successes. — By Usman Mir