IEFG BIG Series: Walking the Tight Rope of EdTech - The potentials and pitfalls of technology in learning.

Welcome to the IEFG Brains in Gear series. This episode examines potentials and pitfalls of Edtech in the low and middle income contexts. What are some things that Edtech can help with and what are places you need to exercise caution? Listen to the episode and learn about all this.   

Our hosts will be:

• Jani Moliis from the JBJ Foundation bringing insights from the BEFIT program in Malawi. Jani oversees JBJ Foundation’s education portfolio. He has over 15 years of experience in improving the effectiveness and impact of organizations delivering value for citizens.
• Janhvi Maheshwari Kanoria, Executive Director of Innovation at the Education Above All Foundation ,  a global foundation reaching 16 million out-of-school children. Her passion lies in designing solutions that advance quality learning solutions for the world’s most marginalized. In her previous roles in the Ministry of Education and Qatar Foundation, she was responsible for conceiving multiple creative solutions.

They will be joined by:

• Santosh More: Co-founder of Mantra for Change,  a mechanical engineer turned education advocate who recognized the role of education in empowering and transforming society. A two-year fellowship with Teach for India gave him exposure to the existing schooling system in India and the gaps in its quality. He is also an influential advisor and mentor to several early-stage social enterprises.
• Dr. Joshua Valeta: Director for Open, Distance, and eLearning at Malawi's Ministry of Education, who oversees the national implementation of eLearning programs and distance education initiatives.

Here are some resources if you would like to learn more about the topics discussed in the episode:

• Learn more about the Building Education Foundations through Innovation and Technology (BEFIT) program in Malawi here.
• Learn more about the Internet Free education Resource Bank (IFERB) program at Education Above All here
• Innovation Development Directorate at the Education Above All Foundation – Website page
• Here is a link to a very brief video by one billion showing the tablet program in action in Malawi. 
• The challenges and solutions of technology integration in rural schools: A systematic literature review - ScienceDirect

This podcast was brought to you by the International Education Funders Group, curated and edited by Anjali Nambiar, with post-production by Sarah Miles. You can learn more about the IEFG at

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You can follow the IEFG on LinkedIn here. https://www.linkedin.com/company/international-education-funders-group-iefg

Transcript

Walking the Tight Rope of EdTech- The potentials and pitfalls of technology in learning

Introduction 

Once you have the tablets, you have teachers and students that are familiar and used to using them, then suddenly the sky's the limit in terms of the things that you could then start doing. If you try to do too much, it falls apart. If you try to do too little, it also falls apart.  

Think with me about your favorite moment with a teacher from school. 

I bet you it has nothing to do with learning something academic.  

We're looking at technology here as, I like to call it, as part of the package, but Coming in in that package as an enabler,  

Making a child a passive consumer of content is not the kind of education that we would like to impart.  

You're listening to the IEFG Brains in Gear series, focusing on ed tech in under resourced contexts. 

This episode explores the potentials and pitfalls of using technology in the classroom. Here are hosts, the experts. Jani from the JBJ Foundation and Janhvi from the Education Above All Foundation, discuss the lessons they learned and the questions they have about effectively using digital methods in the class with Santosh More, co-founder of Mantra for Change, and Joshua Valeta, the director for Open Distance and e-Learning, Malawi's Ministry of Education. 

Jani: Hi, I'm Jani from JBJ Foundation.  

Janhvi: Hi, I'm Janhvi from the Education Above All Foundation and with us we also have our colleague Santosh. Santosh, over to you.  

Santosh: Hi, I'm Santosh More from Mantra for Change, one of the organizations working in India on education equity.  

Jani: And we also have Dr. Joshua Valeta. 

Joshua: Thank you Jani and everyone. I'm Joshua Valeta. I'm the Director of Open Distance and E Learning in the Ministry of Education here in Malawi. The warm heart of Africa, very excited to join in and chime in this very important conversation.  

Jani: So today's theme on the IEFG podcast is centered around a critical debate on the potential and pitfalls of edtech in failing education systems. 

Edtech is often loaded as a solution we've all been waiting for. Kids won't need teachers as they'll have chatbots, teacher capability can be fixed at low cost. The classroom model of education. That some say has been so resistant to innovation can finally be rethought.  

Janhvi: But there's still many issues, as we know, around ed tech, the education systems, while they're failing, there has been a lot of progress in the last few years because of COVID. 

But in reality, ed tech is not a quick fix. There are many other things that we need to do in this journey. Literacy levels are low. Engagement is low. Digital literacy is low. Internet penetration is low and in some places non existent. Beyond connectivity, even technology and hardware is a challenge. So it doesn't stop us from trying to think about the potential of EdTech, but also being very real and cognizant about some of the conversations that have to happen on the other side of it. 

So while we're grappling with these themes of what EdTech might look like and what the potential is, also to discuss the other side and the pitfalls.  

Santosh: Thank you, Janhvi, for bringing that up. I really feel that when we talk about it, we really need to understand the context of many countries that we are currently working in. 

For example, when we talk about India, we are talking about 250 million children from different start of society.  

Janhvi: Jani, what have you seen in Malawi?  

Jani: I think Malawi, the BEFIT program that the JBJ Foundation has been funding among other partners is abbreviation from Building Educational Foundations through Innovation and Technology. 

It's a tablet based foundational learning program. We hope it's going to be the first really proof of concept for a large scale implementation of EdTech in a low resource setting. That would really transform foundational learning for lower primary students. It hasn't happened before. There's been pitfalls that other programs have tended to fall into, but I think we've had the lessons learned of those other earlier initiatives, and I'm optimistic and hopeful that we will have a case in point. 

In Malawi soon, where a large scale implementation of an edtech solution can really bring the kinds of effects and impacts that everyone has been hoping for and looking for many years.  

Janhvi: That's amazing to hear, Jani, because also as the Education Above All Foundation, we've been working on both ends of the digital spectrum. 

So we have been working on access being provided through edtech in a program that we call the Digital School Program, which is focused on out of school adolescents. We did a pilot program in India, but we are also looking at two additional pilots, which are quite large scale, working with government in Pakistan and in Zambia, where we are trying to think of a bit of a hybrid learning model using technology to ensure alternative learning access. 

So children sort of learn in their communities, but also partially in school. So giving them the flexibility. To have jobs and look at the other responsibilities, but also giving them the opportunity to do a little bit more accessible and flexible learning so that we account for their learning loss, as well as their learning speeds and towards a credited certification. 

But on the flip side of it, what we're also seeing is a solution that we developed during COVID, which is called the Internet Free Education Resource Bank, and I know it's a mouthful, the acronym for that is IFERB. It's essentially a huge bank of cost free and open source content, which was developed for children who have zero technology and zero devices. 

And the idea was very much that Anyone, anywhere should be able to learn whether or not they have any resources. And what happened during COVID is we had partners distribute this content through a variety of really innovative means, which included writing the instructions in village walls or broadcasting them through loudspeakers in mosques or anything that it took to get to the kids. 

It's been incredible to see that in the last three years, that solution has grown to about 7 million children who we now cover in 14 different countries. And even after COVID, we have governments come up to us to say, this is a solution we want to see. And I think the two pieces of it, which make it very interesting is that it is really low cost and therefore very accessible. 

And so very easy for people to implement with zero requirements of technology. And two, it also brings out the other side of it, which is engagement because it's hands on. 

So we're very optimistic about the potential of edtech. And we were really happy to see that during COVID, So many government policies changed so dramatically to actually allow for technology. And that was really wonderful. But yet we're quite realistic in thinking about how much work needs to be done outside of ed tech to really ensure that we are even able to absorb the kind of developments happening. 

In EdTech and maybe Santosh if we can just ask you to step in here and give us a bit of a context of India because you do also work across the digital spectrum in India and share with us where you see that technology working and not.  

Santosh: I would like to answer this in three layers. First layer is the layer of the child. 

Second layer is layer of the system. Third layer is. Where we are talking about the classroom interaction. Let's talk about the first one when we have tried and again during the COVID time, many of the governments were trying giving digital devices to children or creating a lot of content for direct consumption of children. 

What we realized during that time, two major things. Children, although we have 600 million smartphone users in the country, children having access to a smartphone is only about 12 to 14 percent because many of the parents, they take a smartphone with them. Second important thing was most of the data consumption, which was happening was very passive. 

Whereas education is an active engagement game. Second important thing is the system. So at the layer of system, the question that is in front of us is whether we are looking at technology as an enabler or as a crippler. Now, if we are looking at as an enabler, then we would like to give agency to the teachers, agency to the headmasters. 

And currently we are involved with two major platforms at the national level. One is called Diksha. Another is called Shiksha Lokam, we have been able to restore the agency of more than 700, 000 headmasters across the country, whereas in Diksha around 6 million. Teachers are currently on the shot. They are creating their own content. 

They are also consuming the content from the platform. Now let's talk about the classroom interaction. What we have realized is IFERB has literally gotten parents, teachers, and children all involved in the process of education because they're the dissemination of content is happening with the teachers, with the system, but the process of education is being orchestrated by the child. 

So the restoring the agency of a child is completely done regardless of technology. And that's where I really feel we'll have to see where we can use technology effectively. Having a child Or making a child a passive consumer of content is not the kind of education that we would like to impart.  

Jani: I agree. 

And that really makes me recognize the different starting points and how they need to be taken into account. It sounds like the context on the Indian subcontinent is already one where you can rely on devices being available with parents and families, which is not the case in Malawi. A lot of schools, certainly rural schools, but even in urban schools, you might have children that have never held a digital device in their hand before. 

And that's why this program really starts with just the foundational skills and then really with the single software developed by 1Billion, a British NGO, has been. Tried and tested and shown to be effective. But however, once that investment into the infrastructure has been made and you have solar power in primary schools, you have the tablets, you have teachers and students that are familiar and used to using them, then suddenly the sky's the limit in terms of the things that you could then start doing. 

Even without ongoing connectivity. And that's one of the design parameters also, because you can't rely on only being online in Malawi. So even with offline solutions, you can still upload materials that would then allow students to benefit from other materials as well. It's a long process. You have to go step by step. 

If you try to do too much, it falls apart. If you try to do too little, it also falls apart. And I think that's been the lesson from these one laptop per child programs from history, that it was. Too small of a step to just try to make the physical infrastructure be present without thinking about what, what it actually gets used for. 

And that's, I think the balance that we're trying to strike with the Malawi program.  

Janhvi: Yeah. And it may be building off what you're saying. It's once the access is there, once that connectivity is there, we can reach them to do so much. And I think in our mind, we were feeling like, of course, as you said, Only 27 percent of the population in low income countries uses internet. 

So we need moon leaps to get to a point where we have that kind of access. But on the flip side, where there is access, we are very hopeful because we can use it for so much. So many really interesting problems that we have never previously been able to solve. For example, blockchain credentialing for refugees, big data analysis to help us focus our efforts on geographies of most need, doing predictive models, generating real evidence on specific learning items. 

But also I think one of the most exciting things that we've been trying to do with AI is to help generate specialized content at a fraction of the cost. So a large part of the conversation that we've been having is, as Santosh said, how do we use technology as the enabler to a lot of our programming? 

How do we use it to help us connect to those classrooms and those kids, but then leave a lot of that classroom conversation to be magical where it can be, which is really, really dependent on that interaction piece.  

Jani: I'd be interested to hear, Joshua, what keeps you up at night with the BFIT program? What are the main risks or concerns that you see with it being able to deliver what it's meant to deliver at the full national scale in all primary schools in Malawi? 

Joshua: For me, the main risk and something that we are trying hard, you know, to manage. is to make sure that it delivers on what is supposed to, is expected to deliver. And if I can summarize that, it's the issue of time on task. How do we ensure that this technology that has been delivered to the classroom does what it's supposed to do to the teacher? 

And that's what's supposed to do more important to the learner. For me, that's very key. And that means that, for example, we end the teachers adequately, we support the teachers adequately, we monitor adequately what's going on, and together with the teacher, and that we make sure that the technology itself is still in good order and that it's doing what it's supposed to do. 

For me, that's the main risk that's there, that you can find yourself investing a lot of resources and time in an edtech and then it doesn't deliver. For offline solutions like the tablet based learning, this perhaps is the biggest challenge that is there. And the beauty is that it's a manageable challenge. 

