As schools began to close earlier in the year, at the EdTech Hub we started to look at how governments pivoted to distance learning, with a number of country case studies exploring this shift. While the full case studies will be released soon, this blog gives an overview of the first of these into India’s response.

The onset of COVID-19 dealt a huge blow to the Indian education system —  one of the largest in the world. In this blog we ask: How has the system responded? What technologies have been put in place to support distance learning?

Over the last months, the Hub has been collaborating with the Central Square Foundation (CSF) to document the Indian governments’ education response to COVID-19, particularly the use of technology to support distance learning at the primary and lower secondary level.  

We’re excited to publish the first version of a tool to help you find and compare EdTech tools. 

This week we’ve designed and prototyped a tool to make our website more useful during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. We want to enable decision-makers to make informed choices about if, when and how to use EdTech during this crisis. We’re building something to help you find education responses by governments and EdTech tools that support these responses.

This is part of our coronavirus (COVID-19) and EdTech series.

Written by Anna Riggall (Head of Research) and Tony McAleavy (Research Director), Education Development Trust

As the horror of Covid-19 became apparent, governments around the world closed schools in their attempts to control the spread of the virus. According to UNESCO, schools are closed in 191 countries, impacting 90% of the world’s enrolled learners.

This blog reflects on two studies recently commissioned by the EdTech Hub and carried out by our team at Education Development Trust. The reports tackled questions relevant to managing education continuity and quality during school closures. One report examined the evidence about the best pedagogy for remote learning and the other focused on country responses to the provision of educational continuity – looking for what appears to be working. 

This is part of our coronavirus (COVID-19) and EdTech series.

This week we kicked off our project to make our website more useful during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This is part of the EdTech Hub’s strategy to respond to the pandemic, by providing rapid, actionable information and advice to government decision-makers. We want to help decision-makers navigate the opportunities and challenges of EdTech in a time of crisis. We’re collaborating with Public Digital on this project, and they are helping us with this user research.

This is part of our coronavirus (COVID-19) and EdTech series.

Today, over a billion learners are affected by closures due to coronavirus (COVID-19). In these unprecedented times we’re committed to playing our role in supporting countries to provide continued education for all learners. 

Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be sharing insights and resources about how educational technology (EdTech) can support out-of-school learning during these challenging times, with a particular focus on low- and middle-income countries. To stay up to date with our future posts, follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn.