Pedagogy First, Equity Always: What It Takes to Make EdTech Work for Foundational Learning in Crisis Settings

Educational technology (EdTech) is increasingly seen as part of the response to education disruption in crisis settings. It supports schools whose buildings have been damaged or destroyed. It provides tools for teachers who cannot be physically present in classrooms and can help build a professional community to support their practice. It also reaches children isolated or cut off from learning amid social and environmental crises. While EdTech is no panacea, growing evidence suggests that when thoughtfully designed and implemented, it can play an important role in addressing the global learning crisis (Barnes et al., 2025; Pacitto et al, 2026; Radford et al., 2026). The evidence converges on a simple yet easily forgotten idea: technology can help children learn only when grounded in sound pedagogy and designed deliberately around equity. Get those two things wrong, and even a well-funded EdTech programme can leave the children who need learning support most further behind.

At EdTech Hub, we believe technology should be judged by whether it helps children learn, not by how sophisticated it looks. That means putting pedagogy and equity at the heart of EdTech design and delivery. Drawing on our evidence reviews and guidance, this blog explores what that means in practice, highlighting four principles for designing EdTech that supports foundational learning in crisis settings:

• Technology is a delivery channel, not a teaching method. A device alone does not guarantee learning; children need structured, purposeful instruction.
• Layered, low-tech solutions can be more effective than high-tech ones. The right combination of lower-tech technologies can often reach more children, more reliably.
• Teachers and caregivers are central to learning. Technology should strengthen,not replace, the people who support children’s learning.
• Equity must be designed in from the outset. Access, inclusion, and usability cannot be bolted on after a programme is designed.

The question, then, is not “What can this technology do?” but “Does this help this child learn, safely and equitably, today?” That question should guide every decision about whether, how, and for whom EdTech is deployed in crisis settings.

These principles for teaching and learning practice shape how EdTech Hub believes technology can support children’s learning in crisis settings. We will cover these topics further in this blog series. 

Pedagogy Is Not Optional

In the scramble of an emergency response, it is tempting to treat a tablet, a radio broadcast, or an SMS quiz as the intervention itself. But technology is a delivery channel, not a teaching method. Without principled instructional design and a strong pedagogical foundation, a device in a child’s hands guarantees nothing. That is why pedagogy has to come first. This is why centering technology around teachers and their delivery strategy, and knowing the implications technology design can have for children in crises-affected areas is so important.

Learning is a fundamentally social process that depends heavily on interaction (Lennox, Reuge and Benavides, 2021; Vygotsky, 1978), and teachers are key to that interaction (McAleavy and Gorgen, 2020). Teachers matter even more in emergency contexts, where they’re often called on to support learners’ psychosocial wellbeing alongside their academic learning (Pacitto et al, 2026). Their presence serves a dual function throughout crisis-affected remote learning: supporting academic progress and providing the pastoral support and wellbeing information children need to cope (Pacitto et al, 2026). 

What Does This Mean in Terms of How to Deliver Teaching?

Research shows that explicit, structured instruction consistently outperforms open-ended, discovery-based approaches for foundational learning, particularly for younger learners and those with disrupted schooling who can’t lean on prior knowledge (Radford et al., 2026). In practice, high-quality, evidence-informed delivery requires:

• Step-by-step modelling: Demonstrating and explaining a skill clearly before students attempt it.
• Guided practice: Providing immediate, specific feedback as children practice.
• Gradual release: Slowly transitioning children to independent work only once they have demonstrated mastery.
• Highly structured tasks: Utilizing predictable, planned hierarchies, especially in cumulative subjects like maths, to carefully scaffold the learning journey.

In crisis-affected settings, learners carry an additional invisible but heavy burden. Stress, displacement, and trauma measurably impair memory and executive function, making it significantly harder for children to focus, retain new information, or manage multi-step tasks (Radford et al., 2026). Thoughtful EdTech design must actively respond by lowering cognitive load:

• Micro-learning: Breaking educational content into small, digestible chunks.
• Predictability and consistency: Using highly consistent navigation and task structures to prevent confusion.
• Familiar interfaces: Employing universally accessible, low-complexity tools (such as WhatsApp) that keep learners in their comfort zones.
• Eliminating distractions: Stripping away decorative animations and gamified bells-and-whistles that do not directly support learning outcomes.