Like here, what we have done systematically is to make sure that the learning through the tablet is on the timetable. So, in that way, it's formalized, it's institutionalized, so the teacher knows that I am supposed to deliver this lesson. But during this period, I'm using the tablet to help me deliver, and I'm using the tablet to help the learners deliver well. 

So, making sure that there's adequate time allocated, and that the learners, when they're having that tablet, they're not going elsewhere, they're not doing other stuff, but they are really learning, they're interacting with content.  

Jani: I want to touch upon your use of the word adequate use of the tablets, because there's definitely the question of making sure that the tablets are used enough to deliver the learning gains that they're meant to be delivering. 

But there is also the other extreme of using tablets too much. And anecdotally, we've seen this already, especially rural schools, which struggle with teacher retention and have the biggest lack in teachers. The head teacher might be tempted to say that, well, we have these tablets that kids can use the entire day. 

So let's have the kids use tablets. That's better than not having them be in classroom without a teacher. And that's not what the program has been designed for either. So it will not deliver the results if you have that approach. So even in the best case scenario where the beefy program works exactly as intended, you will still need teachers for so many things. 

And in fact, the requirements on teachers. gross because they will need to be teaching things to do kids that know the basics already. And they're craving for more learning than what they've been able to do before getting the basic skills in place.  

Janhvi: I also loved your point in terms of time on task, because I think the real answer to this question is how much it's helping that efficiency to help focus our real goal, which is maximize student learning. 

If that's really the question we're trying to answer, obviously there's a lot of things that we have to solve for outside of technology. I mean, there's nutrition, there's facilities, there's infrastructure, there's transportation, none of which technology is solving for. In addition to that, there are aspects of balancing that technology and non tech interaction piece, which between the child and the teacher still needs to happen. 

And we still need to build that pedagogical ability. I think the question posed to us has been, and I would love your thoughts on this as well, around edtech replacing teachers or not replacing teachers. And I think where I stand on this is, I just feel like edtech can replace absent. For a bad teacher. 

So, you know, we know, and UNESCO has told us that the 2030 Global Report on Teachers tell us that we need 44 million additional teachers. You know, our whole digital school program initiative, the other one I was talking about, that leverages the fact that we don't have enough teachers to help us reach children. 

So we specialize the role of the teacher. But on the flip side of it, where we do have teachers, let's try and figure out how we can empower the teacher using technology. Teach the teacher with better resources like the eye for resources, better content, better data, better analysis, so that she doesn't have to waste her time doing a lot of things that technology can easily do for her. 

And instead, you know, she focuses on creating that magic and that administrative burden doesn't fall as much on her. maybe Santosh, do you want to add anything to that or Jani would love your thoughts on the teacher piece as well.  

Santosh: I would just like to add a story to what Janhvi you have just mentioned and this is again about implementing the recent IFERB program in the state of Bihar. 

One of the days we, along with the principal secretary education, we went on the ground to see how the implementation is happening. And while we were walking we also entered into a house. It was a very close knit community. So we entered into the house and we saw that the grandmother in that house was using the project which was provided by a teacher. 

And the grandmother was using that to teach some of the children in that community. And what that helped us to start thinking was, can we start leveraging technology in some way where a community women can be a teacher, right? So what Janhvi was just mentioning, is there a possibility of harnessing a lot of women, maybe Who are currently in the community and who are currently running the self help groups in India and can they become a good teacher? 

Those are some of the examples which are very powerful for me. Can technology help us in those ways? That would be fantastic. 

Jani: I think if we focus a bit more on the pitfalls of using technology, I think teacher agency is definitely one of them. I totally agree with Janhvi with the way you described it. You can replace bad or absent teachers, but not really beyond that. How do you ensure that the good teachers see that they're working together with the technology and that they don't feel threatened and that it's really something that we haven't seen yet in the program in Malawi. 

I think that the most that we've seen has been excitement from the teachers that there's now this additional tool that really allows their students to learn in a way that they haven't been able to provide before. Even the best teacher in the world is going to struggle with 150 kids in the classroom. 

So that's also just a fact of life. So being able to then Scale learning in a way that an individual teacher is not able to do is unprecedented as well.  

