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EdTech in Tanzania: A Rapid Scan (EdTech Hub Country Scan No. 5)

Groeneveld, C., & Taddese, A. - 2020 - The EdTech Hub

EdTech Hub country scans explore factors that enable and hinder the use of technology in education. These factors include the policy or vision for EdTech, institutional capacity, private-sector partnerships, and the digital infrastructure. The scans are intended to be comprehensive but are by no means exhaustive; however, we hope they will serve as a useful starting point for more in-depth discussions about opportunities and barriers in EdTech in specific countries, in this case, Tanzania. This report was originally written in June 2020. It is based primarily on desk research, with quality assurance provided by a country expert.

EdTech in Rwanda: A Rapid Scan (EdTech Hub Country Scan No. 11)

Kimenyi, E., Chuang, R., & Taddese, A. - 2020 - EdTech Hub

EdTech Hub country scans explore factors that enable and hinder the use of technology in education. This includes policies, government leadership, private-sector partnerships and digital infrastructure for education. The scans are intended to be comprehensive but are by no means exhaustive; nonetheless, we hope they will serve as a useful starting point for more in-depth discussions about opportunities and barriers in EdTech in specific countries and in this case, in Rwanda. This report was originally written in June 2020. It is based primarily on desk research, with quality assurance provided by a country expert

EdTech in Kenya: A Rapid Scan (EdTech Hub Country Scan No. 7)

Otieno, J., & Taddese, A. - 2020

EdTech Hub country scans explore factors that enable and hinder the use of technology in education. These factors include the policy or vision for EdTech, institutional capacity, private-sector partnerships, and the digital infrastructure. The scans are intended to be comprehensive but are by no means exhaustive; however, we hope they will serve as a useful starting point for more in-depth discussions about opportunities and barriers in EdTech in specific countries and, in this case, Kenya. This report was originally written in June 2020. It is based primarily on desk research, with quality assurance provided by a country expert.

Children in developing countries often lack sufficient support for early learning skills prior to beginning school. This research evaluates an educational media intervention using an animated cartoon program, Akili and Me. The program was originally created in Tanzania to teach early learning skills. This program was adapted in content and language use in this study in Rwanda. The two-week intervention involved primary school students (mean age = 7.1 years) who were randomized into two groups (intervention and comparison group). The intervention group viewed one Ankit and Me episode a day for five days. This viewing was repeated the following week. Similarly, the comparison watched the same amount of television but the content consisted of local popular programs. Baseline and follow-up assessments evaluated 10 areas of early learning, using an adaptation of the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA), and also children’s media receptivity. At follow-up, children in the intervention program, Akili and Me, had significantly higher scores for counting, number recognition, shape knowledge, letter identification, color identification, body part recognition, health knowledge, and vocabulary. The analyses provide promising evidence that locally produced educational media interventions can impact early learning skills, even among children living in resource-poor communities.

Many successful piloted programs fail when scaled up to a national level. In Kenya, which has a long history of particularly ineffective implementation after successful pilot programs, the Tusome national literacy program—which receives funding from the United States Agency for International Development—is a national-level scale-up of previous literacy and numeracy programs. We applied a scaling framework (Crouch and DeStefano in Doing reform differently: combining rigor and practicality in implementation and evaluation of system reforms. International development group working paper no. 2017-01, RTI International, Research Triangle Park, NC, 2017. https://www.rti.org/publication/doing-reform-differently-combining-rigor-and-practicality-implementation-and-evaluation) to examine whether Tusome’s implementation was rolled out in ways that would enable government structures and officers to respond effectively to the new program. We found that Tusome was able to clarify expectations for implementation and outcomes nationally using benchmarks for Kiswahili and English learning outcomes, and that these expectations were communicated all the way down to the school level. We noted that the essential program inputs were provided fairly consistently, across the nation. In addition, our analyses showed that Kenya developed functional, if simple, accountability and feedback mechanisms to track performance against benchmark expectations. We also established that the Tusome feedback data were utilized to encourage greater levels of instructional support within Kenya’s county level structures for education quality support. The results indicated that several of the key elements for successful scale-up were therefore put in place. However, we also discovered that Tusome failed to fully exploit the available classroom observational data to better target instructional support. In the context of this scaling framework, the Tusome literacy program’s external evaluation results showed program impacts of 0.6–1.0 standard deviations on English and Kiswahili learning outcomes. The program implemented a functional classroom observational feedback system through existing government systems, although usage of those systems varied widely across Kenya. Classroom visits, even if still falling short of the desired rate, were far more frequent, were focused on instructional quality, and included basic feedback and advice to teachers. These findings are promising with respect to the ability of countries facing quality problems to implement a coherent instructional reform through government systems at scale.

