© UNICEF/UN0143477/Prinsloo Raising Learning Outcomes: the opportunities and challenges of ICT for learning AGA KHAN FOUNDATION Aga Khan Education Services UNICEF | September 2018 UNICEF | September 2018 Contents 5. Technological infrastructure 30 Introduction 7 Readiness and investment 30 Bring Your Own Device must be handled with care 31 Summary 7 Problem solving connectivity - with technology 32 Raising Learning Outcomes: 6. Implementation and change 33 the opportunities and challenges Holistic change 33 of ICT for learning Change as the only constant 35 More than training 36 Chapter 1: Setting the scene for ICT The need for speed 37 for learning in Sub-Saharan Africa 7. Enabling environments 37 Visioning and policy 37 Context 8 A role for governments 38 New thinking about learning 9 Managing risk through An opportunity for Africa 10 great governance 39 The role of technology 8. Resources 40 in improving learning 13 Considered, committed investments 40 How UNICEF can add value to a New skills for new technologies 41 crowded ICT for learning landscape 16 9. Coalitions 42 Alignment with local and global agendas 42 Chapter 2: Discussion on the evidence Public/Private - ten issues for UNICEF to consider Partnership best practice 42 10. Risks 43 1. Purpose and problem-solving 18 Damaging digital behaviours 43 Problem identification and recognition 18 Digital misuse 44 Integration with teaching and learning 20 Mitigations 44 2. Student capability 22 The Regional Scene 46 Digital Divides 22 The donor/funder landscape 46 Liberating the marginalized 23 © 2018 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Providers and intermediaries 48 3. Teacher capability 24 UNICEF country offices 49 Innovation Unit, Aga Khan Education Services and the Aga Khan Foundation were commissioned Integrating technology to complete this report by UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office and West and and developing practice 25 Central Regional Office. Integrating technology, practice Permission is required to reproduce any part of this publication. Permission will be freely granted development and school improvement 26 Chapter 3: Next steps for UNICEF to consider to educational or non-profit organizations. Others may be requested to pay a small fee. Requests Balancing challenge with support 27 should be addressed to: Education Section, Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Office, UNICEF; Technology challenges teacher identity 28 Building knowledge and confidence about tel: +254 207-622-307 email: [email protected]. ICT for learning across the region 51 4. Student and teacher agency 28 Enabling strategic and practical action 52 For readers wishing to cite this document we suggest the following form: Innovation Unit, Aga Teachers as co-designers of ICT Coordination, coherence and integration 52 Khan Education Services and the Aga Khan Foundation (2018) Raising Learning Outcomes: the for learning 28 opportunities and challenges of ICT for learning. UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Opportunities for student ownership 29 Office and West and Central Regional Office, Nairobi. 2 Raising Learning Outcomes The opportunities and challenges of ICT for learning 3 UNICEF | September 2018 UNICEF | September 2018 Raising Learning Outcomes: the opportunities and challenges of ICT for learning Executive Summary There is a growing global consensus that 21st-century learning ought to look rather different from 19th-century learning but that in practice, for the vast majority of learners, it does not. International academic, policy and provider organizations are in the process of rethinking learning outcomes and learning environments, and some are even engaged in a fundamental review of the very purpose of education in a more digitally enabled, complex and fast changing world. New learning frameworks are emerging, many in response to UNESCO’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development – an aspirational and universal agenda to wipe out poverty through sustainable development by 2030, Khan Education Services Aga © UNICEF/ which captures ambitions for education. Characteristically,1 these frameworks promote in Africa are well motivated to accelerate the integration of: progress towards these 21st-century learning and national ICT for education policies and examples identified by UNICEF ESARO and • Cognitive and non-cognitive (sometimes outcomes. These factors create a necessity – and practices should first of all focus on the WCARO. called soft) skills; therefore an opportunity – for innovation and poorest and most marginalized; • Behaviours or traits (team-work; risk- alternative modes of education. The more agile • Issues of security and the dark side of In particular, the research process was designed confidence; and self-regulation); an education system can be in response, the using ICTs for education are insufficiently to answer the following questions: • Dispositions (leadership; entrepreneurship; more the learners within that system will benefit. addressed in most ICT for education • What is the role of ICT for learning to ensure and creativity); and initiatives, and should be of the highest effective and relevant learning outcomes? • Character (values; empathy; and global The role of technology has defined the priority for UNICEF given its commitment to • How can ICT for learning promote citizenship) acceleration of many industries and sectors, with child safety and security; educational inclusion? education likely to be no exception. Yet with the • UNICEF should take a global lead in working • What are other partners and organizations These so-called 21st-century learning outcomes potential of technology comes risks. Technology in collaborative and consensual partnerships, doing in ICT for learning? are often marginalized by schools, due to their can be introduced to schooling and learning to especially with other UN agencies; and • Who are the partners and donors to work low status and their invisibility in summative the detriment of learning outcomes. Equally, • Language really matters. UNICEF should with in the area of ICT for learning? assessments, and also in the instance of under- access to technology can expose children and ensure that there is consistent use of • What is UNICEF’s role in the ICT for learning developed curricula, and the low skills of young people to new risks that – left unmitigated language relating to the use of ICT in space? teachers in these areas. – can do them serious harm. In recognition of education and for learning throughout the this, UNICEF has developed Global Guidance to organization This paper shares the key findings of the research UNICEF understands that this debate is ensure that technology can be a positive force project. It is supplemented by three sets of as relevant in Africa as in any other part for learning and children’s rights. They include In this context, the UNICEF regional offices in insights in relation to ICT for learning: of the world. Maybe even more so. As the five key policy recommendations: sub-Saharan Africa commissioned the 1. lessons from the experience of introducing continent with the world’s fastest growing • All UNICEF’s ICT for education initiatives Innovation Unit, Aga Khan Education Services ICT for learning in Singapore, New Zealand youth population2 and some of the world’s and policies must first focus on the intended (AKES) and the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) and Brazil; fastest growing economies, alongside many educational outcomes rather than on the to lead a research project to inform the 2. examples of ICT for learning initiatives challenging political, social and economic technologies; development of a UNICEF’s thinking on ICT that were selected to draw out learning circumstances, low levels of resources and high • UNICEF should play a stronger global role in for learning. The project built on previous from a range of implementation stories rates of out-of-school-children (OOSC), countries advocating and ensuring that international work completed for AKES in which the team – success and failures – and provide a investigated learning technology stories broad set of examples of use of ICT for from diverse contexts, including many that learning examples that are relevant for the are complex and resource-constrained. sub-Saharan African context; and (1) See also (Four-Dimensional Education, Deep Learning (2) “By 2030 Africa’s under-18 population will increase Progressions, Graduate Performance System, Foundations by nearly 170 million. By 2050 40% of the world’s For UNICEF, the team looked in particular 3. country case studies providing background for Young Adult Success, Education for Life Success, Skills children under 18 will live in Africa.” See UNICEF (2014) at stories from the African continent, as well as the experience and prognoses for for Social Progress, Life Skills and Citizenship Education Generation Africa 2.0: Prioritizing investments in children supplementing the AKES data set with new ICT for learning of UNICEF country offices. Initiative Middle East and North Africa to reap the demographic dividend. United Nations Children’s Fund. 4 Raising Learning Outcomes The opportunities and challenges of ICT for learning 5 UNICEF | September 2018 UNICEF | September 2018 This research project identified ten issues that With a nascent evidence base about the impact UNICEF’s regional offices in sub-Saharan Africa of ICT on learning outcomes and a loose global Ines is speaking live from should consider as they develop their position community of entrepreneurs, philanthropists,