Janhvi: One of the things that we have been trying very hard to do is also redefine the role of a teacher. So for a second, if I asked all of you to think with me about your favorite moment with a teacher from school, I bet you it has nothing to do with learning something academic. 

I bet you it has to do with some emotional connect moment. Like I'll tell you mine. Mine was when my sixth grade teacher stood up for me in front of the principal. I know it's because she believed that what I was saying was true and I was not lying and I was honest and I knew that moment that I would never betray her trust. 

And that's a moment that stayed with me because I felt believed in, you know, I felt like I had a champion who trusted me. And I feel like a large part of our work, when we have used technology with teachers, has to be to reinforce that this is your role. Your role is to be a champion for your kids. Your role is to understand when they don't know beyond what the technology tells you. 

Technology will never take over your job. And I think that messaging as an education community is something we need to get stronger with, because I think that we are Passing a lot of these messages around how AI will take over your job, how personalized learning is the only kind of learning, how technology based learning really works. 

But today, if you think about, forget the low income homes that we work in, but even every affluent home, every parent has screen control and screen times. So it is true that technology is not the only way to learn and frankly, hands on learning is what works. So I think we have to give our teachers that confidence again and maybe change the messaging a little bit around what we are seeing. 

Jani: I would be very interested, Joshua, to hear your perspective on this question about teacher agency and how to ensure that the tablets or any EdTech technology isn't seen as replacing teachers, but is actually accelerating the learning that the teachers are also able to facilitate.  

Joshua: There's often this fear that sometimes people think, Oh, technology is gonna replace teachers and jobs will be lost and stuff like that. 

But I want to agree with Janhvi. We look at technology as another very effective and sometimes also very cost effective and efficient tool that is going to help the teacher do his work better. faster, but also become more impactful. There's a saying that I came across on the internet and I use it quite often. 

Technology will not replace teachers, but perhaps the teacher who embraces technology will replace the one who doesn't. What it says, basically, is not that there will be a displacement, but it's calling upon teachers to realize the role of technology in that they will become more relevant by adopting appropriate technology. 

And that's what we see here in Malawi with the tablet based learning under the Building Education Foundation's Innovation and Technology BEFIT National Scalar Program. The teachers are embracing this because it's another tool, very effective tool, that has been studied and there's evidence that shows that It can help them to retain more knowledge even after school closures like the disaster in positive school closures of seven months that we experienced here due to COVID 19. 

So the role of the teacher will remain important but it will be changing. It is changing already and it's important for us to help the teacher understand that. But the key message is that This technology is coming in to aid your teaching, then the learning that is expected to happen in the classroom. 

And that's what we are seeing here in Malawi in the BEFIT program.  

Jani: The other pitfall that I would like to hear your thoughts on is the use of data and questions about privacy and those kinds of considerations, because there's that huge upside of generating immense amounts of data about how Children  are learning in low resource settings and that's completely unprecedented to anything that has happened before. 

But there is the flip side of what other potential, not so great users for that data might surface. And this is something that we're very early stages, so we haven't yet fully grasped all the issues that are going to relate to it. I'm very interested in hearing any thoughts that you might have.

Janhvi:  So, Two of the things that we're seeing is one, we're unclear as a community as to what data is useful and to who. 

So I think there's also just been a bit of a revolution around just collecting all the data that's possible to collect. Is that data accurately going to the people who are developing content and curriculum and helping them inform their design choices? Not currently. If there is assessment data on which pedagogical approach is helping children learn, is that going to people who are designing teacher training and pedagogical, you know, tools? 

Not really. And I think the other piece on that is around student data, of course, and also just more around security online, especially where children are online. And I think that's a piece that We haven't thought through as much as a community. I think we're all worried. And we swing the pendulum often left to right to say, let's ban technology. 

Let's have technology. One of the things that we are working on as the EAA foundation is to think about how we give our children that digital intelligence skills. to be critical consumers and producers of content, which would be online. So, I mean, just as an example for that, if you think about the languages of Afghanistan, those languages are often not even represented when you search for languages online. 

