Summary thoughts from the sessions
Each country has articulated a good vision. For example:
But even where the centre has got it right they have issues with local government and schools / teachers understanding and following (the reverse of most countries around the world where lead schools run ahead of policy!). A challenge for us is not to articulate great ideas at the centre, but to make actual change happen at the chalkface – bottom up, led by a vision from above.
Apparently, nobody has really thought about Location of Learning – it is very much “school” and if not school, then “home”. The reduced capital costs of “learning elsewhere” are significant – a huge advantage for these countries. Put simply, if kids “learn elsewhere” for one day per week the capital costs of learning (not teacher salaries though – still need teachers) will drop by 20% but the learning experience could be substantially enhanced.
Everyone reports that teacher development is a challenge. But teacher development is still being progressed very traditionally. In 2022 there should be much better ways to enhance that development.
The learners’ voices have not really featured in our country analyses, yet we know the advantages that learner agency can bring. They all have a lot of children. They are a solution not a problem.
Online and post pandemic get mentioned often, but the implications for this regions economy are very considerable. Top take just 3 examples: (1) working online opens the door to employment around the world. Jobs don’t have to come to the islands, or the least developed parts of these diverse economies, the employees can go to the jobs because so many jobs exist online. (2) we are already seeing employment tourism – people from wealthy developed economies seeking to live in beautiful affordable, stable places because they can work from there. (3) Schools have “survived” the pandemic, but we haven’t yet seen a robust Plan B so that the next and further pandemics will be less disruptive.
There are a LOT of commercial providers seeking to either provide hardware to all kids or content to all kids. This is not very helpful – we have heard over and over that phones + cellular connectivity are ubiquitous, even when wifi isn’t. TikTok, YouTube and much else is rich with quality learning materials – it doesn’t need to be repeated. However, knowing where to look and understanding what maps onto which curriculum components is complex and needs work.
Its not entirely clear where the blue sky thinking comes from going forwards – copying ideas from the West is no longer helpful because those schools are held back by legacy systems that are not moving, or not moving quickly enough.
STEM, as elsewhere, seems to be a very promising vehicle for progress and innovation. Probably because it hasn’t been around long enough to be ossified, but also because the nature of the activity itself is often beyond the timetable (STEM labs are more like the library than a timetabled classroom), often draws in outside experts, values the things that children know and share with each other, is compelling and maps directly onto the new skill sets of new economic realities.
Not sure where you can diplomatically put this in the report/s, but it was noticeable – eg in Indonesia event – that the case study / project talks were way ahead of the commercial partners inputs. In that case, and indeed in others too, Google and Microsoft for example were (a) disappointing and (b) really didn’t get it, or hadn’t listened to the progress Indonesia was making. Just an observation really, but if these big tech companies are to be involved, they need to servicing an initiative, not initiating one.
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recommendations for action. In no particular order.
They need to be impactful, affordable, inclusive actions
- “Learning Elsewhere” warrants a proper regional initiative to explore learning beyond the school campus: learning journeys around the local community (eg visits to bakers, to employment, to nature) and of course learning at home too. An open call for “Learning Elsewhere” initiatives, with small supportive funding, could trigger a lot of fresh grounded thinking.
- A region-wide STEM initiative with high levels of visibility could work everywhere regardless of money or connectivity, or devices. Maybe a simple pack of very affordable components to add “digital” to the projects could be widely available? A test piolot would be very simple to implement. This example below of a hat from a refugee project to offer both safety (who is approaching from behind) and the ability to ready at night without electricity
- Student agency is a key recommendation going forwards and can immediately be implemented. You can imagine a scaleable thing from every school having Learning Researchers / Champions (with proper badges), to expecting a student presence in most education events (ie the event we just ran) and perhaps a kids’ panel at the national ministries.
- The countries all worry about teacher supply and teacher training / development. But they all have a surfeit of children who could often be able to step up to help. Encouraging / rewarding / accrediting learner mentoring – older kids working with and leading younger kids – in STEM, in reading, whatever should be more than encouraged, it should be expected and we should recommend a regional accreditation of “leading learners” for children to cement and value that contribution. With all the countries on board this would be a high status and important “badge”. Beyond the badge, gains for children include meta-cognition, reflective practice, MUCH better learning and better engagement. Win win.
