Using learning technologies to enhance numeracy competence in rural public schools

Abstract

Effective use of learning technologies to improve access and increase quality hold a key promise for developing countries that are plagued with low-performing educational systems. Public school systems in many of these countries have failed to provide adequate quality and access to education for their citizens. Consequently, there is a mushroom growth in low-cost private schools that typically are even more starved for resources, and often have lesser-qualified teachers. Despite their shortcomings, public schools in many developing countries have better physical infrastructure than the low-cost private schools, and the public-school teachers are better trained and are paid more than their counterparts in the low-cost private schools. This case study describes a series of learning-technology interventions in public schools of Pakistan to enable teachers to provide higher quality education in numeracy skills for grade 5 students. The interventions are based on a theory of change that postulates that just-in-time teacher training synched with delivery of topics, together with bi-weekly formative assessments and high-quality focused teacher mentoring will lead to better classroom practice. This classroom practice, should, in turn, lead to better learning outcomes. The intervention uses a host of learning technologies including a learning and content management system, a tablet-based assessment system, and an Internet-based live classroom. The delivery mechanism is a self-contained satellite-enabled van that visits each rural government school once every 2 weeks. This case study describes a three-year effort and lessons learned while scaling up the intervention from 10 to 300 schools. One key lesson from this case study is the importance of monitoring mechanisms to maintain the fidelity of the process especially as it scales.