The language Dari is not recognized. I think it's called, uh, Afghani Persian. And that's the national language of Afghanistan. So just, I think falls on us to ensure that that representation piece is done and that's by collecting enough data that's pushed back into the system so that the system is actually learning from that data. 

That would be one of my thoughts on it. 

Santosh:  I wanted to touch upon the data point. One of the things that we have seen is how we are using the data. So with respect to child level data, again, there could be protocols, like India has its own Aadhaar law, again, which tries to protect child's identity and everything around it. 

Second important thing is how are we using the data to make those decisions where agency is restored and we are not threatening agency of somebody. Let's take example of Punjab. In the state of Punjab, we are talking about a hundred thousand teachers, 20, 000 public schools, and around 20 million children studying in those public schools. 

Now, when we started working in the state of Punjab, we realized that it's very important to ensure that Teachers are provided right kind of mentorship and support inside the classroom. For that, a cadre was created called District Mentor Block Mentor cadre. And the role of the cadre was to do classroom observation and based on the classroom observation, provide support and mentorship to the teachers. 

Now this entire thing, we were able to orchestrate on technology. using a tech platform, the mentors would go inside the classroom, they will do the classroom observation or the data will flow from a classroom to a district to a state. At the state level, we were able to see what are those requirements of the state with respect to the teacher's competencies. 

For example, we saw that Currently, teachers are using 17 percent activity based learning inside the classroom. The goal that we set at the state level was we have to move from 17 percent to 35 percent in six months of time. That's the way the data was used. So using sense makes sense. So first we sense what is happening on the ground, we went in the classroom, we collected the data, we made sense of it, we try to analyze what is happening. 

So after that there was learning opportunities provided to the teacher. Some of them were state run, some of them were district run. In fact, we went a layer deeper into it and we told that the even headmasters can plan a capacity development session for the teachers. So then the learn thing happened and then finally the improve thing. 

And this virtuous cycle kept continuing in the state of Punjab, which made Punjab number one state in education in India. This is how we can really think of how technology can orchestrate those kinds of improvement in education.  

Jani: One on the point about how technology cannot solve everything. There was a very clear example of this during the school year in Malawi with the tablets were first installed. 

That unfortunately there was a very bad harvest season in Malawi this year, which resulted in many communities having a severe lack of food. Even if you have tablets, schools, if children are not able to come to schools because of lack of food, you're not going to get the benefit from that EdTech investment. 

So really the basics of providing meals at schools that feel like they're from a previous century, when you're talking about edtech solutions, they have an extremely important role. The other point that Santosh's last remarks made me think of that it's the sensing part that edtech can have an immense benefit on, right? 

Right now there are 70, 000 tablets in Malawi collecting information about how children are learning in Malawi in a completely unprecedented way. This Being done at this level, and it would have been impossible to do without the technology, but then making sense and improving the technology is not going to be doing that. 

You're going to be needing capacity to be able to then actually understand what you need to do with that data, those kinds of skills and capabilities. And the need for those is only going to grow. And if you don't have those available, then you're also missing out on a lot of the benefits for an EdTech intervention. 

Joshua: That's really very true. This is why, for example, as we are focusing on this sub sector of foundation education in Malawi, we have what we call five SEFs. So it's a five strand foundation education strategy. Editech, or digitalization, is one strand. So one out of five, because we realize that there are other elements that also need the teacher. 

There's nutrition there, like what Ian is referring to there. We're looking at technology here as I like to call it as part of the package, but coming in in that package as an enabler. But of course, the beauty is that what we are learning is that the digitalization element can actually enhance the other elements as well. 

Janhvi: The piece that we've talked. Not that much about his technology as an alternate source of learning in context where we don't have alternatives. So in places where, unfortunately, due to conflict, due to government policy in Afghanistan, for example, today, every initiative which involves helping girls learn. 

Is technology based because there's no other way of us reaching these girls. So we use that technology to be a game changer in us trying to make sure that girls are continuing to learn similarly in places like Gaza and Sudan, as we saw during COVID, the huge rise of IVR learning. Radio based learning technologies, which have been used from the sixties and fifties, which have been rediscovered and how we're actually now embedding AI within that to create a lot more feedback loops to ensure that content is a lot more specific has actually been a piece of we're not talking about. 

