pakistan edtech landscape report 2015

PAKISTANEDTECH LANDSCAPE

Using Technology as a Force Multiplier to address the Education Emergency

The views expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily re�ect the views and policies of Ilm Ideas or the donors who have funded this study.

Copyright © 2015 Ilm Ideas

1.2 Edtech and ICT4E De�ned

The Pakistan Edtech Landscape Report has been completed in collaboration with

Ilm Ideas is a four-year, DFID funded programme that awards grants nationwide for increasing access to quality education in Pakistan for children in Classes 1 through 10.

TECHNOMICS – INTERNATIONAL is a boutique strategy and policy research, management consulting, and knowledge outsourcing �rm designed to help individuals, businesses, and governments make sense of and excel in the tremendous changes taking place at the intersection of technology, economics and society.

Pakistan Innovation Foundation (PIF) is an apolitical and non-partisan private-sector driven non-pro�t charged with developing and executing an analytically rigorous, evidence-based, and deeply passionate agenda to promote science, innovation, and entrepreneurship in the Pakistani society.

PAKISTAN EDTECH LANDSCAPE

Authors: Athar Osama, Zia Imran, and Walia Jamshan

With support from Nida Athar, Areej Mehdi, Zohra Fatima, Sarah Khan, Ahmed Azfaar, Moiz Khan, and Aban Haq

Using Technology as a Force Multiplier to address the Educational Emergency

Design and Layout by: Hifza Sajjad and Rimsha Ali Shah

The views expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily re�ect the views and policies of Ilm Ideas or the donors who have funded this study.

Table of Contents

1.1 The Challenge of Learning 8

1.2 Edtech and ICT4E De�ned

1.3 Speci�c Drivers of Edtech in Pakistan

Introduction

Types of Edtech and Examples of Practice

2.1 e-Learning

2.2 m-Learning

2.3 Technology for Teachers and Teacher Education

2.4 Learning Management Systems

2.5 Gami�ed Education

2.6 Local Content

Conclusions and Recommendations

4.1 Conclusions: Gaps in Pakistan’s existing Edtech Eco-System

4.2 Policy Recommendations

Appendices

A: Edtech Initiatives - International

B: Edtech Initiatives - Pakistan

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Table of Contents

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3. Pakistan’s Edtech Landscape

3.1 Historical Evolution of Edtech in Pakistan

3.2 Pakistan’s Edtech Eco-System

3.3 Pakistan’s Edtech Landscape

3.4 Sectoral Edtech Pro�les of Pakistan

3G/4G Third Generation / Fourth Generation (Networks)AET Africa Educational TrustAIOU Allama Iqbal Open UniversityAKU – IED The Aga Khan University – Institute of Educational DevelopmentBBC British Broadcasting CorporationBYOD Bring Your Own DeviceCADD Federal Department of Capital Administration & DevelopmentCLE Collaborative Learning EnvironmentCMS Course Management SystemCOW Computer on WheelsDCO District Coordination O�cerDFID Department for International Development (UK Government)DIL Developments in LiteracyDSD Department of Sta� Development (Government of Punjab)EDO Executive District O�cerEdtech Educational TechnologyELE Early Learning EnvironmentEPM Educational Planning and Management ESR Educational Sector ReformsETV Educational TelevisionGIZ Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale(German International Development Agency)HEC Higher Education Commissioni2i Invest to InnovateiOS Apple’s Operating SystemICT Information and Communications TechnologyICT4E Information and Communications Technology for EducationITE Innovative Technologies in EducationK@PI Kids at Play Initiative

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

Pakistan Edtech Landscape

KG KindergartenK12 Kindergarten through Grade 12KPK Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Province)LACAS Lahore College of Arts and SciencesLMS Learning Management SystemLUMS Lahore University of Management SciencesMDEC Multimedia Development CorporationMDGs Millennium Development GoalsMELT Millennial Enhanced Learning and TeachingMIT Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMOIT Ministry of Information Technology (Government of Pakistan)MOOC Massively Open Online CoursesMSC Multimedia Super CorridorNAPPA National Parenting Publications AssociationNEP National Education PolicyNESTA National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the ArtsNUST National University of Sciences and TechnologyNVCA National Venture Capital AssociationOER Open Educational ResourcesOLPC One Laptop Per ChildOS Operating SystemP@SHA Pakistan Software Houses Association of IT and ITES CompaniesPEARL Project on Radio Education for Adult LearnersPIF Pakistan Innovation FoundationPITB Punjab Information Technology BoardPSI Preparatory School IslamabadPTA Pakistan Telecommunications AuthoritySMILE Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based m-Learning EnvironmentSSIS Smart Schools Integration SolutionT2T Text2TeachTCF The Citizens FoundationTPI Technology for People InitiativeTRC Teachers Resource CenterTSS Telekom Smart SchoolTSS The Smart SchoolUNDP United Nations Development ProgrammeUNICEF United Nations Children’s FundUNESCO United Nations Educational, Scienti�c, and Cultural OrganisationUSAID US Agency for International DevelopmentUSD US DollarVLE Virtual Learning EnvironmentVU Virtual University

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms

The Pakistan Edtech Landscape report was funded by Ilm Ideas through its Education Innovation Fund in 2014. Carried out over the course of several months, the Pakistan Edtech Landscape study is not only a standalone reference to better understanding the emerging Edtech eco-system in Pakistan. It was also a preparatory activity for a national education innovation challenge – The Ilm Apps Challenge – aimed at encouraging professionals, entrepreneurs, and innovators as well as educationists, developers, designers, content creators, non-pro�ts and social-sector activists to create Edtech platforms and content to address Pakistan’s educational emergency through solutions that address quality, access and governance of K-12 education in Pakistan.

Although the Ilm Apps Challenge was open to all innovative ideas seeking to address the educational emer-gency, those especially interested in exploring ideas that require use of technology in early grade learning; Math, Science, Civics, English and Urdu; children with special learning needs; tracking student and teacher attendance; assessing learning outcomes; teacher training and support; and critical thinking, cognitive, and holistic learning skills were given priority.