The Kenyan education system has very limited re-entry options for learners who drop out before attaining secondary school certificate. It is very difficult to access training and or secure a job that requires at least secondary school education. This study examined the prospects of initiating Open and Distance e-Learning(ODeL) in re-entry programmes into high school for out of school Young Adult Secondary School Dropouts (Y.A.S.S.D). The study focused on the enablers and challenges of initiating ODeL in the secondary school re-entry programmes. An alternative flexible and sustainable community based ODeL model that potentially can address re-entry for the Y.A.S.S.D is proposed. A qualitative phenomenological design was used; focus group discussion and interviews were conducted from a purposeful sample of participants. The study revealed that the potential of ODeL in addressing re-entry into secondary school for Y.A.S.S.D great. Majority of the participants were aware of the existing secondary school re-entry options, however, ODeL appeared new. Despite there being challenges in introducing the ODeL mode of study in secondary school re-entry programmes, it is viable and requires further exploration. The enablers of this mode of study are largely in place to the extent appreciated by participants in the study.

Educational media can positively impact young children; however, few studies have been conducted in developing countries. Researchers investigated the impact of an animated educational series, where participants were randomized to see Akili and Me versus other popular programs. In interviews with children, researchers assessed measures before and after four weeks of exposure. From Morogoro, Tanzania, 568 children (mean age - 4.8years) participated. Controlling for the child's sex, age, and baseline skills in the assessed follow up outcome, exposure to Akili and Me significantly improved drawing skills, shape knowledge, number recognition, counting, and English skills. Young and vulnerable children can benefit from a locally-produced educational program. Media interventions should be encouraged as they effectively and efficiently alter school readiness.

We evaluated a program to improve literacy instruction on the Kenyan coast using training workshops, semiscripted lesson plans, and weekly text-message support for teachers to understand its impact on students’ literacy outcomes and on the classroom practices leading to those outcomes. The evaluation ran from the beginning of Grade 1 to the end of Grade 2 in 51 government primary schools chosen at random, with 50 schools acting as controls. The intervention had an impact on classroom practices with effect sizes from 0.57 to 1.15. There was more instruction with written text and more focus on letters and sounds. There was a positive impact on three of four primary measures of children’s literacy after two years, with effect sizes up to 0.64, and school dropout reduced from 5.3% to 2.1%. This approach to literacy instruction is sustainable, and affordable and a similar approach has subsequently been adopted nationally in Kenya.

Orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) experience poverty, stigma, and abuse resulting in poor physical, emotional, and psychological outcomes. The Teachers’ Diploma Programme on Psychosocial Care, Support, and Protection is a child-centered 15-month long-distance learning program focused on providing teachers with the knowledge and skills to enhance their school environments, foster psychosocial support, and facilitate school-community relationships. A randomized controlled trial was implemented in 2013–2014. Both teachers (n=325) and students (n=1378) were assessed at baseline and 15-months post-intervention from randomly assigned primary schools in Lusaka and Eastern Provinces, Zambia. Multilevel linear mixed models (MLM) indicate positive significant changes for intervention teachers on outcomes related to self-care, teaching resources, safety, social support, and gender equity. Positive outcomes for intervention students related to future orientation, respect, support, safety, sexual abuse, and bullying. Outcomes support the hypothesis that teachers and students benefit from a program designed to enhance teachers’ psychosocial skills and knowledge.

Since 2008, the Ministries of Education in Liberia and Kenya have undertaken transitions from small-scale pilot programs to improve reading outcomes among primary learners to the large-scale implementation of reading interventions. The effects of the pilots on learning outcomes were significant, but questions remained regarding whether such large gains could be sustained at scale. In this article, the authors dissect the Liberian and Kenyan experiences with implementing large-scale reading programs, documenting the critical components and conditions of the program designs that affected the likelihood of successfully transitioning from pilot to scale. They also review the design, deployment, and effectiveness of each pilot program and the scale, design, duration, enabling conditions, and initial effectiveness results of the scaled programs in each country. The implications of these results for the design of both pilot and large-scale reading programs are discussed in light of the experiences of both the Liberian and Kenyan programs.

Previous large-scale education technology interventions have shown only modest impacts on student achievement. Building on results from an earlier randomized controlled trial of three different applications of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on primary education in Kenya, the Tusome Early Grade Reading Activity developed the National Tablets Program. The National Tablets Program is integrated into the Tusome activity by providing tablets to each of more than 1,200 instructional coaches in the country to use when they visit teachers. This enables a national database of classroom instructional quality, which is used by the education system to monitor overall education quality. The tools provided on the tablets are designed to help coaches increase the quality of their instructional support to teachers, and deepen the shallow accountability structures in Kenya’s education system. Using results of a national survey, we investigated the ability of the National Tablets Program to increase the number of classroom observations done by coaches and to improve student learning outcomes. Survey results showed high levels of tablet program utilization, increased accountability, and improvements in learning outcomes. We share recommendations regarding large-scale ICT interventions and literacy programs.