Citation
The 2024 Yidan Prize for Education Development goes to Professor Mark Jordans, Marwa Zahr and Luke Stannard, of the ‘Can’t Wait to Learn Program’ team from the War Child Alliance. Together, they have led an education technology initiative that uses the highest standards of evidence-based methodologies to deliver quality education to children who are among the least served.
There is a serious global learning crisis. Over 200 million children worldwide urgently need access to quality education and over 75 million children globally are out of school due to conflict and crisis, with millions more at risk of being left behind without access to quality education (ECW, 2023).
Persistent conflicts, environmental emergencies and the lingering impact of the Covid-19 pandemic mean that millions of African children, in particular, face serious challenges in accessing education. Estimates of learning poverty in sub-Saharan Africa are that almost 9 out of every 10 children are finishing primary school unable to read (Saavedra et al., 2022).
The ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ team works in Chad, Jordan, Lebanon, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda, and Ukraine in locations where formal education systems have been severely disrupted and there is often a shortage of teachers and learning materials. In these contexts, ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ has introduced an innovative digital personalized learning platform which builds and strengthens foundational literacy and numeracy skills for over 165,000 children. It is an educational technology solution that uses solar-powered tablets which deliver self-paced learning using both off-line and on-line content. ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ can operate in formal, non-formal, accelerated, and emergency education settings, ensuring that children on the move can be provided with uninterrupted learning opportunities, and mitigating the risk of children losing years of education due to conflict and displacement.
Educational technologies are no longer perceived as a magic bullet. The ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ team exceptional success is linked to a number of pragmatic strategies that not only support improved learning outcomes but also underpin the sustainability of their work. It is anchored in constant evidence-based improvement and iteration.
These include a strong commitment to partnerships with Ministries of Education and other education sector actors; alignment with the national curriculum (grades 1 – 3), a focus on reading and mathematics, ensuring content is culturally appropriate, teacher training, caregiver training, and community involvement, and adopting a rigorous evidence-based approach that includes co-design with children, gamification, and value-for-money research. The team regularly disseminates their findings.
These findings demonstrate statistically significant larger learning gains for children using the platform some of whom had never been to school before. In Uganda, the demonstrated impact was seen to be equivalent to three to five months of additional learning compared to children in formal primary education. A study in Lebanon shows that Syrian refugee children aged 10 – 14 unable to enter the formal education system, made statistically significant gains in Arabic numeracy in just 12 weeks. There is evidence of strong gains by girls. Beyond learning the results show a positive impact on children’s well-being, self-confidence, hope and self-esteem. It has also boosted teachers confidence in using technology and fostered collaboration amongst teachers and learners.
Through its innovative, iterative and collaborative approach, ‘Can’t Wait to Learn’ demonstrates that educational technology designed and deployed thoughtfully, taking into account the realities of the most vulnerable, can be a very powerful means of access to quality and equitable learning opportunities for the most marginalized children.
Dorothy K. Gordon
Panel Head, Judging Panel for Education Development, Yidan Prize