The underlying purpose of the IlmAppsChallenge was twofold: First, it sought to bring to the education space the developer and designer community, including mobile apps and game designers, that traditionally do not engage with education, in general, and Pakistan’s education space, in particular. By providing follow-on funding as an incentive, the IlmAppsChallenge sought to lower the barriers to entry for some of these players to encourage new entrants into the market. Second, it provided an opportunity to create the evidence-base that is necessary to scale educational technology ventures. The follow-on (Phase 2) funding for the IlmAppsChallenge promised successful entries and teams with funding to fully develop and pilot test their proposed solutions in real-life settings within schools.

The IlmApps Challenge ran from April 2014 to September 2014. More than 175 entries and ideas were received and these were short-listed to 50+ entries that participated in the three Hackathons across the country in June 2014. Then, the twenty winners of the Hackathons participated in a 1.5 month long product development bootcamp where they received mentoring and training on speci�c problem areas. Eight teams were declared �nalists of the IlmAppsChallenge and were requested to submit a proposal to Ilm Ideas for funding. Finally, three were deemed successful. These teams received funding to fully develop and pilot their ideas during the �rst half of 2015 and, in doing so, demonstrate how their proposed interventions can make a positive and concrete impact on learning in Pakistan.

EXECUTIVESUMMARY


This Edtech report has been a work in process through the course of the IlmApps Challenge. Besides its immediate use as a guide for the IlmAppsChallenge process, we also believe this report will serve as an important document for other policy and implementation actors within the education space as well as professionals and entrepreneurs within the development and design community as they plan to embrace educational technology as one of the potential solutions to Pakistan’s educational emergency.

Research for the report was conducted through two months of �eldwork, interviewing key stakeholders and actors, both face-to-face and on the telephone. These stakeholders were identi�ed through a nation-wide solicitation of expressions of interest and capability through prominent English newpapers, desk research, and word-of-mouth snowball sampling. Even though impact data is hard to come by an attempt was made, usually through an interview or a demonstration, to understand and assess the claims being made by edtech developers or implementation entities. To this e�ect, the report does not take any responsibilty or make representation as to the veracity of individual claims.

This report is organized in �ve sections. After brie�y introducing the terminology and basic motivations for the use of educational technology, it then focuses on describing the edtech landscape into several sub-cate-gories (such as e-learning, m-learning, content, etc.) and delves into the current state of play and challenges of educational technologies globally. It presents a high-level historical overview of the use of educational technologies in Pakistan detailing key stakeholder categories and identifying more prominent actors within those categories and the key technical and marketing challenges within each.

Some conclusions and recommendations follow. Finally, a number of prominent case studies – global and Pakistan-speci�c – are presented.

Brie�y, the landscape report makes several recommendations including

Recommendation 1: Create programmes and opportunities that encourage rapid prototyping and experimentation with new platforms and content; Recommendation 2: Focus on investing in low-cost scalabe solutions customized to the state of Pakistan’s education sector; Recommendation 3: Generate evidence of impact and rapidly learn through implementation within variety of deployment contexts; Recommendation 4: Document, disseminate, and adopt best practices and lessons learnt from implemented programs; Recommendation 5: Create master trainer programmes for Edtech and IT integration in the curriculum; Recommendation 6: Take a proactive approach to creating culturally aware, socially economical, appropriate and cutting edge educational content; Recommendation 7: (For the State to) Take a strategic view towards making proactive policies and strategies for enhancing use of ICT in education. In short, with the supply of content rapidly increasing and hardware costs declining, the educational technology in Pakistan does have the potential to become a serious force multiplier for the education sector in Pakistan, provided the key sectors - most notably government, come together to resolve the various challenges outlined in this report.

Evidence of impact and ‘experience’ on ground is required for the potential of this incredible opportunity to be realized. We also believe there is dire need to encourage experimentation to full�ll the requirement of creativity within the sector to enable rapid learning and the emergence of the dominant design (or designs) that works best within the Pakistani context. Once such a model emerges, it could then be deployed, at scale, to address the educational emergency in Pakistan. While the international donor community and entrepre-neurship platforms may play a role in the experimentation phase, scale would require a mix of private initia-tive and public support.

Preface

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Speci�c Drivers of Edtech in Pakistan

The Challenge of Learning

Edtech and ICT4E De�ned

INTRODUCTION

Asking whether technology can improve educa-tion is asking whether experiments can improve science education.

- UNESCO, 2012

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The challenge of learning can be addressed at multiple levels. At the most fundamental level, for instance, the challenge is to provide ‘adequate’ instruction in all schools so that all children between the ages of 5-16 can receive a basic education, which has been acknowledged by the Constitution as their fundamental right. Yet while many children are deprived of this right altogether, a large number of those who do go to school fail to get ‘quality’ education. The returns to poor quality education remain unclear. “Is there something more tragic”, says Professor Faisal Bari of Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), “than a child sitting in classes for 10 years and parents sending their children to schools for 10 years and at the end of 10 years, children are illiterate or barely literate?”

Ensuring that quality education is imparted to everyone who seeks it so that (s)he may gain the knowledge and the capacity to bene�t from this investment – whether in the form of gainful employment or the ability to think critically and be a useful citizen of the society – thus becomes another objective. Providing basic education to all children goes beyond just pushing through various grades over several years. Instead, it requires ensuring that a certain quality of learning is maintained and these ultimately materialise into public returns to society and private returns to the individuals concerned. This is the �rst and foremost challenge of learning.

Bari. F. (2013). Presentation at Ilm Ideas Evidence Incubator Kalaš, Bannayan et al., (2012), ICT in Primary Education: Analytical Survey - Volume 1: Exploring the Origins, Settings, and Initiatives. Moscow, UNESCO

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The Challenge of Learning

The extent to which technology in general, and ICT and new media in particular, can enrich and enhance the learning process or experience is one of the primary motivations of Edtech or Information and Communications Technology for Educa-tion(ICT4E) interventions. Learning is also increasingly a moving target, in that what

was considered normal years ago, is not considered enough anymore. The nature of life and work is changing with increasing speed and this rede�nes what is considered “skill” in society and what expectations people – including parents, children, employers, and the society at large – have from the school and the classroom.

INTRODUCTION1

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At a somewhat higher level, the challenge of learn-ing is to accommodate the transformation of life, in general, and the workplace, in particular. There is widespread recognition now that the expectations for what it means to be a literate and participating member of society have also changed and educa-tion must respond accordingly.