- Cambodia has dabbled with the idea of a Teachers’ TV type channel, whether on YouTube or satellite or both. Teachers LOVE to peek into others’ classrooms – it is very grounded, real practice ideas that they like to see. A regional TTV channel would bring a diversity of classrooms and practice, but grounded in regional realities. Cheap to implement, a powerful channel for hanging practices. A pilot would be simple to create and demonstrate.
- Everyone mentioned radio when exploring their hard to reach audiences – schools on islands, very rural schools, very poor schools (financially). I think seeking a big commercial partner (think maybe Huawei) developing a regionally produced “Radio station in a suitcase” with it’s own abiloty to broadcast across a small community but to share content via an asynchronous mesh type technology, for those schools would be an amazingly empowering project. I have the specs for such a thing. Doesn’t even need electricity – solar for the radio station, wind-up radios as receivers.
- Back in the 90s Europe dabbled with the idea of a trans-national Research Lab, looking to surpass the then successes of MIT, Stanford etc. The EU i3 project failed because of national squabbling, but really something like that would cut the costs of the needed Blue Sky thinking for SE Asia – would certainly attract commercial sponsorship too – and in 2022 with much better connectivity could be a very successful distributed engine for change.
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Strategy 2030: Achieving a Prosperous, Inclusive, Resilient, and Sustainable Asia and the Pacific
Asia and the Pacific has made great strides in poverty reduction and economic growth in the past 50 years. ADB has been a key partner in the significant transformation of the region and is committed to continue serving the region in the next phase of its development.
Under Strategy 2030, ADB will expand its vision to achieve a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty.
- Asia and the Pacific has made great strides in poverty reduction and economic growth in the past 50 years, but there are unfinished development agendas. #Strategy2030
- Under the new #Strategy2030, ADB will sustain its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty while expanding its vision of a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific
- ADB will combine finance, knowledge, and partnerships to fulfill its expanded vision under the new #Strategy2030
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ADB’s Strategy 2030: Responding to a Changing Asia and the Pacific
Contents
- Executive Summary
- Introduction
- Changing Landscape and Challenges
- ADB’s Vision and Value Addition
- Guiding Principles for ADB’s Operations
- Differentiated Approaches to Groups of Countries
- Operational Priorities
- Expanding Private Sector Operations
- Catalyzing and Mobilizing Financial Resources for Development
- Strengthening Knowledge Services
- Delivering through a Stronger, Better, and Faster ADB
- One ADB
- Appendix: Stocktaking of ADB Operations and Summary of Consultations
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How Teachers Teach: Comparing Classroom Pedagogical Practices in the Asia and Pacific Region
The brief draws together evidence on teaching practices in 18 economies in Asia and the Pacific and compares this with assessments of learning outcomes, including student perceptions of interactive teaching practices. The analysis reveals generally poor teaching across large parts of the region. It also highlights some whole-class approaches that appear to foster higher-order thinking skills, showing that there is not one universal approach to effective teaching.
As policy makers consider how to tackle the learning crisis, it is important to note that online learning and other uses of technology are unlikely to improve learning outcomes in the absence of good teaching. Overall, this paper adds to the evidence base showing the critical need to focus on improving teaching practice in order to get children learning.
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Regional: Technology-Enabled Innovation in Education in Southeast Asia
The proposed knowledge and support technical assistance (TA) will conduct a diagnostic of what works in education technology (EdTech) in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam. It will identify at what level technology solutions can be used based on ‘EdTech Readiness’ of countries, and pilot EdTech interventions accordingly. The TA builds on an ongoing regional TA on innovation in education sector development, which also focuses on Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam. The ongoing regional TA assessed the impact of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) on labor markets by examining two economically important sectors in each country. The proposed TA builds on one of the key lessons from the ongoing regional TA: the need to leverage technology to provide trainings and skills development.
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Education is in Crisis: How Can Technology be Part of the Solution?
Digital technologies and EdTech could play a role in addressing the learning crisis underway in Asia and the Pacific.
A learning crisis affects many developing countries in Asia. Millions of children attend school but are not learning enough. They cannot read, write, or do mathematics at their grade level, and yet they pass to the next grade, learning even less because they have not grasped the previous material. The magnitude of the crisis is staggering: in low- and middle-income countries more than half of children are not learning to read by age 10.
At the same time, there is an emerging revolution in learning brought on by digital technologies. These are collectively referred to as educational technology or EdTech. The coincident emergence of a problem in education and a new approach to learning naturally makes us ask how one may be a solution for the other.
