EdTech for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in Malawi: Setting the Research Agenda

Image showing attendees of the two-day workshop for SEND in Malawi. Credit: Charity Kanyoza.

Workshop Goals

Over 240 million children are living with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) across the world (UNICEF, 2022). Yet, relatively little is known about how EdTech can be leveraged to create more inclusive education systems. This area remains particularly under-researched in low- middle-income countries, where resources for meaningful testing of these tools are not often made available. 

EdTech Hub has embraced this question as one of its new priority topics. As one of our first lines of engagement, we sought to learn from education system actors in one of our focus countries to better understand the challenges they face in inclusive education, and how technology might further their efforts. So in March 2024, educators from across Malawi who are focused on supporting these learners came together in a two-day workshop, to better understand the challenges faced, how EdTech might play a role, and what crucial gaps in evidence could (if addressed) be catalytic in aiding their support to these learners in Malawi. 

This event was organised collaboratively by EdTech Hub’s country engagement team in Malawi, Dr. Nicola Pitchford, and with support from an ODA grant from University of Nottingham and the Foreign Commonwealth Development Organisation (FCDO). It brought together a wide range of stakeholders including special education program implementers (eKitabu, Hopeview Resource Centre, onebillion, and others), as well as teachers and parents of learners with SEND. Crucially it also included policy-makers including the Deputy Director of Inclusive Education and the Director of Open Distance and e-Learning. The Secretary for Education Professor, Mangani Chilala Katundu, opened our proceedings and set the tone for the event with opening remarks emphasising the importance of inclusive education.

Our Motto: Share, Learn, and Organise

Our goals for this workshop were to share, learn, and organise. Below we describe a bit more about the first two of these objectives, and how they lead to the third!

• Share: Our joint team of researchers had recent evidence we wanted to discuss with our partners in Malawi, including:
  • Findings from an EdTech Hub scan related to the use of EdTech for SEND
  • A  policy review of inclusive education in Malawi, conducted by Dr. Aida Layachi
  • Research conducted in Malawi by Dr. Pitchford on the potential for Digital personalised learning PL tools to impact learners with SEND. 
  • We also wanted to hear from SEND researchers and implementers in Malawi and received insightful presentations from the Ministry of Education’s Department of Inclusive Education, eKitabu, Imagine Worldwide, the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS), and others.

• Learn: Over two days, we wanted to learn from our attendees about the specific challenges and opportunities faced by learners and educators in Malawi when addressing SEND needs. By bringing together this diverse group of stakeholders, we felt we could gather a more robust and nuanced understanding. Specifically, we asked three key questions of our participants in focus group discussions.

• What are the SEND conditions and challenges to inclusion in the education system that you believe are most important to address?
• What do you believe should be the role of EdTech in addressing SEND challenges? 
• What are the EdTech for SEND research questions or opportunities that you believe should be prioritised?

Below we share some of our biggest lessons from these conversations. 

Lessons, Insights, and Areas to Explore

There is a growing awareness of learners with special educational needs and disabilities within Malawi, but there’s room for deeper understanding, particularly when it comes to neurodivergent conditions and learning (‘hidden’) differences. 

Participants noted that community members across the country are increasingly aware of physical and mental disabilities which impact learners. However, they also noted that many would benefit from a more nuanced understanding and awareness of the diversity and complexity of conditions experienced by learners, and how to support them. Participants noted that neurodivergent conditions and learning difficulties are particularly misunderstood.

While some efforts are being made, for instance, to improve the availability of sign language in communities and schools, participants were adamant that broader awareness and knowledge of SEND needs and how to support SEND learners should be further promoted among communities and schools. 

The good news: all participants shared a commitment to further the level of understanding of SEND by the broader community and to work to ensure that all learners have their needs met. None more passionately than the Secretary for Education Professor Mangani Chilala Katundu himself, who emphasised the Ministry’s commitment to inclusive education. 

EdTech has the potential to improve learning outcomes by providing direct and individualised learning experiences for learners with SEND.

Workshop participants believed technology could play a major (and diverse) role in supporting learners with SEND. Tech tools which provide digital personalised learning features (such as the onebillion tool which is currently being widely implemented in the country through the Ministry’s BEFIT program) were noted as potentially impactful adapting learning content with individual learners’ needs. There has been some promising evidence that this kind of technology can help those with neurodivergent needs, but more work needs to be done to better understand their impact and to increase their inclusivity. 

Other uses of technology for supporting SEND learners were noted, including assistive devices for learners with sensory impairments. Mayeso Malembo, from the Deputy of Disability and Elderly Affairs in the Ministry of Gender, Community, Development and Social Welfare discussed the importance of the government’s role in ensuring these resources are made available to all learners that may need them.  

An interview with Mayeso Malembo by EdTech Hub

Teachers could be empowered to better support learners with SEND through tech-enabled TPD.

Technology was noted as a potential tool for preparing teachers in supporting the needs of SEND learners. Tech tools have already been used as a component in teacher professional development in a number of contexts. Building on these approaches to provide teachers in Malawi with better tools to raise awareness about different SEND conditions and needs and how to address them was noted as a significant opportunity for improved support to those learners.

One of our participants, Jenipher Mbukwa Ngwira (seen in the video below), is a lecturer on special needs and inclusive education at MUBAS who works alongside teachers directly to strengthen their ability to support SEND learners. She noted the need to enhance our research in EdTech in Malawi, specifically focusing on teacher training and curriculum development, to better understand how EdTech can best support in preparing teachers to serve all learners. 

An interview with Jenipher Mbukwa Ngwira by EdTech Hub

What’s Next: Organising

Beyond a gathering of key stakeholders, we have leveraged our workshop to assemble a passionate community, eager to explore EdTech uses to support SEND learners and teachers. Our workshop was seen as a valuable catalyst to an already passionate and committed group of individuals and organisations working to improve education for learners with SEND. 

But it was just the beginning of our engagement with SEND in Malawi: insights from this workshop have since helped guide our approach to research in Malawi and beyond. Currently, our in-country team is going back to key stakeholders to share our takeaways and identify the most promising research work streams that can help address the opportunities we identified together. What began as a gathering of like-minded educators is now turning into a plan for action and research. 

For more information on EdTech for SEND in low- and middle- income countries, check out EdTech Hub’s systematic literature review on the subject.