Introduction

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Anderson, J. (2010), ICT Transforming Education: A Regional Guide. Bangkok, UNESCO. HEART, (2014), Educational Technology Topic Guide, Health and Education Advice and Resource Team, Department for International Development (D�D), United Kingdom.

Edtech and ICT4E De�ned1.2

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is an all-encompassing term that includes the full gamut of electronic tools by means of which we gather, record, and store information, and by means of which we exchange and distribute information to others. ICT for Education (ICT4E) or Edtech is the application of technology and ICT to support the practice of teaching and learning either directly or indirectly. Although ICT4E is, by de�nition, a special case (sub-set) of Edtech, we use the two terms interchangeably in this report.

Edtech or ICT4E is not a new phenomenon. It has been in existence since the advent of television and the radio but has undergone shifts as the available technology has evolved. De�nitions of educational technology (Edtech), or the use of technology for educational purposes, are contested, and have changed frequently over the last 40 years. Figure 1. 1 presents the evolution of the main Edtech models over time. Edtech or ICT4E – in its various forms and manifestations such as m-learning, smart class-rooms, real-time or asynchronous web-based instruction, one-laptop-per-child

(OLPC), and massive online open courses (MOOC), etc. – represent a fundamental shift in the medium of educational delivery. In older days the use of television and radios provided a pervasive, but somewhat limiting learning experience. As computers became ubiquitous, ICT4E entered the era of computer labs and smart schools, which o�ered a lot of promise for individualized education. But it seemed to deliver little. Then came tablets and mobile phones – single devices that suddenly made individualized student-centric learning possible. In addition, internet and satellite enabled learning and MOOCs that have made way for massively large classes. Beyond the use of information and communications technologies (computers and mobile phones) to merely in�uence how education is delivered, it may also represent quite a fundamental transformation in what is being taught in the classrooms. Today, for the �rst time, there is enough technology and computer power available to realize the dream of student-centric learning.

Figure 1.1: The Evolution of Dominant Edtech Models over Time


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ICT has the potential to be the transforming agent in bringing about a shift towards a new learning paradigm for the education needs of the 21st century.

Nevertheless, a number of questions regarding the appropriate use of ICT in education emerge:

Which opportunities are provided by ICT for teaching and learning in primary schools in literacy, numeracy, science, and 21st century competencies? What are the limitations of ICT and associated concerns in primary schools? What are the roles of teachers in ICT-enhanced teaching and learning in primary schools? What are necessary and su�cient conditions to support the ICT-enhanced teaching and learning practices in primary schools?

There have been a number of pilots around the world including some large-scale national programmes for introducing ICT within school systems. Owing to the various sizes, timeframes, and nature of interventions, it is often hard to assess which of these strategies have borne fruit.

Part of the challenge is that technologies are proliferating with such speed that is hard to even de�ne a proper taxonomy of all kinds of ICT4E

Anderson, J. (2010), ICT Transforming Education: A Regional Guide. Bangkok, UNESCO. Kalaš, Bannayan et al., (2012), ICT in Primary Education: Analytical Survey - Volume 1: Exploring the Origins, Settings, and Initiatives. Moscow, UNESCO. HEART, 2014 Ibid.

interventions – not to speak of actually measuring the impact of every type of intervention. For instance, educational interventions can be focused on learning (such as test scores) or non-learning (such as attendance) outcomes. Within learning, one could focus on in-school and out-of-school inter-ventions. In-school interventions may focus on core-curriculum or non-curricular. Similarly, out-of-school interventions could be assisted or un-assisted (by human interventions). Of each of these, and more, can be done through a range of technology options from radio/TV all the way to inexpensive microprocessors such as Auduino and Raspberry Pi and expensive robotics kits such as Mindstorms and NXT. The options and possibilities multiply rapidly and continue to grow. Figure 1.2 presents an attempt at developing such a taxonomy and illustrates the complexity that makes this a seemingly intractable problem.

Historically, programmes that incorporate Edtech have focused on the distribution of hardware and programme evaluations have measured the number of devices in the hands of teachers or students. This approach is very limited since it does not measure the impact on quality or the teaching itself. More recently, there has been some focus on measuring the impact on teaching styles and outcomes. There is some evidence that Edtech used by teachers contributes to changes in classroom practice or improves learning outcomes.

Figure 1.2: A Working Taxonomy of ICT4E Interventions

Introduction

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Speci�c Drivers of e-learning in Pakistan1.3

In Pakistan, there are likely to be two key drivers for e-learning. The �rst driver, primarily applicable to rural areas and low-cost schools in urban areas, is access.

In Pakistan estimates suggest that between 6.5 million to nine million children of primary school-going age (5-10) are out of school . Paki-stan ranks second highest (after Nigeria) in the world in the number of children out of school and fares poorly in terms of literacy with comparable countries.

Pakistan’s demographic and economic trends coupled with lukewarm political will make it increasingly unlikely that the country will be able to build and maintain enough schools in the near future to educate 100% of its rapidly growing young population. While the private sector has jumped in to compensate for the public sector’s failure, it too is grossly inadequate to meet current and future challenges. E-learning could play an imoprtant role in helping the state in private sector in meeting national education targets and provincial

Ibid. Kalaš, Bannayan et al., (2012) 8.9 million children are out of school at the primary level according to PSLM survey. Source: Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey 2012-13, Statistics Div. GoP, June 2014 Alif Ailaan statistics. www.alifailaan.pk

Education Sector Plans. E-learning could provide several distinct advantages here: First, e-learning could allow rapid training of new teachers, strengthen in-service training, and support the work of existing teachers by lessening their administrative burden and being a valuable learning aid. This could help enhance the capacity of existing school systems to take in more children and train them better.

Second, by making learning more fun and meaningful, e-learning could also make it more likely that children (girls and boys) will stay in school. Review of secondary data suggests that in a signi�cant minority of cases (not always), the reasons for leaving school come from the children themselves rather than their parents and this may be largely attributed to a low quality and boring learning experience.


There is much less evidence of the impact of student use of technology on learning outcomes. A comprehensive survey of literature and evidence commissioned by Department for International Development (D�D), for instance, talks about the dearth of evidence on learning outcomes for classroom use of technology noting that most of what we know is related to interative radio instruc-tion (IRI). Where IRI has been assessed, students in IRI classes outperform students in control groups with an average e�ect size of 0.5 standard deviations. It further notes that the deployment of one laptop per child programmes continue despite ‘lack of evidence of large-scale impact on learning practices or outcomes’.