Edtech may be one part of the solution – but it should be a means not an end. Our guiding principle should be to first diagnose what is going wrong in a system and then identify which solutions are best suited to solve those problems.
Some causes of the learning crisis are well understood. The poor quality of teaching is a key factor. Teachers often lack subject knowledge and have not had adequate training. There are ways in which technology could address this – and so EdTech may be equally valuable in teaching teachers as it is in teaching students. By offering distance learning, EdTech can provide in-service training or combine online and in-person training (blended learning).
There is also evidence that teachers need better incentives. The idea is that that they can teach well but are not motivated to do so. It is not clear how EdTech can address this problem. Digitized school management systems could better track teacher performance (by tracking their students’ performance) and then linking to pay or other incentives. However, the main need is to design the incentive system; digital applications may only make that system more efficient.
Computer-assisted learning is the direct means by which EdTech can help students. It can be seen as a partial solution for two fundamental learning crisis problems: addressing students at different learning levels and completing the syllabus. A classroom contains students with a range of baseline learning levels and teachers are often incentivized to teach to the upper stratum, leaving many students behind. Furthermore, teachers are pressured to cover the syllabus by year’s end. They move on to new material even if students have not mastered previous lessons. This also leaves students behind.
The solution to both problems is, of course, more tailored teaching, but a teacher is hard-pressed to provide one-on-one tutoring to 30 or 40 kids. EdTech might help provide one-to-one instruction (e.g., one student to one tablet) so pupils can learn at their own level and pace. The evidence from rigorous assessments (largely in the United States) is that packages that use artificial intelligence to adjust to a student’s level can improve results, especially in math.
However, we need to be cautious. Most of the evidence comes from contexts in which the quality of teaching is already quite good and is much above the average in developing countries. Digital systems can also help increase the efficiency of formative assessment and make it more likely that such assessment will be conducted. Tracking of students’ learning, through data collection and analysis, can help to better monitor a student’s learning level and provide level-appropriate teaching and remediation.
Computer-assisted learning is the direct means by which EdTech can help students.
Edtech software, introduced in conjunction with other reforms, holds some promise. One notable success is Mindspark in India, which improves math and Hindi learning. It has been evaluated as an after-hours supplement and combined with human teaching assistance. More assessments of programs would be helpful.
There is also evidence that low-tech interventions for “teaching at the right level” can also have large impacts on learning. Careful analysis is needed to determine whether high-tech or low-tech solutions are best, given that low tech is less costly, and finance is a constraint in poor countries.
The COVID-19 pandemic has given a big push to EdTech. We can learn from these experiences but need to keep them in context. EdTech is being used to overcome the need to social distance. Teachers are teaching by video but not necessarily teaching better than when standing in front of a classroom. Zoom fatigue is a problem. More mass open online courses are being offered and are being taken up – but much of this is not for basic education and therefore does not address the learning crisis.
Supporting EdTech solutions comes with four caveats. First, new initiatives need to be well-designed to address specific weaknesses. Low-quality teacher training delivered partially online is no better than low-quality in-person training. The same applies to computer-assisted learning.
Second, computer-assisted learning is often used in schools or in after-hours programs at or near schools. Delivering as distance learning is trickier. It requires hardware and connectivity at home, which is not available to children in low-income households in developing countries and even developed ones.
Third, EdTech programs used outside normal classroom hours adds to the time children spend learning. This is good but it is not always clear whether the benefits are coming from EdTech, per se, or simply more time spent learning. Nonetheless, gamification and other techniques may make children want to spend more time learning.
Finally, let us keep in mind that good learning outcomes can be achieved without EdTech. Developed countries got results before the advent of EdTech. So too did good schools in developing countries.
To be effective, EdTech must address key causes of the crisis and be part of a larger package of reforms. Those reforms include teacher training, incentives, monitoring, teaching at the right level, remediation for underperforming students, and others.
Digital technologies have changed our lives in many ways, mostly for the good. EdTech could do the same by playing a role in addressing the learning crisis.
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TIESEA Project Introduction
The Technology-enabled Innovation in Southeast Asia (TIESEA) project aims to find solutions as to ‘’what works” in EdTech. The project began in late 2021 with the conducting of national surveys of the EdTech landscape in four countries in the region – Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam. These were designed to include an overview of the local EdTech situations and to review those interventions that have been successful in improving education outcomes. The detailed country situational analyses in the four countries, which also reported on the results of a teacher-skill survey, have provided a showcase for some of the EdTech suppliers and projects operating in each of the countries.