And I think that could prove to be. A huge leapfrog for us as a development community. When we think about refugee based learning, when we think about conflict learning, when we think about natural calamities and what we could do in those contexts to ensure learning continuity.  

Santosh: I really feel that technology has. 

the ability to help us solve problem at scale. It can help us very quickly move from a context aware solution to a context intensive solution where something like I'll take example of IFERB. IFERB was created by EAA team and then was implemented by mantra for change team on the ground across multiple context Pradesh, Punjab. 

Now that was with the power of technology, but the choice is ours whether we want. technology to solve the problem or we want to distribute the ability to solve using technology. Now, both the things are possible. If we go with solving more, we'll create everything. We will try to distribute it like a product. 

We will snatch agency from people, or if we are distributing the ability to solve, we will probably invite people to become a co creator, create more context intensive solution, which can again be shared with multiple people.  

Jani: Yeah, I agree with all that as well. Maybe the way I would put it is the technology allows for scalability, but it doesn't allow for systems transformation that requires so much more than technology. 

It can be a tool in that as well, but if you really want to get all the benefits out of it, you need so much more. Than just a tool. And so there's a lot of thinking that needs to go into the design of the use of technology before you can be confident to get the benefits that you're trying to achieve.  

Joshua: I just want to agree with Jani, but maybe another way of putting it is that we may not necessarily say that technology cannot allow for system transformation, but that it can enable, accelerate, it can contribute, can play a critical role to accelerate while the other pieces are also in place. 

So looking at it from a holistic point of view. 

Janhvi:  I wanted to maybe just pose a slightly different question, which is, we have been thinking a lot as a foundation around evidence tools, right? As we all know, a lot of the tools that come out of the West, and especially a lot of the tools which are used in higher income contexts, that is very limited. 

Data and evidence around its efficacy. A lot more of the data is focused around marketing and publicity and adoption rates. And I was curious to try and understand how all of you think about the rigor of the data collection and evidence generation, which is required in the not for profit sector. and the amount of funding that goes into just data collection and monitoring and evaluation as compared to the very limited data and evidence and rigor that's going into the for profit sector and what that could mean in terms of the types of tools we adopt and how can we maybe, if at all, shorten this process around finding the right tools in the clutter. 

And we understand that the ministry is also, and government bodies usually have to deal with the same issues. And finding local tools is difficult. Finding regional tools with the kind of evidence we require is hard. And then giving the funding to generate that evidence is also hard. So I was just wondering where you all fall on that conversation and debate. 

Santosh: I can talk only in terms of principles. I really feel that Most of the time, what we are trying to do in a large scale project is data extraction. But I really feel data extraction in large scale system reforms work is not going to work. We have to move from data emittance. And the best example of that is smartwatch. 

Smartwatches keep emitting data, you use the data when you want to use the data. Most of the systems that we have built are built on data extraction mechanism where we keep. Always busting the teacher, always busting somebody in the school, always busting somebody that you give this data all the time. 

And most of the time, and I would be very blunt over here, most of the time we have seen data getting first because people are always under immense pressure to give data. So how can we really start a first building the confidence? in the stakeholder that the data is for improvement and not for examination. 

And second important thing is how do we design for data emission, not data extraction. These are my only two cents on the points that Jhanvi mentioned.  

Janhvi: Often edtech tools are used and as I was mentioning in places like Afghanistan, Gaza, Sudan is where we are using it in context of emergency. The data gathering becomes even more complicated and there are also ethical concerns around data gathering as well as security concerns around data gathering. 

So it is a big debate as to whether we gather that information and data and create and collect that evidence or we divert the funding elsewhere in order to have additional reach in places where obviously there's a huge, huge need. It's not an answer that I have, it's a constant balance that we're trying to fight for. 

For example, we were doing a program in Ukraine recently, which involved a TV show for psychosocial support. It was a big question for us as to whether we create very exhaustive and extensive data collection, monitoring, and evaluation frameworks, which would result in a huge amount of money going into that. 

Vis a vis not. So it's just a question that I have around emergencies, but also in developing contexts.  

Joshua: I think the issue of data, the requirements for data, in the first place, as a rule of thumb, you should not be going especially into full scale with a tool or a product for which there isn't adequate evidence. 

