How to Fix Africa’s Learning Crisis | Rapelang Rabana | TED

By the year 2030, nearly half of all the young people walking this earth will be African. And being able to read is the scale upon which so many other skills depend. Yet, more than 80 percent of 10-year-old children in sub-Saharan Africa cannot read a simple text with understanding. Not because they're not smart, not because they didn't pitch up for school, but because the system is failing them. The go-to solution for this learning crisis has always been the same: build more schools, build more classrooms, hire more teachers, train more teachers. Sounds reasonable. But here’s the uncomfortable truth no one really wants to say out loud: It's actually never going to work. To meet ideal student-to-teacher ratios, sub-Saharan Africa needs 15 million more teachers at a staggering cost of almost $40 billion a year.

It's just nuts. So why are we still holding on to a playbook that cannot possibly deliver at the cost and urgency and scale required? Well, it's because we have a weird bias. Not that kind of weird, but a WEIRD bias -- the idea, the assumption that solutions that work in countries that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic should somehow work everywhere else in the world. (Applause) The assumption that WEIRD countries are the standard, "the way the world works," and somehow with more inputs, African schools should eventually look like WEIRD ones. Let's pause right there, because that assumption is at the heart of the problem. And God knows so many others. We shouldn't have to frame our world like that. And I certainly have outgrown the belief that African schools should fit a borrowed model.

Our goal should be to build something brilliant that actually reflects the reality that African children are living in today. At the organization I lead, it’s called “Imagine Worldwide,” we are doing something different. Children like Chisomo, who you will hear about shortly, are now able to experience something else. Chisomo is a typical seven-year-old girl living in rural Malawi with her younger sister and parents who are farmers. It's a pretty happy existence, even without iPhones and ketchup. (Laughter) Every morning, she walks through the green maize fields under the glory of the African sun. But at school, she shares a class with a hundred other kids, sometimes 200 -- if a teacher was absent. She can barely see the book that the teacher was holding up in an overcrowded, dimly lit room. She rarely gets a chance to ask a question, share an answer, get feedback -- and feedback is everything.

I remember when I tutored high-school math, some kids didn’t even get their marked tests back -- just a score. So they never knew where they went wrong or right, for that matter. There was no feedback loop, just this vacuum of uncertainty that makes it impossible to get better at anything. And [at] Imagine, we are giving children like Chisomo up to an hour a day of high-impact learning on a tablet. I know, I know, I can feel the parents in the room cringing. We are so allergic to the idea of screens, they are bad for mental health, hurting attention spans. Really not good for your mental and emotional development. I get that, and that's all true. In a few contexts. And this is why context is so important. Chisomo is not living the WEIRD childhood that so many of us are trying to protect our children from. Her reality is not too much tech.

It's more closer to none at all, at school or at home. The solution that we are delivering is really designed to tackle some of the hardest things that EdTech has not been able to deliver in Africa. And I know that many of you are very skeptical about tech in poor countries. Our solution is tackling those issues head on. All those prior failures that were too hardware-focused relied on power and connectivity. The ones that were cultural misfits, lacking in sound pedagogy, working outside government systems, or just plain too expensive to run. All of those, we have figured out a model that works. Ready to hear it? (Cheers and applause) Specially designed tablets that are solar-charged are used throughout the school day, and they're designed with a battery that can carry over and they can be rotated throughout classes.

The content is contextually relevant and delivered in local languages like Swahili and Chichewa, including verbal instruction via the headphones. And it works entirely offline. No internet, no power, no problem. It's not a replacement for teachers, but an extra helping hand. The kids only spend about an hour of their day on it anyway. But in that hour, the tablet does something incredible: It adapts to each child's level and pace, guiding even first-time users, children who are not yet able to read and have never seen a device, from their very first tap, all the way to literacy and numeracy -- without adult intervention. Imagine what that means in a classroom where individual attention is almost impossible. Each child suddenly gets something incredibly rare: instruction that responds to them. The child who was struggling can slow down and get more practice.

The child who is ready to keep going can rush ahead. Imagine in a classroom where 20 kids are each on their own tablets, or 200 -- there is no loss in learning quality. This is all achieved without having to retrain or restructure the entire education system. What we're seeing here is greater access to learning and better learning by the minute. This is unheard of in education. 97 percent of teachers in Malawi have confirmed that the tablet program makes teaching more enjoyable. (Applause) And the results speak for themselves. Nine randomized controlled trials across four countries in three languages over the past decade have proven that time-bound, fit-for-context digital learning embedded in public school systems is the most scalable way to accelerate literacy and numeracy outcomes for millions of African children.

We are seeing learning gains that rank among the top education interventions anywhere in the world. (Cheers and applause) Three years ago, we were already doubling the number of children that become literate and numerate by their fourth year in school. Now we're on track to triple that. (Applause and cheers) I think so, too. Beyond test scores, we're seeing more children pitch up and stay in school. Girls catch up and keep pace with boys. And the most important thing, more children are falling in love with learning. Imagine takes a system- strengthening approach, working in partnership with government from day one to embed the program within public education systems, ensuring a pathway for scale and sustainability. And through that process, we're able to create road maps for others to replicate in more countries in the future.

The best news is this testimony from this innocent girl where she says, "I like the tablet because when I make a mistake, it doesn't move on to the next student. It asks me to try again, and then I can get it right.” Finally, a school experience where children experience success and the dignity of real learning. This year, Imagine will reach one million children. (Cheers and applause) And by 2030, thanks to the generosity of this community, we aim to serve over four million children a year across Malawi, Sierra Leone and Tanzania and in the process, create a pathway for many, many others to follow. This, this right here is how you turn a tide.

With a model that can deliver at the scale, quality, cost and urgency required. Imagine a future where foundational learning that is of high quality is democratized, and the majority of every country's children can learn to read so that they too can read to learn and secure a future in skilled work. We don't need to wait. We simply need to act and now. That future is already knocking, sounding the name of every African child. (Swahili, Chichewa) Thank you. (Cheers and applause)