Similarly, it notes that analysis conducted in Jordan,

Oman, Palestine and Qatar of evidence of improve-ment in learning outcomes associated with use of computers was ‘weak and mixed’ and could be attributed to variations in socio-economic status. Similarly, a randomized control trial of computer assisted learning programme in India revealed that while it could lead to positive learning gains (0.4-0.69 standard deviations) amongst the weakest of the students when used as a replacement to in-school learning for out-of-school children, it actually was found to be detrimental to learning when used within the school. Regardless, there is often a clear intention by a wide range of governments to establish ICT as a critical part of their programme to improve and update primary education.

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Khan, A. M. and M. S. Mirza, (2011), "Implementation of Decentralization in Education in Pakistan: Framework, Status and the Way forward." Journal of Research and Re�ections in Education 5(2): 146-169. CREB, (2012), Determinants of School Choice: Evidence from Rural Punjab, Pakistan, PERI / OSI.

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Third, e-learning could signi�cantly enhance the pool of children within the education system by a) encouraging young girls who may have opted out of the system due to security (or other cultural concerns) and b) bringing learning to millions of out-of-school children through mobile vans, and the like. The second driver, perhaps applicable to medium and high-end urban schools in the short-to-medium term, is quality of the learning experience.

The demands of the education consumer of the twenty-�rst century – the child – are far more sophisticated than in the past. Today’s children are citizens of the digital age and both consume and demand technology (mostly ICT) at home and increasingly at school. School systems that are unable to meet these demands are likely to lose out to those that do.

Four powerful forces are converging to lead us towards new ways of learning for life in the twenty-�rst century:

Knowledge work — knowledge work as against clerical and factory work, requires higher levels of communications and thinking skills. Increasing demand for knowledge workers and innovators will require curriculum to be re�ned to enable learners to carry out their roles,

Thinking tools — new technology, devices and services that comprise a knowledge worker’s equipment, include new tools to aid thinking,

Digital lifestyles — di�erent ways of delivering, watching, hearing, entertaining, communicating or solving everyday problems. Thus, new ways to make learning interactive, personal-ized, collaborative, creative, and innovative are needed to engage a new generation children to be actively learning in schools,

Learning research — a better understanding of how people learn will put demands will put demands on the educational establishment to do better with learning in the classrooms.

Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel, (2009), 21st Century Skills, Jossey-Bass

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These four forces are simultaneously creating the need for new forms of learning and also supplying the tools, environments, and learning practices. Somewhat related to these developments but also somewhat distinct, is the notion of learner-centric education versus teacher-centric education.

Increasingly, there is demand for students to become active players in learning activities rather than be merely passive recievers of information.The model of student - rather than teacher-centric education has been a challenge to implement so far primarily because the tradional model of the classroom learning was geared towards producing factory workers rather than thinkers, exceptions notwithstanding, and the teacher - with his or her limitations - simply did not have ability to teach students any di�erently. Modern educational technologies may now be able to provide the right tools and equipment to �ip the classroom (and the current education system) on its head!

These drivers then must make a compelling case for understading how tecnology can be brought to the service of Pakistan’s Educational Emergency.

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Edtech Around the Globe: Types and Examples of Practice

e-Learning m-Learning

Technology for Teachers and Teacher Education

Learning Management Systems

Gami�ed Education

Local Content

Our schools need to be places that set our kids hearts on �re that they can �gure out what they are passionate about, where we can give them opportu-nities to pursue it, and that we can give them a place to make a di�erence now. One of the things I’ve learnt over and over from doing this kind of thing with my students is that our students will often exceed our expectations of them if we only give them the opportunity.

Shelley Wright, Teacher, Educator, Blogger, in The Power of Student Driven Learning


This section describes the state of play and exam-ples of successful and innovative deployments and initiatives from around the globe. This is done by dividing the Edtech landscape into various sub-cat-egories to fully capture the most important types of technology platforms (mobile vs. web vs. comput-er-based vs. radio/TV-based), who uses it (student vs. teacher), type of activity for which it is being used (learning management vs. content develop-ment), and type of intervention (traditional learning vs. gami�cation). This is, at best, an informal classi�-cation created for convenience sake rather than an exhaustive and rigorous one.

Although we draw lines between categories in a somewhat ad-hoc manner, the classi�cation is meant to create clear distinctions and boundaries between various categories. For instance, we consolidate all types of student-focused and tech-nology-enabled traditional learning (except mobile learning) into one single category called e-learning. But we allow for mobile learning (or m-Learning) as a separate category because of the di�erent nature and novelty of the platform. We also allow gami�ca-tion on mobile or web or computer as a separate category because of the very di�erent type of intervention as compared to traditional learning.

With that, this chapter divides the Edtech Land-scape into six broad classes of interventions, namely:

Student-focused learning using all plat- -forms except mobile devices (‘e-learning’)

Student-focused learning using mobile devices (‘m-learning’)

Teacher-focused technology and technolo- -gy in teacher education (‘technology for teachers and teacher education’)

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2 Edtech Around the Globe: Types and Examples of Practice

Figure 2.1: Classi�cation of Edtech Interventions

Put together, these six broad categories describe a vast quantum of what happens within the Edtech domain. Taken separately, they allow for a discussion on the unique features, circumstances,

and drivers a�ecting the deployment of educational technology within each category. Each of these sub-categories is described in some detail below.

Learning Management Systems (as against the learning itself covered in a, b, and c)

Gami�ed Education (as against traditional learning covered in a, b, and c)

Content Creation (as against content management covered in d, or content delivery in a, b, c, and d)


Broadly de�ned, the e-learning category here includes all forms of student-focused learning interventions (except those using mobile devices) which in its simplest form, could be anything from old-fashioned TV or radio to a computer or the internet. In modern times, new terminologies have emerged to focus on both platform and pedagogical di�erences to include web-based learning, online learning, blended learning, networked learning, distributed learning, or �exible learning.