You must make sure that if you are really thinking about scale, then something must have a lot of data already generated, and data that you can also test. Test yourself and use and see if there's a genuine assessment of it and that there's genuine indications of the effectiveness of the program. But if it's a test bed, for example, I think there's more flexibility there. 

You might want to do a study that's small in size and therefore that is going to be less complicated and may not require you to pump in a lot of money. So there you will have more freedom for you to invest in. Monitoring, assessment and evaluation to see if the product or the service or indeed the tool that you are interested in is effective enough. 

And then the final point I would like to make is that if this is a commercial. More commercial Western product. We know that the main goal at the back of the mind of the owner or the author of this project is to maximize profit. And that's what commercial organizations are for. So it's always good to treat whatever evidence that's coming out of there with a pinch of salt. 

Take it with a pinch of salt. And this is why I like the approach that the JBJ Foundation took when they were coming to Malawi to look at the tablet based learning. On this note, I'd like to call upon Jani to speak to this, uh, matter.  

Jani: It's the unusual thing about the, about the one core software that is being implemented in Malawi is the extent of research that has been put into it historically. 

So there's been something to the tune of half a dozen RCTs that have been carried out on it in different countries, different contexts, different times. And all of them showing a fairly consistent act on learning gains, which is. Of course, what made everyone confident that this would work at scale, as Joshua said, that you need to have that confidence before you go to scale. 

That's, of course, one of the attractions with EdTech is that it doesn't matter if it's a hundred kids or a hundred thousand kids using the same software. It should be the same as long as the kids are there and get the tablets into their hands. 

Looking forward, like I mentioned, the sensing is a big opportunity and The idea that the technology can collect, gather data so that you don't have to do separate monitoring and evaluation, but it's actually part and parcel of the implementation that you're actually able to get all the data that you need for the evaluation as the program is being implemented. 

That is the big problem. We all know that monitoring evaluation activities can be quite costly and even difficult to implement in a way that gives you strong evidence. So if it's part of the actual implementation, and then you just have that ability to make sense of it and identify the ways to improve it, that is really an incredible opportunity we can solve. 

Joshua: Thank you very much, Jani. We can only hope that we'll have more people running and jumping in there and playing their role. And hopefully the developing countries, the low and medium income countries won't be left behind. This is the right time for us to jump in and make sure that the products are safe. 

are contextualized for these countries as well and their contribution to the transformation of education will be significant while we are attending to the other needs and also making sure that the teacher's role becomes more amplified and that they are supported and they become more efficient.  

Janhvi: Yeah, I also really hope that EdTech can provide a platform where we can leapfrog. 

All of our developing countries in helping prove to be really exciting solutions to some of those challenges and really help us create that overall system to support a child holistically by enabling the teacher to do her job even better. And with even more heart in the system so that that interaction that we talked about gets even better and in places where we don't have opportunities, it can fill in that very essential gap until we're able to provide those opportunities for the really fulfilled learning. 

Santosh: Like everybody said, I really believe that it can help accelerate a lot of learning for children. It's up to us. How do we design our solutions? And how do we ensure that the agency of the final stakeholder is not lost? It's reached to, and that's where the power of it. It will be very, very important for us. 

Conclusion 

Thank you very much for listening in on the conversation. We got to dig deeper into the areas. that we need to exercise caution and places where we have seen EdTech truly enhancing the potential of learning spaces. Summarizing some of the main themes covered today, we heard how one laptop or tablet per child can be a productive way to teach if it is complemented with the right research and the right teacher and system support. 

We heard how EdTech is a small part of the larger solution to this problem of learning poverty. Data is an important piece in making sure that these EdTech initiatives are rooted in evidence and agency building of stakeholders. Teachers have to evolve in their roles when using edtech and philanthropy can help re imagine and re build the narrative around the role of edtech in the classroom by being mindful of the holistic nature of education interventions where tech can play a part but may not be the sole answer. 

This podcast was brought to you by the International Education Funders Group. Curated and edited by Anjali Nambiar and post production by Sara Miles. You can learn more about the IEFG at www. iefg. org and do subscribe to the podcast for more such thought provoking conversations.