Abstract:

Despite global efforts to increase access to primary school education, 330 million children of primary school age are unable to read and do basic mathematics (UNESCO, 2017). Many live in low-income countries in Sub-Sahara Africa. Children living in remote villages, especially girls, are most at risk. This global learning crisis results in social and financial dependency, limits the extent to which individuals can actively participate in society, and raises vulnerability to pernicious social issues such as forced marriage, female genital mutilation and child labour (ICRW, 2016). To date, traditional methods of education have failed to solve this global learning crisis, so innovative, alternative, approaches are required.

To address this significant development issue, the XPRIZE Foundation launched a ‘Global Learning’ competition that challenged multi-disciplinary teams to develop open-source, scalable, learning software that empowered marginalised children to learn basic literacy, numeracy and writing skills outside traditional school settings. Five teams were selected to field test their technology in 170 remote villages in Tanzania. Literacy, numeracy, and writing skills were assessed in 3000 children, aged 9-11 years, most of whom had never attended school, before and after a 15-month period where children worked with the software delivered through hand-held tablets. Prior to the field test, 90% of the children could not read; at the end of the testing phase this figure was halved, demonstrating the effectiveness of the technology in providing basic education to children living in these communities.

The aim of the current study was to elicit learnings from the Global Learning XPRIZE competition and to explore physical, social, and financial factors that may have impacted the children’s ability to learn with hand-held tablets in these remote communities. Accordingly, a qualitative expert elicitation was undertaken with key informants of the Global Learning XPRIZE competition using online semi-structured interviews. Snowball sampling was used to identify the pool of relevant participants. In total, 14 participants were identified and interviewed online over a period of 7 months. Interviews were recorded and transcribed then transcripts were checked for reliability. A thematic analysis was then conducted to analyse the transcripts inductively and identify common themes within the data.

Results revealed the importance of several key themes, especially environmental infrastructure, engagement with and lack of understanding of the technology, and the presence and importance of social support systems to assist the children in learning with the software and hand-held tablets. These results provide critical insights into how digital technologies might be utilised effectively in low-income, remote settings, to support children in learning basic literacy, numeracy and writing skills. Challenges and elements of ‘best practice’ were identified that can guide implementation fidelity and inform a theoretical framework of understanding for how digital technologies might be deployed in low-income countries to address the global learning crisis.

Keywords:

Tablet apps, edtech, low-income, global learning, best practice.