E-learning may not necessarily substitute classroom-based learning and can be self-paced, or instructor-led. It may either alter the structure, nature, and presentation of information (i.e. be ‘expository’) or the nature of dialogue and conversation (i.e. be ‘tutorial’) in the classroom. It may also impact learning in several ways such as enabling individual tutoring or freeing up teachers’ time – often spent in one-way delivery – to pay more emphasis on creating insights and inculcating critical thinking.

2.1 e-Learning

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2.1.1 The Demand for e-Learning

Although a market for e-learning, broadly de�ned, has been around for decades through radio and television programming, virtual universities, and computers in schools, it has had limited growth. The e-learning phenomenon has gained consider-able recognition as people have begun to embrace new technology and the internet as a medium for delivering academic content. More importantly, learners, content developers, training providers, and delivery organizations such as schools and colleges now appreciate the need for options to enhance learning and interactivity in the educational process.

Textbox 2.1: Types of E-learning

Radio and television have been around for decades and are considered one-way communica-tion where learners are generally not expected to respond, thus making it di�cult to assess impact. Recently, interactive radio and television is seeing something of a revival;

Audio Visual (AV) aids such as tapes and CDs provide permanent storage for large amounts of information, lesson can be played, stopped, stopped and replayed to allow for classroom discus-sion;

Smart boards and interactive whiteboards use touch detection for user input enabling students to participate fully in hands-on learning in the class-room;

Computer labs and smart schools are designed to provide learners with campus wide access to academic resources in an ICT enabled learning environment; Individualised computers and tablets that are internet enabled and mobile computers that allow individual users to fully use technology to access curriculum and content;

Internet and satellite-enabled internet provides an environment where students access and study course materials online and through wireless (satellite enabled) technology.

The worldwide e-learning market is expected to grow signi�cantly over the next years. The annual worldwide growth rate over the period 2012-2016 is estimated to be around 7.9% with revenues reaching $51.5 billion by 2016.

Pulist, S. K., (2013), E learning in Commonwealth Asia http://cemca.org.in/ck�nder/user�les/�les/eLCA2013_Report_lowres.pdf Qureshi, I. A et al., (2012), Challenges of implementing e-learning in a Pakistani university, Knowledge Management & E-Learning: An International Journal, Vol.4, No.3. 310 http://kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-publication/article/viewFile/174/145 Benjamin, P., (2001). The Gaseleka Telecentre, Northern Province, South Africa Luckin et al., (2012). Decoding Learning: The Proof, Promise and Potential of Digital Education, National Endowment of Science, Technology and the Arts, NESTA, London, United Kingdom.

The Asian e-Learning market is estimated to grow at 17.3%, which is the highest compound annual growth rate of any global region, followed by Eastern Europe at 16.9%, Africa at 15.2%, and Latin America at 14.6%. The oldest e-learning platform was perhaps the radio or the television which is still widely used in many places. Examples include Project on Radio Education for Adult Learners (PEARL) in 16 selected districts of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan; Chahura Television Programme for Learning the Alphabet in India; and the Adult Functional Literacy Programme, an Education Television (ETV) project by Pakistan Television Corporation. Over the years, e-learning platforms and tools have undergone several phases of evolution and development across a range of dimensions from computer labs to smart schools, from one-laptop-per-child to tablet programmes, and from radio and TV-based delivery to internet and satellite-based education.

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According to a Commonwealth study, internet usage in Pakistan stands at 16.8 per 100 inhabitants. Furthermore, around 43% of the people use internet on a daily basis to build up social connections whereas almost 53% people access internet to acquire ‘global knowledge’. While the usage is pervasive in large cities – such as Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar, Quetta, Islamabad, etc., – it is far more limited in the rest of the country where the challenges to traditional learning are also most acute.

The key drivers and challenges of e-Learning are laid out in Table 2.1.

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An interesting case is the Malaysian Smart Schools Project (described in detail in Appendix A). What is most striking about this particular programme is the care taken to create content alongside the platform and methodology of the Malaysian Smart Schools Project. Content development is often critical to success of e-learning programmes and this is covered separately. In addition to the Malaysian Smart Schools, there are a number of other notable examples of e-learning initiatives, including, but not limited to: One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is an o�shoot of MIT Media Lab that seeks to give a cheap ($100) laptop to every child in the developing world to “learn, share, create, and collaborate.” So far, 2 million+ laptops have been distributed in Latin America with smaller deployments in Africa and Middle East, albeit with mixed results. “Chauraha” Television Programme for Learning the Alphabet is one of the India’s recent attempts at using ICT to promote basic literacy.

The intervention centers around a television programme that uses puppets and drama narrative to teach Hindi script to learners. Learning to Read via Radio in Somalia aimed at improving reading, writing, and numeracy skills ran through a partnership between BBC Media Action, the Africa Educational Trust (AET) and the BBC Somali Service. Fifty episodes of 30-minute each broadcasted weekly were supplemented by classes run by volunteer teachers. These reached at least 250,000 Somalis and graduated 30,000 youths and adults with no other access to formal education.”

The Jamaica 2000 Project was launched in 1992 as a partnership between the Government, the private sector and the secondary school community to improve the quality of secondary education, espe-cially in English and Mathematics through setting up of computer labs. Over 8 years, the Jamaica 2000 Project trained 400 secondary teachers to teach computer science, 200 teachers to use ICT in the delivery of instruction, 90 teachers as specialists in computer science, and 12 teacher trainers.

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Table 2.1: Key Drivers and Challenges of e-Learning

Key Drivers Challenges

Reduced cost: E-learning reduces the overall cost of education delivery, particularly replication and travel costs.

Flexibility: Students can access material �exibly from home or classroom over a range of di�erent media.

Self paced: Learners can learn independently at their pace.

Interactive: Rich media content encourages interactivity and engagement making learning fun.

Immediate feedback: Instant feedback creates the right incentives to improve.

Information retention: E-learning can increase information retention by 60%.

Trackable: Trackability and analytics help identify risk learners who can get personalized attention.

Teacher training: Limited pedagogical training on class-room integration of ICT produce sub-optimal results.

Quality of Educational Content: Developing local content and curriculum is enormously expensive.

Inadequate technology infrastructure: E learning places additional requirements of hardware, software, training, and maintenance that are beyond those required in conventional educational settings like pakistan.

Connectivity and Power: Internet connectivityand power remains a challenge in developing countries.

