IMPACT • CHALLENGE • INTERVENTION • RESOURCES
Low tech for quality learning — changing how remote learning works
Discover how Youth Impact is scaling mobile-driven numeracy interventions globally, from Botswana to Kenya, Sierra Leone, and beyond. With support from EdTech Hub, ConnectEd is now integrated into India’s education strategy and expanding to new regions, helping millions of children access effective remote learning.
IMAGE CREDIT: YOUTH IMPACT
The challenge ➝
More than 240 million children are out of school, meaning they are yet to meet basic numeracy and literacy benchmarks where tons of solutions need to be contextualised and aligned to budgets. To address the global learning challenge, we need to understand and measure EdTech solutions for remote numeracy education in low- and middle-income countries.
Youth Impact is working to meet this challenge. To bridge these gaps and ensure the success of their interventions, Youth Impact needed to understand the cost-effectiveness of various low-tech education interventions to inform decision-makers and practitioners.
Having worked with Governments in Kenya and Sierra Leone, EdTech Hub was an ideal partner to support the evidence generation in these countries. The Hub commissioned a study that would help with the existing struggle of finding support for distance learning at home, especially during school closures or any learning disruption.
The intervention ➝
Youth Impact built on growing literature on low-tech platforms to support remote learning and developed and introduced ConnectEd — a groundbreaking low-cost remote numeracy intervention that leverages the power of mobile phones to deliver quality education. This is a simple 20-minute phone tutorial coupled with practice math problems sent through SMS.
Initiated in Botswana, ConnectEd is now being tested in Kenya and Sierra Leone. EdTech Hub realised that governments in Kenya and Sierra Leone struggled to support distance learning at home, especially during school closures or any learning disruption. The Hub commissioned a research study on ‘low-tech’ platforms to support remote learning and aided the government in finding scalable and sustainable solutions to distance learning. The study explored key questions to help support effective distance learning.
Before partnering with EdTech Hub, Youth Impact had conducted five randomised controlled trials (RCT) across India, Kenya, Nepal, the Philippines, and Uganda. These focused on phone tutoring, which provided insights into the effectiveness of the solution and captured cost-effectiveness data for each of these. EdTech Hub led the initiative to drive the research forward to deepen the understanding of low- and middle-tech educational solutions in diverse contexts.
As part of this work, workbooks and phone-based instructions among other learning interventions (including regular schooling) have been tested in Sierra Leone and Kenya. Recent findings from the trial in Sierra Leone show workbooks to be effective. In Kenya, phone-based instructions were found to be effective alongside regular schooling in the Kenya context.
Drawing on this data, a cost-effectiveness framework is being finalised in collaboration with EdTech Hub’s cost-effectiveness measurement team. This partnership has provided insights that helped expand and test the effectiveness of three widely accessible strategies:
- simple SMS messages
- short instructional phone calls
- a combination of workbook usage and radio programming
Insights analysed and provided by EdTech Hub helped with the implementation of a set of studies to advance Youth Impact’s understanding of low- and middle-tech programming in new contexts.
The impact ➝
Youth Impact has leveraged insights from the study trials to refine its approach and scale its impact. These insights have played a key role in expanding mobile phone-driven numeracy interventions beyond the initial scope.
Originally focused on Botswana, with expansion to Kenya and Sierra Leone in partnership with EdTech Hub, Youth Impact has surpassed these goals. A notable example is the Government of Karnataka in India, which has integrated ConnectEd into its official plan and budget for the 2024/25 financial year — a move that has the potential to benefit over 1 million students.
Building on this momentum, Youth Impact is now working to extend its reach even further, with plans to expand to Afghanistan, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Somalia, Nigeria, and the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region. These initiatives have the potential to advance how remote learning is delivered globally.
Youth Impact and EdTech Hub have worked together to test and refine cost-effective strategies, helping decision-makers adopt sustainable learning solutions. With this approach, ConnectEd is helping more children learn, no matter their location and the challenges they face.
If you would like to know more about this research and the evidence generated, check out our page.
Curated resources ➝
- How Can Decision-Makers Assess EdTech Interventions for Cost-Effectiveness to Enable Better Investments?
- Cost-Effectiveness and EdTech: Considerations and case studies
- Cost-Effective EdTech Paper 1: A position piece on how the sector can make progress
- Cost-Effective EdTech Paper 2: Good practice
- Session 6: How do I ensure my EdTech investments are cost-effective?
