Technology – A Big Change in Poor Countries

Like teachers, digital educational technology comes in many forms and if, used properly, it can bring a big change. Technology needs to be used rightly and deserves more prominence in schools especially in poor countries where human teachers are often ignorant, absent or both. At Kiaosep School in Kibera many Nairobi slum in Grade 3 are learning English.

Once Jacinter Atieno, the teacher questions students about a story on the exploitation of children as domestic servants. A coach was sitting at back of the class who started logging all the information about Mrs Atieno’s performance into a tablet. In the middle of the class, the coach summons three children and tests their reading and captures the scores into the tablet. This resulted into suggestions that Mrs Atieno might watch one of its instructional videos, or improve her English pronunciation with its letter-sound tool. The information is uploaded to the county office that runs the local schools, and can be reviewed by the teachers’ bosses there. In Kiswahili, a huge programme Tusome, funded by USAID to the tune of $74m over five years, it has been adopted by the Kenyan government and is used by 3.4m children in 23,000 government primary schools and 1,500 private schools. The coach-and-tablet element is just one part. A curriculum based on synthetic phonics which is widely used in developed-country schools has been designed and 23m books distributed, along with detailed lesson plans to make life easier for teachers. But the technology is crucial to supporting them and providing their bosses with data about their performance. Talking about the cost, it is a low cost product, around $4 a child a year but the results are impressive. In the first year of Tusome’s operation, the proportion of Grade 2 pupils who could read at 30 words per minute (wpm) rose from around a third to two-thirds. But as compared to developed countries these levels are poor because Americans are expected to read at 60wpm by the beginning of Grade 2 and 90wpm by the end. A major problem is that teachers are ignorant. Teachers were found to be absent when surprise visits to classes across seven sub-Saharan African countries by the World Bank found were arranged. However increasing the payment of teachers will not make a remarkable change. Technology is not a substitute for well-qualified, motivated teachers, but if used correctly, it can mitigate the problems. Recent studies report that technology helps most in poor countries. Technology can share the burden of overloaded teachers and help teachers manage a wide range of abilities in a class. It sets students work suitable to their level and the weakest are benefited most. If software can help stop children from dropping through the net, that is a massive gain.

By- Anuja Arora

Content: https://amp.economist.com/international/2018/11/17/in-poor-countries-technology-can-make-big-improvements-to-education