Dear Chaiwe and SusanA Members, 
I write to say that we in India are doing basic and advanced training in WASH principles and practices.
Our Govtt both at Centre and States with support of Urban and rural Departments take care of deliveries as needed.
There is a great collection of Govtt and Non Govtt organisations and Institutions taking care of WASH needs.
We do have an institute with same name such as WASH - Institute. 
Will request all the above mentioned to link up and furnish all details as needed by you..
Wishing you well in your efforts.. 
Ajit Seshadri. 

Dear Fabian,

I started a post see here: forum.susana.org/inclusive-programming-a...-opportunities#33215 to address some of the open questions that came up in this discussion. 

I have shared some initiatives that i have recently come across aimed at dealing with the issue of low female enrollments in WASH educational programmes. I hope we can get some responses about how this is being addressed across the globe. Have you come across any new information that you can share? 

Kind Regards,
Chaiwe

Dear Chaiwe,
thank you for your input. Overall, 39% of learners on Coursera are women. In our WASH-courses, the enrollment of women varies between 26% and 39%, which is comparable to courses with similar topics. We're currently identifying actionable approaches to make the courses more inclusive and also hope to get recommendations from other MOOCs, e.g. Gender Analytics, University of Toronto,  www.coursera.org/specializations/gender-analytics or Basics of Inclusive Design for Online Education, University of Colorado, www.coursera.org/learn/inclusive-design. It would be interesting to exchange more and learn about your ideas on how we could best bridge the equity gap.
Kind regards,
Fabian

Dear Fabian, 

Thank you for the insights on the MOOC series on “Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development”. Undeniably MOOCs enhance capacities in the water sector. It is especially great that the series is accessible to young  WASH professionals and students at a global scale and the demand is growing due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

As highlighted in the article, massive open online courses have continued overtime to provide learners with high-quality education. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have attracted tens of millions of learners around the world, implying that anyone with an Internet connection is able to access them freely. The introduction of the MOOCs in the educational landscape, with the hope of offering free access to higher learning opportunities to everyone is a progressive step for sector's capacity development needs. This changes the narrative in closing the capacity gap in the WASH sector. On the other hand concerns specifically on whether the scalable format of the MOOCs is able to bridge the equity gap as evidenced in the under participation of women in the sector and professionals with limited access to technology and connectivity. How can we  overcome this?  

Regards,
Chaiwe

In this case study article, we provide insights into our MOOC-series on “Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development”, which has reached over 150’000 learners – mainly young, well-educated students and professionals from Asia, Latin America and Africa. doi.org/10.1177/0956247820987759

The article is open access and now available as online first. It will be published in the April 2021 issue «Education and learning for inclusive development» in Environment & Urbanization, which will hopefully feature many interesting articles for Susana WG1 members. 

Your comments and ideas related to MOOCs and digital learning would be most welcome.

Best regards, Fabian


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Delivering WASH education at scale: evidence from a global MOOC series

Fabian Suter, Christoph Lüthi

Abstract
The water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector is facing a shortfall of several million appropriately skilled professionals. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) can play a crucial role in addressing this. This paper presents the case study of the MOOC series “Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development”, which has reached over 120,000 learners within six years. It has attracted mainly well-educated, employed learners, under 34 years old, from Asia, Latin America and Africa. Underrepresentation of female learners remains a challenge. While MOOCs have proven excellent for delivering WASH education at scale, some alternative formats (e.g. blended learning, small private online courses) allow more collaborative, interactive learning environments. Three practical examples from Nigeria, Indonesia and Mozambique indicate the potential for synergies among MOOCs and further learning formats. With the global shift towards digital learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, MOOCs have gained further traction.