Cost of Equipment: Though cheaper solutions are becoming available, high cost of computing and smart equipment has hindered deployment and adoption.

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Docebo, (2014), E-Learning Market Trends & Forecast 2014 – 2016, available at: http://www.docebo.com/landing/contactform/ elearning-market-trends-and-forecast-2014-2016-docebo-report.pdf. Pulist, S. K., (2013), E learning in Commonwealth Asia, available at:http://cemca.org.in/ck�nder/user�les/�les/eLCA2013_Report_l owres.pdf Javed, M. A., Pasha, S. A., Khan, R. A. G., & Khan, M. A., (2012). E-learning; Development, Advantages and disadvantages in the capital of Pakistan, European Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Sciences Shaikh, Z. A & Khoja, S. A., (2011) Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology; Jan2011, Vol. 10 Issue 1, available at: http://www.academia.edu/2525729/Role_of_ICT_in_shaping_the_future_of_Pakistani_higher_education_system Pappas, C., (2014), Top-10 e-Learning Statistics for 2014 You Need to Know on eLearningIndustry.com available at: http://elearningindustry.com/top-10-e-learning-statistics-for-2014-you-need-to-know Case Study Pakistan Intel Teach Program, available at: http://cache-www.intel.com/cd/00/00/44/15/441553_441553.pdf UNESCO, (2012), ICT in Primary Education, Paris, France Commonwealth of leaning (2006), E-Learning- A Guidebook of Principles, Procedures and Practices Pakistan, (2012), Country Report on ICT in Education. Islamabad: NEMIS-AEPAM Ministry of Education UNESCO, (2014), Information and Communication Technology (ICT) In Education in Asia:A comparative analysis of ICT integration and e-readiness in schools across Asia, Paris, France, available at:http://www.uis.unesco.org/Communication/ Documents/ICT-asia-en.pdf Watters, A., (2012), The Failure of One Laptop Per Child, available at: http://www.hackeducation.com/2012/04/09/the-failure-of-olpc/ Cox, M., Preston, C & Cox, K., (1999), What Factors Support or Prevent Teachers from Using ICT in their Classrooms? available at: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00001304.htm

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One Laptop per Child, (2014) http://www.olpc.asia/en/vision/our-mission.html One Laptop per Child, (2014) http://one.laptop.org/about/countries HEART, (2015) UNESCO, (2006), Using ICT to Develop Literacy, Paris, France Dighe. A, Use of ICTs in Literacy and Lifelong Learning http://www.unesco.org/education/aladin/paldin/pdf/course01/unit_14.pdf BBC.com, (2014), available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction/where_we_work/africa/somalia/literacy.html (accessed: August 2014) UNESCO, (2004), Adapting Technology for School Improvement, a Global Perspective, Paris, France

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Appendix A describes the Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE) which aims to help students in developing critical thinking, creativity, and reading and writing skills through interactive learning. Although impact data on outcomes is hard to come by, SMILE claims to have encouraged teamwork and access to a mobile phone and a SIM card and a signi�cant percentage owns more than one of both. Even though dispari-ties still exist (for example a woman living in urban areas is 23% more likely to own a mobile phone than one living in rural areas) the mobile phone is critical thinking among students by asking them to work in groups as they create multimedia multiple-choice questions.


2.2 Mobile Learning (m-Learning)

Mobile learning entails the use of mobile technolo-gy to facilitate learning. Nowadays, mobile technol-ogy includes a diverse set of devices including mobile phones, smart phones, netbooks, and tablets to support teaching and learning anywhere and at anytime. Mobile learning can extend educa-tional experiences beyond classrooms and enable informal learning which can be more personalized and relevant. The most promising aspect of the mobile platform is its ubiquity – not just of the device but also the learning process – as mobile devices enable learning at any time and at any place regardless of any physical constraints. Accordingly to an estimate by GSMA – the Association of Mobile Operators Worldwide – there

UNESCO, (2012) GSMA, (2013), The Mobile Economy 2013, London, United Kingdom, available at: http://www.gsmamobileeconomy.com/GSMA%20Mobile%20Economy%202013.pdf GSMA, (2012), quoted in UNESCO (2013) p 7, available at: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002196/219641e.pdfGallup Pakistan, (2013), Use of Mobile Money in Pakistan: Findings from FITS Study, Islamabad, Pakistan, available at: http://gallup.com.pk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Mobile-Money-Cyberletter.pdf. FITS Study is also reported at: www.intermedia.org/wp.../FITS_Pakistan_FullReport_�nal_REV1.pdf

are over six billion mobile phones and over 3.2 billion mobile phone subscribers worldwide and the number is expected to grow further by 700 million subscribers by 2017 and reach above four billion in 2018. Mobile connections are expected to grow at 7.6% per annum between 2012 and 2017. Research suggests that four out of �ve people own and use a mobile phone in the developed countries, though this ratio is much lower for the developing world. However, ownership and subscriber base shallcontinue to experience phenomenal growth in the foreseeable future. It is estimated that by 2017 approximately half of the people living in the developing world will have at least one active mobile phone subscription.

2.2.1 The Demand for Mobile Learning

The mobile phone has far surpassed radio and television as an ubiquitous technology, making it a very attractive platform for learning. The numbers are even better in Pakistan where 9 in 10 house-holds, including the poor and those belonging to rural areas, �nd mobiles still much more accessible and a�ordable than anything that came earlier.

Growing use of internet, the advent of 3G/4G licensing and mobile broadband, and the dramatic reduction in the price of the smart phones, netbooks, and tablets further enhance the attrac-tiveness of mobile learning as a one-to-one learning platform of the future. A number of initiatives have leveraged mobile technologies as a medium to disseminate content thus providing educational opportunities to learners around the world. A recent series of reports by UNESCO identify trends and models of mobile learning across a range of regions that demonstrate a diverse set of good practices in mobile learning around the world for both students and teachers. Textbox 2.2 provides common types

of m-Learning while Table 2.2 provides a synopsis of the opportunities and challenges of m-Learning.

Appendix A describes the Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE) which aims to help students in developing critical thinking, creativity, and reading and writing skills through interactive learning. Although impact data is hard to come by, SMILE claims to have encouraged teamwork and access to a mobile phone and a SIM card and a signi�cant percentage owns more than one of both. Even though disparities still exist (for example a woman living in urban areas is 23% more likely to own a mobile phone than one living in rural areas) the mobile phone is critical thinking among students by asking them to work in groups as they create multime-dia multiple-choice questions.

