sub-Saharan Africa
cannot read this
literacy test fable. We
have planted seeds,
but they are not
growing into trees.
“
A big tree stood in a garden. It was alone and lonely. One day a bird came and sat on it. The bird held a seed in its beak. It dropped the seed near the tree. A small plant grew there. Soon there were many more trees. The tree was happy.
We are in a global learning crisis; one that is only exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The poorest children are most impacted. If we want to grow happy trees, something has to change.
There are 258 million children globally who are not in school (UIS 2019), and millions more experiencing Covid-19-related disruption. So the fast answer is access. And, yes, access to education is crucial. But access alone does not solve the even bigger challenge of ensuring that once children are in school they are able to engage in productive learning.
Digital disruption has already resulted in transformative changes to the entertainment, finance, and agriculture sectors, among others. This change is expected to continue at pace as technological evolutions allow us to reimagine previously unchallengeable norms, processes, and behaviours.
Personalised, on-demand media consumption is forcing the recalibration of the entertainment industry. Finance has turned every phone into a bank terminal, much of which was pioneered by M-Pesa in Kenya. In agriculture, the emergence of artificial intelligence to provide predictions about crop yields is revolutionising the way farmers manage their resources.
Our future is predicated on the promise that technology can provide not just solutions, but evolutions. And the education sector is not exempt. At EdTech Hub, we recognise that technology has the potential to transform teaching and learning. Not as a panacea to the global learning crisis, but as a critical component.
EdTech Hub empowers decision-makers
by providing the rigorous evidence
necessary to make informed decisions
about technology in education.
Digital
Personalised
Learning (DPL)
Data for
Decision
Participation &
Messaging
Girls’
Education &
Technology
EdTech Hub empowers decision-makers
by providing the rigorous evidence
necessary to make informed decisions
about technology in education.
of knowledge
products produced jointly with partners
articles published
in peer-reviewed journals
resources in
our Evidence
Library
increase in
EdTech Hub email audience
collaborative engagements
in technical assistance,
Helpdesk and Sandboxes
of partners report receiving quality advice
of the top 10
countries visiting
EdTechHub.org
are from LMICs
Research That Resonates:
The EdTech Hub Research Portfolio
The £5.3 million EdTech Hub research portfolio represents the largest public-private investment in primary research around EdTech evidence in low- and middle-income countries to date. The portfolio was commissioned to fill the evidence gap decision makers grapple with when choosing edtech implementations to support children, teachers and school communities.
A call for expressions of interest was issued in Summer 2021 and 104 proposals were received. EdTech Hub, with external review provided by experts in the field, selected 13 studies for the current portfolio. Additionally, £1.2 million in on-the-ground “sandbox” trials will complement select studies in the portfolio, offering real-time evidence and feedback.
This academic and applied research is being conducted by and in partnership with more than 20 institutions, including universities, nonprofits and foundations, private enterprises and governments. The portfolio is in addition to the £200,000 in grants EdTech Hub awarded to 10 partner organisations in early 2021 to conduct edtech research in response to Covid-19.
Using EdTech Hub’s local reach capabilities, studies will be conducted in all our focus countries, with the majority in Kenya and Bangladesh and with Teacher Continuous Professional Development as the topic area with the most concentration of research activity, followed by Digital Personalised Learning.
86 % of teachers
considered that the experience of teaching during the pandemic had made them better teachers and
50 % of teachers
are more enthusiastic about teaching
COVID-19 AND The
FUTURE of EDTECH
Data for Decisions
Partner: Fab Inc. Limited
Publication: “Learning from experience: A post-Covid-19 data architecture for a resilient education data ecosystem in Sierra Leone” (Sierra Leone)
POWER of
PARTNERSHIPS
As part of a partnership with the Blavatnik School of Government (BSG) and Digital Pathways, in 2021 EdTech Hub funded BSG to run a two-week course with targeted policy makers in low- and middle-income countries to strengthen their evidence-based decision making on EdTech.
Twenty-nine senior policy makers were selected from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Tanzania for the executive education course, Governing Digital Transformation: Improving Outcomes in Education Systems. Participants represented various departments of education, ICT, finance, planning, or offices of the prime minister or president. The through-line between all participants was that they each had to have singular capacity to create digital transformation within their networks.
The sessions in the course were tailored to the challenges the policy makers were facing, and explored different factors that need to be in place for EdTech to improve learning outcomes and for EdTech reforms to be implemented successfully. The programme was designed to span two non-consecutive weeks (April 19-22 and June 28-July 2, 2021), for a deliberate means to an end.
“We wanted to enable the participants with skills to lead digital change,” said Noran Fouad, a cyber security postdoctoral researcher at Oxford University whom EdTech Hub selected to coordinate the course. “We gave them a task in April and asked them to try and change something in the time between. Then come back and tell us in June how it went. It was a fascinating way to track the impact of the programme.”
Knowing that there is only so much change one can bring about in six weeks, participants were encouraged to consider how education
HIGHLIGHTS
OF 2021
EdTech Hub launches a call for expressions of interest for at-scale research proposals, which ultimately received more than 100 proposals.