Social and emotional learning cannot be an afterthought either. SEL programming in crisis-affected settings typically prioritises psychological stability, emotional regulation, coping skills, and rebuilding hope (Radford et al., 2026; Toquero and Toquero, 2023). By facilitating meaningful interaction, whether between teachers, peers, or caregivers, EdTech can serve as an important entry point for psychosocial support, helping students maintain their connection to a learning community when physical schools are closed.

From Effective Teaching to Inclusive Reaching: Bridging the Gap Between Method and Access 

If pedagogy determines whether EdTech can support learning, equity determines who it reaches, when, and with what support. In crisis settings, equity must be designed in. During Covid-19, distance learning failed to reach 31% of learners globally and 72% of the poorest learners (Barnes et al., 2025). Gaps extend beyond device access: in low- and middle-income countries, women are 9% less likely than men to own a mobile phone and 16% less likely to use mobile internet, with rural learners, linguistic minorities, girls, and children with disabilities facing additional barriers (Barnes et al., 2025; Pacitto et al, 2026).

Technology choice is therefore an equity decision. In low-connectivity settings, low-tech and layered approaches can reach more learners than single high-tech solutions. In South Sudan, UNICEF’s Education on Air combined curriculum-aligned radio lessons with a toll-free teacher helpline, reaching more than 329,000 learners during Covid-19 school closures (Radford et al., 2026; UNICEF, 2023). Evidence from Nigeria and Kenya similarly shows that radio is more effective when paired with teachers, facilitators, or community support (Barnes et al., 2025; Pacitto et al, 2026). Reach alone is not enough: technology needs human support to translate access into learning.

In crisis settings, the children most likely to be excluded are often those facing additional barriers related to language, gender, disability, displacement, or access to technology. Designing for these differences from the outset is therefore central to making EdTech work for the children who need it most. In particular, these areas include being thoughtful about the following designs:

• For language inclusion: Learning in children’s home languages can improve outcomes, particularly in the early grades (Nakamura et al., 2023). EdTech can help bridge home and dominant languages, especially for displaced children navigating unfamiliar linguistic environments. UNICEF’s Akelius programme illustrates this potential (UNICEF Innocenti, 2024).
• For gender responsiveness: EdTech can reduce barriers to girls’ participation and learning. In Kenya’s Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps, the SMS-based ENEZA Shupavu291 platform improved learning outcomes for refugee girls while increasing parental acceptance of girls’ technology use (Guglielmi et al., 2021).
• For learners with disabilities: Accessibility should be built in from the outset, rather than added later. Doing so helps reach learners who are often among the least served while strengthening education systems’ resilience to future shocks (Kelcey, Akar & Bouvier, 2024). Evidence also suggests that investing in learners with disabilities can generate substantial individual and societal returns (Radford et al., 2026).

Equity is not an additional feature of an effective EdTech programme. It is part of what makes the programme effective, and ultimately, more cost-effective.

What Can You Do With This?

If you’re designing, funding, or implementing an EdTech programme for a crisis-affected context, this evidence base translates into a fairly concrete set of checks you can run before and during rollout:

• Start with the simplest technology that reaches the most children, then layer on more. Radio, SMS, or paper paired with a facilitator may outperform a single high-tech platform that reaches fewer people.
• Build in a human, don’t just stop on a device. Whether it’s a teacher, a caregiver, or a community facilitator, ask who is standing next to the child when the technology arrives, and design training and support around that person, not just the content.
• Insist on explicit instruction. Push EdTech providers and instructional designers to show modelling, guided practice, and feedback loops, not just a library of videos or quizzes.
• Ask what you’re doing to mainstream inclusion across the whole programme, and what you’re doing specifically for the learners most likely to be left out, for example, girls, children with disabilities, linguistic minorities, the poorest households.
• Come back to the guiding question: “does this help this child learn, safely and equitably, today?” If you can’t answer that clearly for a given tool or channel, re-visit your choice.

Ultimately, Technology Must Serve Learning, Not the Other Way Around

Evidence does not indicate the need to reject EdTech in emergencies. It argues for restraint: choosing the simplest technology that reaches the most children, building in scaffolded, differentiated instruction rather than one-size-fits-all content, and treating equity as a design requirement, not a retrofit. As FLN programmes for crisis-affected children continue to scale, the guiding question should stay constant: not “what can this technology do?” but “does this help this child learn, safely and equitably, today?”

Disclaimer: This blog was developed with support from generative AI – particularly Claude and ChatGPT.