Kids’ educational test scores are raising alarms globally, with significant declines noted during and after the Covid pandemic. Even before the pandemic, standardized assessments in mathematics, science, and reading were showing worrying trends.
Education serves as a unifying force for parents worldwide, albeit with varying challenges. While affluent nations maintain relatively high levels of academic performance, children in poorer countries often struggle with basic literacy and numeracy skills.
In the landscape of educational reform, it’s becoming increasingly clear which policies yield little to no results, despite their popularity among advocates. For instance, simply increasing per pupil spending is not a guaranteed solution. A stark example can be seen in India, where a 71% rise in spending per primary school pupil over seven years coincided with steep declines in reading and math scores.
Another commonly proposed solution is reducing class sizes, which intuitively seems beneficial for fostering individualized attention. However, an analysis of 148 reports from 41 countries revealed that smaller class sizes have only a minimal effect on reading proficiency and none on math outcomes.
Raising teacher salaries is often touted as a pathway to improved learning outcomes. Yet, even with significant salary increases, the results can be disappointing. In Indonesia, for example, extensive investments in education, including doubling spending and achieving one of the lowest teacher-student ratios globally, did not lead to improved learning results, according to a landmark study.
The reality is that widely endorsed strategies—such as enhancing teacher salaries, reducing class sizes, and constructing more schools—can prove costly and largely ineffective in improving educational outcomes.
However, a promising solution is emerging from Malawi, one of the world’s most impoverished nations. Despite battling overcrowded classrooms and a shortage of trained personnel, Malawi is adopting an innovative educational policy that shows real potential for improvement and even scalability in other regions.
In collaboration with experts, Malawi’s National Planning Commission has identified a powerful policy: “technology-assisted learning.” This approach addresses a common challenge in education where children of different abilities are placed together in the same grade. In Malawi, children are now engaging with personalized, adaptive software via tablets for one hour each day, tailored to their individual learning levels in reading, writing, and mathematics.
Teachers have reported remarkable engagement levels among students using this technology, who appreciate the personalized focus that alleviates the pressure of competing for attention in a traditional classroom setup.
The cost-effectiveness of this policy is noteworthy, at just $15 per pupil per year, facilitated by sharing tablets among students. Research indicates that even one year of using such software for an hour daily can equate to three years of conventional learning progress.
Such advancements in learning can lead to more skilled individuals who will enhance workforce productivity and, consequently, earn higher wages. Economic analyses suggest that one year spent with this technology could result in an increase of approximately $16,000 in lifetime earnings per student, yielding an impressive 106-fold return on the initial $15 investment.
Malawi is currently expanding this initiative across all 6,000 primary schools, with nearly 300,000 children already benefiting from this program. The objective is to reach all 3.8 million children in grades 1-4 by the end of the decade.
Encouragingly, countries like Sierra Leone and Tanzania are beginning to explore similar technology-assisted learning methods. The success of this approach in Malawi highlights a potential path to uplift education for millions of children in low-income regions. Analysis indicates that an investment of $10 billion in such educational strategies could generate benefits exceeding $600 billion annually, increasing future productivity and even lending insights for potential applications in wealthier nations.
As parents worldwide seek effective solutions to improve academic performance and better prepare their children for future challenges, technology-assisted learning emerges as a powerful and feasible pathway forward.
