With over 20 years of expertise focused on children’s mental health in adversity, psychologist Mark Jordans leads the Research and Development department of War Child Alliance and is Professor at the University of Amsterdam and King’s College London. The research team at War Child is responsible for developing an evidence-based care system consisting of education, mental health and child protection interventions to improve the wellbeing of children affected by armed conflict. This includes ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ — an evidence-based digital personalized learning intervention that builds and strengthens foundational literacy and numeracy skills for some of the world’s most marginalized children.

Installed on solar-powered tablets, ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ supports children’s self-paced learning  in conflict-affected and resource-constrained settings from Ukraine to Uganda. Content is co-created with children and local partners to make sure it’s culturally relevant and accessible. And it aligns closely with national curricula, with a focus on reading and mathematics.

War Child’s research team has conducted several studies of Can’t Wait to Learn over the years. Most recently, Mark, together with Dr Nikhit D’Sa and Jasmine Turner, have led a cluster Randomized Controlled Trial in Uganda, which showed that ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ significantly improved literacy and numeracy levels compared to the control group. His team are also enriching our understanding of how to use education technology effectively and equitably, producing and translating robust evidence on learning outcomes, cost-effectiveness, policy, and adaptation.

Marwa Zahr’s background as a teacher, trainer,  school counselor, and consultant positions her to work closely with stakeholders across the education sector to help embed ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ in different contexts and unlock its full potential. She works with teams across countries to help teachers, ministry officials, and local partners own, adapt, and use ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ effectively.

Games on ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ are co-created with children, local artists, and educators. Marwa and the games development team work with these groups to create engaging games that follow characters through stories and problem-solving activities. Children watch instructional education videos and participate in educational games that empower them to design and manage the characters’ businesses and spaces, like building a fence around a garden or upgrading a house. This practical, child-centered approach brings learning to life and helps model behavior in school and the wider community.

Much of the intervention’s success and scalability rests on how the team has worked to link learning to national curricula and set use of the platform within the local context — exploring different models to make sure it’s sustainable. For example, in Uganda, ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ is not only an NGO-led platform but also a government-led one. As part of this, Marwa and her team worked closely with Isingiro District Local Government to develop a model for embedding and scaling ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ which can be used in other districts across Uganda.

Luke Stannard is a former teacher, education researcher, and advisor with extensive experience leading 120 country networks and supporting partners and governments delivering humanitarian and development projects at scale. Luke is now Program Director for ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’, managing the initiative’s global strategy and supporting teams across nine countries.

Luke works closely with Mark to make sure ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ develops in line with research evidence and is adaptable, accessible, and inclusive for different populations and education systems. Together with his team, he develops long-term partnerships with governments, NGOs, donors, private businesses, universities, and communities. This pool of locally-relevant expertise is essential for increasing access to ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ and making sure the platform is used effectively.

In the last decade, ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ has grown from a pilot program in one country to reach 205,000 children in eight countries. ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ was part of the emergency response to the Covid-19 pandemic in Uganda, Lebanon, and Jordan, and recently responded to the war in Ukraine at the request of the Ukrainian Ministry for Education and Science.

‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ is used in some of the world’s most challenging, resource-constrained contexts. Luke and his team work to lower barriers to learning on the platform, for example by using solar-powered tablets, pre-installed with software that also works offline. They make sure ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ is delivered equitably to different target groups, including host and refugee children, internally displaced families, and nomadic communities.

And it’s working. So far, the team have tracked significant improvements in learning outcomes in low- and middle-income countries — equivalent to 3 – 5 months of extra learning compared to children in formal primary education.