Bold Visions and Heavy Burdens: Who Pays for Reform?
In recent years, governments and regional bodies across Southeast Asia have placed greater emphasis on integrating education technology (EdTech) within their education systems. These ambitions are often framed as central to improving quality, efficiency, and human capital development. However, whether reality can keep pace with ambition remains uncertain. A key risk associated with such ambitious reforms is that their financing becomes another hidden cost of education, households across the region disproportionately bear a burden that evidence shows. While direct costs, such as school fees, are relatively visible and more readily addressed through subsidies or fee abolition policies, indirect costs are harder to identify and regulate. These include uniforms, textbooks, transport, learner pocket money, contributions to school maintenance, and the widespread reliance on supplementary tutoring (Towne, 2023; Bray, 2022).
In Cambodia, households covered about 45% of lower-secondary education costs in 2017, up from 34% in 2004 (Towne, 2023; Bray and Bunley, 2005). In the Philippines, families contribute 52–61% of total education spending, making them the main funders of education (Tenazas, 2022). This emphasises the importance of considered approaches to EdTech financing, which support a reduction in household financial burden by accounting for capital and recurrent expenditure on both EdTech itself and the wider digital infrastructure on which it depends.
Reflections and Lessons Learned
A recent evidence scan by EdTech Hub, conducted to support the Southeast Asian Regional Centre for Early Childhood Care Education and Parenting (SEAMEO CECCEP) in advancing the SEAMEO–ASEAN joint roadmap on Early Childhood Care Education (ECCE), explores effective early childhood education financing mechanisms across Southeast Asia. It identifies cross-cutting lessons for ministries seeking to implement ambitious EdTech reforms, focusing on the underlying conditions required for equitable and sustainable EdTech reform in Early Childhood Education (ECE) and the wider system. They highlight that the success or failure of EdTech integration depends less on the technology itself and its potential to impact learning outcomes than on the foundations of the reform process. Namely, how it is financed, coordinated, and monitored within the education systems. The lessons outlined below consolidate these insights into key considerations for policymakers and system leaders.
1. No Single Financing Model Is Sufficient to Deliver Equitable and Sustainable EdTech Reform
Evidence instead points to the need for a portfolio of complementary financing mechanisms, each serving a distinct function within the education system. Strong domestic public financing provides the foundation for equity, as demonstrated by disadvantage-weighted subsidies in contexts such as Viet Nam and Lao PDR, which direct greater resources to poorer and more remote communities (Duong, 2024; UNESCO Office Bangkok & SEAMEO CECCEP, 2019). Additional mechanisms, including decentralised fiscal transfers or time-bound instruments such as debt swaps, can enable reform by supporting local adaptation or accelerating capital investments, but are limited in their ability to sustain recurrent costs over time (Ito et al., 2018). Viewed in isolation, each model has limitations; viewed together, they support more realistic and inclusive EdTech ambitions.
2. EdTech Integration in ECE Is Not Cost-Neutral for Parents/Guardians
Despite government or donor financing for platforms and EdTech resources, costs are still incurred by households, such as connectivity, devices, electricity, fees by private providers, etc. As ECE systems in the region are predominantly a mix of public and private institutions or wholly privately delivered, these costs do not tend to be marginal or evenly experienced. This can potentially result in higher relative burdens for lower-income families, especially at the early stages of formal learning. Therefore, considering household financing as an implicit assumption risks reproducing inequities at these very early stages. In this sense, poorly designed EdTech financing becomes a pertinent problem long before addressing issues of learning outcomes and quality.
3. Equity Hinges More on Financing Design and Strategy Than on the Choice of Technology and Its Provision
High-tech solutions alone do not inherently deepen inequalities, nor are low-tech solutions simply a constraint. Alongside core public financing, equity-focused mechanisms can help address structural disadvantages. Examples include disadvantage-adjusted school grants in Viet Nam and Lao PDR, and uplift payments for lower-income households within Singapore’s ECE subsidy schemes (Duong, 2024; UNESCO Office Bangkok & SEAMEO CECCEP, 2019). Education financing, particularly for EdTech, must also consider affordability, scalability, and recurring costs across different contexts. This positions low-tech and blended models as deliberate tools for equity, where digitalisation capacity remains uneven, or where high-tech would exclude disadvantaged learners.
4. Governments Cannot Protect What They Do Not Track
There is limited to no systematic data on household education financing across Southeast Asia, particularly on ECE. This results in invisible cost burdens with budgetary and policy decisions, potentially allowing EdTech-related inequities to go unrecognised at scale. Without regular monitoring of who pays, for what and how much, ECE financing strategies may prioritise innovation or piloting at the expense of inclusion of disadvantaged learners, meaning that instead of playing its lauded role as the great equaliser, the further integration of EdTech deepens existing inequalities.
5. Inefficiencies in EdTech Financing, Particularly in ECE, Are Often More a Result of Weak Systems-Level Coordination Than Inadequate Financing/Funding
Pilot-based funding models and one-off grants remain misaligned with system-wide needs. Evidence from Malaysia illustrates how stronger inter-ministerial coordination can address these inefficiencies: multiple ministries jointly finance and deliver early childhood and special needs services, covering education, health, and social welfare functions across the full delivery chain (UNESCO Office Bangkok & SEAMEO CECCEP, 2019). At scale, there is a need for ECE financing (for EdTech and beyond) that covers full lifecycles, including the teacher support, infrastructural maintenance and governance. In Malaysia, this more integrated financing and delivery approach has been associated with improvements in provision, reflected in increased numbers of classes, teachers, and enrolment in pre-school special education programmes (Amar-Singh, 2020). Sustainability of financing may otherwise be at risk if these costs are fragmented across the actors closely involved in decision-making.
What Next?
Overall, the evidence suggests that the central challenge is not whether EdTech has a role to play in early childhood education, but how EdTech interventions are financed, coordinated, and governed within ECE systems at scale across Southeast Asia. As countries increasingly look to digital solutions to support early learning, the focus must shift from pilots and tools to the financing models and system arrangements that enable equitable and sustainable implementation.
Looking ahead, two critical questions emerge:
- Who ultimately bears the costs of digitalisation in ECE, and how are these costs distributed across governments, providers, and households?
- Are current EdTech and ECE financing approaches fit for purpose, particularly in reaching disadvantaged learners and supporting long-term system sustainability?
Addressing these questions is essential if EdTech is to contribute meaningfully to improved learning outcomes in ECE, without exacerbating existing inequities. For ASEAN and SEAMEO member states, this points to a call to action for clearer policy alignment between ECE and digitalisation strategies, and for financing approaches that prioritise equity, coordination, and scale.
