Kenya's ICT Policy in Practice: The Effectiveness of Tablets and E-readers in Improving Student Outcomes

Abstract

Kenya is investing in information and communication technology (ICT) to improve children's learning outcomes. However, the literature on ICT is pessimistic about the ability of ICT alone to improve outcomes, and few ICT programs have created the instructional change necessary to increase learning. The Primary Math and Reading (PRIMR) Initiative implemented a randomized controlled trial of three ICT interventions to enhance learning outcomes: tablets for instructional supervisors, tablets for teachers, and e-readers for students. All three showed significant impacts in English and Kiswahili above the results of the control group. The impacts of the three interventions were not statistically significantly different from each other. Based on the findings, we recommend that Kenyan policy makers embed ICT interventions in a larger instructional reform, using ICT to support particular instructional improvement challenges. We also suggest that policy makers incorporate empirically derived cost-effectiveness analysis into investment decisions, to ensure that ICT provides value for money.

Equitable and Quality Education for All of Africa? The Challenges of Using ict in Education

“…Yet the data and evidence to support these benefits remains elusive (Porter et al 2016;World Bank 2012). Though many African nations are investing in ICT to improve quality and increase access to education, increased expenditure is not necessarily translating into the expected improvements to educational outcomes (Piper et al 2015;Porter et al 2016;World Bank 2012). Literature on ICT and its impact on educational outcomes is replete with inconsistencies and contradictions that make simple cause-effect statements problematic (UNESCO 2015).…”

“…This discrete focus on deployment is problematic, as May et al (2014) note, ICTs can best be defined as a process, rather than simply as products. Their impacts and use are heavily contingent on, and entangled with, a whole range of other policy and program factors (Piper et al 2015). This can be seen in Sierra Leone.…”

“…Given the challenges of limited electricity access and poor computer literacy, mobile phone technology platforms are increasingly seen as an appropriate ICT medium to promote education (World Bank 2012). This is not least because of the rapid uptake of mobile phones (including 3G-enabled phones and networks) across Africa and other parts of the developing world, effectively leapfrogging not only landline phones, but also computers in terms of the main technology through which the internet is accessed (Collier and Venables 2012;Stork et al 2013;Piper et al 2015;Porter et al 2016). Mobile phones, in part, are able to subvert some of the problems of electricity access as their portability and energy storage capacity (in contrast to desktop computers) allows users to be dynamic in sourcing electricity supply points (Kemeny et al 2014).…”

Scaling up successfully: Lessons from Kenya’s Tusome national literacy program

“…Its intent was to assess whether a low-cost intervention implemented primarily through the existing infrastructure could support sufficient initial take-up by teachers to result in increased learning outcomes (Piper and Zuilkowski 2015). Additional pilot conditions were tested in the PRIMR Rural Expansion Programme, funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) Kenya, in 847 schools, with additional treatment groups assigned to test various conditions essential to improving outcomes (Piper et al 2016a(Piper et al , e, 2018. Note that the PRIMR intervention and the subsequent Tusome program focused on a particular set of literacy skills that can be assessed orally and relatively simply, rather than emphasizing a broader definition of literacy's ability to change an individual's situation even as it changes the individual (Bartlett 2008) or the potential of literacy to support political freedom (Friere 1970).…”

“…The literacy results showed somewhat larger effect sizes for PRIMR's impacts on reading skills than on comprehension outcomes, but PRIMR did achieve consistent improvements in reading comprehension in both languages. Furthermore, PRIMR's findings indicated that coaches did improve the literacy program and that 15:1 was a more cost-effective school-to-coach ratio than 10:1 (Piper and Zuilkowski 2015); that learning impacts were possible after only 1 year ; that the impact of PRIMR was sufficient to reduce the poverty gap (Piper et al 2015a); that performance on reading assessments administered in mother tongues could also be improved, even without mother tongue instruction (Piper et al 2016f); that the most cost-effective information and communication technology intervention was tablets for coaches (rather than for students or teachers; Piper et al 2016a, e); and that a package of teachers' guides and learner books was more cost-effective than programs that offered only training without these materials . To the credit of the Kenyan Ministry of Education, Tusome was designed according to the research evidence collected from PRIMR.…”