In addition to SMILE, which is discussed in detail in the appendices, several examples of mobile learning have been documented around the world. These include:

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Textbox 2.2: Types of Mobile Learning (m-Learning)

There are a number of examples of m-learning models around the word. These include:

Mobile Phones provide basic learning capabilities through Short Message Services (or text messaging) or more high tech uses such as sound, images, and video. Smart Phones allow learners to learn more interactively using computer-like capabilities such as graphics (video, etc.) but also applications, emailing, internet access, as well as o�ce functions.

Netbooks and Tablets allow users to experience full graphics functionality on a portable, easy to use device that possess the same processing power as a laptop computer but at a lower cost. These are sometimes suited to remote areas with intermittent power availability but access to wireless internet. Mobile Projectors and Holograms are relatively new technologies that allow a projector on a mobile phone to project high-resolution image, video, or a hologram on a screen thus enabling its use as a one-to-many device operated by the teacher rather than a student.

ITU, (2012b), Statistics available at: http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/publications/mis2012/MIS2012_without_Annex_4.pdfGSMA, (2013), Women and Mobile: A Global Opportunity, London, United Kingdom, available at: http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/GSMA_Women_and_Mobile-A_Global_Opportunity.pdf

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Nokia Life is an SMS-based information service that has successfully brought educational opportunities to over 90 million people in India, China, Indonesia and Nigeria. Users can choose the information they receive on their mobile phone from a wide range of content channels, with topics that include agricul-ture, health, and education. Content is available in eighteen languages and is customized to the needs of people living in di�erent communities. Usability and a�ordability (less than $1 per month) have added to the success of the initiative.

Edumóvil is a long-term research programme at the Technological University of Mixteca in Mexico that began in 2003. The programme aims at improving teaching and learning at the primary-school level through the use of mobile technologies. So far Edumóvil has developed mobile learning applica-tions for Spanish, Mathematics, History and Natural Sciences. Edumóvil facilitates collaborative learning by fostering interaction among students and promotes students’ engagement and motivation through the designed application range from video games and simulations to collaboration platforms.

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UNESCO, (2012), Mobile Learning for Teachers in Latin America, Paris, France49


Table 2.2: Key Drivers and Challenges of Mobile Learning


Ubiquity of Technology: The high penetration of mobile devices (over 6 billion devices and 3.2 billion users) makes it a platform of choice to access hard to reach populations.

Reduction in Costs: Smartphone prices are rapidly declining with newer, more capable, and cheaper devices now in the market making them a�ordable to ordinary consumers. Cost of high speed internet is also declining.

Many implementation models: Mobile learning allows for many implementation models ranging from one-to-one (i.e. every student owns one) to one-to-many (i.e. teacher projects on a screen) and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).

Anytime Anywhere: Mobile learning enables anytime anywhere learning which provides �exibility to classroom learners but also enables access to out-of-school-populations.

Teacher training: Teachers have limited opportunities to learn how to incorporate ICT into their classroom learning as very little or no emphasis is placed in mobile learning programmes for the intermediary teacher.

Perception: Mobile devices are normally perceived as portals of entertainment instead of education and there is a negative perception among parents towards children’s ownership of mobile phones.

Quality of Educational Content: The quality of material available and usable on the mobile device (particularly an ordinary mobile) is limited.

Access and Costs: Internet i.e. mobile broadband connectivity remains a challenge in developing countries and the costs of access and devices are still high.

UNESCO, (2012), Working Paper Series on Mobile Learning: Global Themes, Paris, France UNESCO, (2013), Future of Mobile Learning: Implications for Policymakers and Planners, Paris, France Ibid. UNESCO, (2012), Working Paper Series on Mobile Learning, Mobile Learning for Teachers, Paris, France UNESCO, (2012), Working Paper Series on Mobile Learning: Global Themes, Paris, France UNESCO, (2013), Technology, broadband and education, Paris, France

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2.3 Technology for Teachers and Teacher Education

A 2012 UNESCO report summarized the challenge of teacher education with the following prognosis: To achieve UN Millennium Development Goal of providing primary education by 2015, the world would require around 8.2 million new teachers – of which 6.1 million would merely replace those who will change their professions within the next three years. The developing countries, the report says,

face huge de�cits of quali�ed teachers not only in terms of quantity but also in terms of quality mean-ing that they are ‘unquali�ed or unprepared’ to meet the educational demands of the twenty-�rst century.

2.3.1 The Demand for Technology for Teachers and Teacher Education

The purpose of teacher training is to develop teachers’ educational skills and produce professional teachers who have the right theoretical knowledge, competence, and practical skills that are compatible with the increasing demands of education today. It is also important that teachers are able to assimilate the training they receive and adapt according to the needs of the person(s) and

the situation as an e�ective teaching strategy may vary depending upon students’ age group, person-ality, learning ability, and social background. There are several possible roles technology can play for teacher education and teacher training.

Textbox 2.3 provides an overview of potential uses of technology in the hands of teachers and teacher educators.

Textbox 2.3: Use of Technology for Teachers and Teacher Education

Teacher training – Training for pre-service and in-service teachers can be delivered through technology by relying on a remote master trainer who delivers lectures and monitors progress.

Professional development portals and communities – Technology can support professional development portals, discussion groups and forums, and communities of practice where best practices, lesson plans, videos, educational resources, and advice can be shared.

In-Class delivery – ICT4E can support classroom instruction with educational content and lesson plans as well as access to high quality and livelier content that enables students to engage with the material in a deeper, more intuitive, and insightful way.

In-Class facilitation –Technology can serve the teacher as a classroom aid by reducing the administrative and logistical burden on her (e.g. in distributing content, marking papers, reporting results, etc.) thus freeing up time that the teacher can spend engaging more meaningfully with the content.

UNESCO, (2012), Mobile Learning for Teachers, p.6, Paris, France

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A lot more goes into the development of a quality teacher than is captured in indicators such as teacher quali�cations, years of experience, or student test score. Other quanti�able factors like teachers’ professional development, knowledge of the subject, and their ability to communicate that knowledge are as important as are non-quanti�-able and unobservable factors such as helpfulness, passion, and the ability to inspire students with transformational in�uence.

