Malawi’s school kids are using tablets to improve their reading and math skills

[Pelican Press 0]

Malawi’s school kids are using tablets to improve their reading and math skills

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Malawi

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free primary education in 1994. This has significantly improved access to schooling. However, the country—which is

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—still faces a high learning ******** rate of 87%. Learning ******** is a measure of a child’s inability to meet minimum proficiency in reading, numeracy and other skills at the primary school level. Malawi’s rate means that

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.

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of children aged between 7 and 14 have foundational reading skills and

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have foundational numeracy skills. This leads to social and financial dependency. It also limits the extent to which individuals can actively participate in society. Children become

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to pernicious social issues such as forced marriage, female ******** mutilation, and child labor.

The primary education sector also has

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. These include overcrowded classrooms, limited learning materials, and a shortage of trained teachers.

There is a pressing need for innovative, transformative approaches to providing foundational education to meet the goals envisioned in

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, the country’s long-term national plan. To accomplish this, the government of Malawi is using

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to enable meaningful and effective learning happen at scale.

This evidence has been generated in parallel by researchers from the University of Nottingham in the *** and the NGO

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in the US and *******. We have been testing the efficacy of an interactive educational technology (EdTech) developed by ***-based non-profit

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to raise foundational education by different groups of learners in Malawi.

The EdTech delivers personalized, adaptive software that enables each child to learn reading, writing and numeracy at the right level. Children work on tablets through a carefully structured course made up of thousands of engaging activities, games and stories. Over the past 11 years, we have built a complementary and robust evidence base focusing on different aspects of the software and program.

In 2013, I conducted the first pupil-level randomized control trial at a state primary school in Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe. Randomized controlled trials are prospective studies that measure the effectiveness of a new intervention compared to standard practice. They are considered the gold standard in effectiveness research. We wanted to test whether the EdTech could raise young children’s numeracy skills. The

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showed that after eight weeks of using the EdTech for 30 minutes a day, learners in grades 1–3 (aged 6 to 9) made significant improvements in basic numeracy compared to standard classroom practice. Teachers were also able to put the EdTech to use with ease.

Now, after many studies, Malawi’s government, in collaboration with

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, is embedding the EdTech program in

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. This will serve 3.8 million children per year in grades 1–4 across all 6,000 state primary schools in Malawi.

Rigorous testing

After our initial 2013 study, we kept testing the EdTech through rigorous studies.

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showed that the EdTech program significantly raised foundational numeracy and literacy skills of early grade learners. Our results showed similar learning gains for ****** and boys with the EdTech. This equalizes foundational education across gender.

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showed that children with special educational needs and disabilities could interact and learn with the EdTech, albeit at a slower pace than mainstream peers.

The EdTech wasn’t just tested in Malawi. We wanted to see if it could address learning ******** in different contexts, thus equalizing all children’s opportunities, no matter where they live.

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demonstrated that the same EdTech raised the basic numeracy skills of children in the early years of primary schools compared to standard classroom instruction. It was also found to support numeracy acquisition by

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, including those with Down syndrome.

It was also shown to be effective in a

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. Brazilian children’s basic numeracy skills improved compared to standard practice after instruction with the EdTech delivered in either English, their language of instruction, or their home language, Brazilian-Portuguese.

Alongside the research from the University of Nottingham, Imagine Worldwide undertook a series of studies in Malawi and other countries to investigate how this EdTech could raise foundational skills over longer periods of time and in different languages and contexts, including ******** camps.

Imagine Worldwide conducted

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, including two of the longest over eight months and two years. They showed robust learning gains in literacy and numeracy. They also found that children’s excitement about school, their attendance, and their confidence as learners improved.

The EdTech program also mitigated against learning loss during school closures. During Imagine’s 2-year randomized control trial in Malawi, program delivery was interrupted for seven months by COVID-related closures. Yet, results showed that children who had participated in the EdTech program prior to schools closing returned to school with higher achievement levels than their peers who had received standard instruction only.

Applying the evidence to policy

Malawi’s government was pleased with the early results and the program was expanded to about 150 schools, with the help of *** non-profit Voluntary Service Overseas. A national steering committee was established by Malawi’s government to monitor the program and review additional emerging research. In 2022 the Education Ministry formally launched the program through which the EdTech will be rolled out; it was introduced in 500 new schools at the start of the 2023/2024 school year, in September 2023.

To achieve the promise of the early research, ongoing implementation research and monitoring is helping to ensure program quality and impacts are sustained as it rolls out nationwide.

Strong evidence

Basic literacy and numeracy are the keys to unlocking a child’s potential—

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. Our combined research has shown that child-directed EdTech can deliver high-quality education for millions of marginalized children worldwide. The evidence is strong, diverse and replicable. Now governments need to follow the lead of Malawi to abolish learning ******** and make foundational education a reality for all children, everywhere.

Provided by
The Conversation

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Malawi’s school kids are using tablets to improve their reading and math skills (2024, May 13)
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