The leading EdTech players, identified country by country, will be invited to become project partners to work with project implementers to run intervention pilots that will run for one year in each country. The research design will be backed up by rigorous monitoring and evaluation procedures that will check on progress over the course of the year-long projects. Several important criteria will guide the EdTech pilots – they should be affordable, scalable and sustainable at a national level, to the extent that they could become more widely adopted by education ministries at the end of the year-long project intervention. The interventions should be able to demonstrate a positive impact on the quality of learning and the achievements of the students in the participating schools.
During the early part of 2022 workshops are taking place, in the form of webinars, to share the findings of Digital eReadiness Surveys in each country with key government officials and other key stakeholders in the participating countries. This workshop series will culminate in a regional webinar with a wide audience, international keynote speakers and an expert panel. The conference will reflect upon the lessons learned during the past two years of remote learning, as EdTech has had a critical role to play in maintaining learning continuity during the enforced school closures.
As the EdTech interventions proceed over the course of school years 2022 and early 2023 regular updates will be included on the project website.
The lessons learned and the results of the EdTech interventions will be collated, analysed, and presented at a major in-person international conference and EdTech event to be held in the region in September 2023. This conference is aimed to be a capstone event to which an international audience of policy-influencers and decision-makers will be invited.
All the major international EdTech players will be represented, and, under the aegis of the Asian Development Bank and the Japanese Fund for Poverty Reduction, the project implementers will focus on, and highlight, the key elements that make EdTech interventions successful.
EdTech solutions have a huge role to play in the contributions they can make as education systems begin to be remodelled to address the twin challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the ongoing challenges of remote learning and school closures.
Digital Technology in Education
Digital technology can improve the efficiency and quality of education at all levels. Part of ADB’s strategy to support its education policy principles is promoting “experimentation with, and dissemination of, innovative strategies and technologies in education.” This involves developing appropriate e-applications to help DMCs leapfrog conventional means of learning and teaching. For example, Uzbekistan’s Digital Technology in Basic Education Project, supported by a $30-million ADB loan, is bringing education to remote rural areas and benefiting 540,000 students.
Without the skills to fully realize the benefits of ICT the digital divide becomes an even bigger information literacy divide. A key aspect of a knowledge economy is an information-literate and ICT-capable labor force. ICT provides increasingly effective ways to reach out to rural dwellers in remote areas and disadvantaged groups that do not have access to quality educational opportunities, thus providing them with a link to global networks and the global economy.
ADB’s ICT initiatives in education improved skills training in poor rural areas by making up-to-date learning resources available online for distance learning for students, teacher training, and professional development. ICT also improves education administration by connecting district-level offices to the central education ministry.
Featured ICT-related Projects and Activities in the Education Sector
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| Secondary Education Sector Investment Program – Tranche 1 | This loan aims to develop a more efficient, equitable, and higher-quality secondary education system. One of its outputs is “enhanced use of information and communication technology for pedagogy.” The program will review on-going ICT projects to inform development of a school information hub plan for installation of approximately 10 computers with internet access and related equipment, maintenance, security, and facilities in 5,000 schools. |
| Information and Communication Technology for Better Education Services | The TA will enhance capacity of the education sector in ICT application at subnational levels. It will carry out the following: (i) development and implementation of a gender-inclusive ICT plan linking MEHRD, provincial education authorities and schools; (ii) identification of ICT hardware options, development of suitable applications, and piloting their use in rural or remote areas, including capacity building; (iii) comprehensive assessment study conducted on how enhanced access to ICT can add value to the DFL; (iv) convene ICT4E workshop and forum to raise awareness, identify potential and constraints, and share findings and lessons learned from the TA outputs. |
| Higher Education in the Pacific Investment Program – Tranche 1 | This loan aims to achieve expanded and equitable access to quality higher education in USP member countries, especially for women and students from remote outer islands. One of its outputs is the expansion of the USP Kiribati campus to accommodate the rapidly increasing number of students by constructing additional classrooms, an ICT studio, a student cafeteria, and administration facilities. New ICT equipment will be provided to connect to other regional campuses, and deliver faster and more reliable ICT-based learning courses, especially DFL courses. |
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