Training quality teachers remains a challenge across most developing countries where both the quality and delivery of training imparted require consider-able attention. Simply put, there are not enough teacher training academies in the developing world to meet the demands of several million educators that will enter the market in coming years.


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Gustafsson, J, (2003), What do we know about the e�ects of school resources on educational results, In Swedish Economic Policy Review, V.10, Pp.22Hedges, I. and Greenwald, M. (1996). The Social Heritage. The Impact of Family, Ability, and School Resources: Available at http://www.grad-responsive.dk/Eurovision/kep6-socio-heritage.htmlAndrea Karpati, (undated), Teacher Training and Professional Development, C,hapter8, Greenbook the Renewal of Public Education: Available at http://www.econ.core.hu/�le/download/greenbook/Chapter8.pdf

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Technology can be used to train new teachers, build the capacities of working teachers, and support the work of educators both in and outside of class-rooms. Teachers must also be properly trained to take advantage of the technology in the classroom. Without dedicated interventions, teachers will often use technology to ‘do old things in new ways’, rather

than substantively and sustainably changing their pedagogical approaches. While previously teachers had very limited access to information and commu-nications technology (ICT) in schools, with ever evolving technology and its declining costs, the situation is changing and teachers – particularly younger cohorts – are much more open to the use of technology.

Table 2.3: Key Drivers and Challenges of Technology for Teachers and Teacher Education


Demand far outstripping supply: The demand for teachers – particularly in the developing world – is far outstripping supply, forcing teacher trainers to look at technology.

Ubiquity of Technology: The use of computers, tablets, and mobile phones – is making ICT4E a more viable and acceptable concept today.

Reduction in Costs: Technology is becoming cheaper and more a�ordable and hence more available in the classrooms and computer labs.

Content and Learning Management Systems: There is a plethora these days of content and learning management systems that are far more capable than in the past. Also there is a proliferation of decent quality content – videos, in particular – on the internet to pick and choose from.

Lack of proper methodology: Most teacher training programmes su�er from a lack of proper methodology for teaching through technology or helping teachers integrate technology in the classrooms. Sometimes delivery of the ICT Syllabi is itself a challenge due to lack of quali�ed teachers, infrastructure, or technology.

Lack of quality teacher training institutions: There is a dearth of good quality teacher training institutions in the developing world where technology can be deployed.

Quality of Educational Content: There is a need for proper quality assurance and credentialing of educa-tional content on the web so teachers can easily incorporate it in lessons.

Not enough relevant content: While the quantum of content available on the web is growing fast, there is still very little content available that perfectly �ts the national curriculum and is localized.

Often, it was (wrongly) assumed that ICT4E is about rolling out technology into the classroom and planners paid little emphasis towards teacher education. There were attempts, in some instances, to replace the teacher altogether. Today, there has been a realization that teachers remain central to the process and teacher training on or through technology is central to the success of the venture. Bridge IT in the Philippines is a well-known teacher support technology initiative that has gained some

UNESCO, (2012), Mobile Learning for Teachers, Paris, France. p.1360

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traction. The project has had considerable impact on education. It helped students achieve learning gains in English and Science, improved teachers ICT using skills, and reduced absenteeism and dropout rates. The M&E team at T2T also concluded that T2T increases students’ attentiveness. Children are more interested in watching interesting videos that enable a longer retention of the concepts.

There have been a number of fairly e�ective teacher education initiatives that have made use of a range of technologies not only in the training of teachers but also teacher’s use of technology in the class-rooms. For instance:

Puentes Educativos (“Educational Bridges”) is a BridgeIT project in Chile that seeks to improve learning by o�ering digitized education resources for Science, Mathematics and English for students of Grades 5 and 6 in public and underprivileged schools. It creates a participatory learning environ-ment in the classroom and improves teaching practices by supplementing classroom resources

through digital technology. Puentes Educativos has been implemented across over 200 schools and reached more than 20,000 primary students between 2010 and 2012. An SMS for Language Learning in Hong Kong allows English language teachers to send SMS messages to students to refresh and revise what is taught in the classrooms. A built-in measurement and evaluation system monitors progress.

UNESO, (2012), Implications for Policy Makers and Planners, Paris, France Ayala Foundation,(2011) UNESCO, (2012), Turning on Mobile Learning in Latin America, Paris, France UNESCO, (2012), Mobile Learning for Teachers in Asia, Paris, France

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Educause, (2010), Things you should know about LMS Alternatives, available at: https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7062.pdf Paulson, M. (2002) Sharma,A. & Vatta, S. (2013), Role of Learning Management Systems in Education

2.4 Learning Management Systems

Simply speaking, a learning management system (LMS) is an application that provides a comprehensive set of tools for educators to manage learning resources, administrative functions, assessments, and grading. In modern days, LMS usually refer to systems that manage online learning services that may include additional features such as access control, provision of learning content, communication tools, and administration of user groups”. LMS’ can come in many shapes and forms ranging from very formal to highly informal.

At any given time a host of users may interact with

an LMS including learners, instructors, administra-tors and even content developers and aggregators.Over the course of their development, these systems have been called Course Management Systems (CMS), Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), Collaborative Learning Environments (CLE), and various other names. However, the basicfunctionality of providing convenient functions and innovative course management approaches to manage users’ role, course information, online communication, grading, and delivery of content remains the same.

2.4.1 The Demand for Learning

Management Systems

Digital technologies continue to in�uence the way we �nd, create, share, and negotiate information and ideas. As the complexity of the learning enviroment– and

Textbox 2.4: Types of Learning Management Systems Proprietary / Commercial Solutions – Most of the large vendors of Learning Management Systems (such as Blackboard and Canvas, etc.) fall into this category. These systems are commercially supported and hence have a skilled development team and an experienced support services sta� prepared to help clients implement, roll out, and use their products. They have partnerships and high level of integration with other relevant tools and systems. Free and Open Source Solutions – Moodle and Google Apps are both open source products. While these are both functional products that solve a problem, neither provides a dedicated support team to assist when issues arise, nor a product development team focused speci�cally on educational product improve-ment. Moodle has a dedicated user community – usually early adopters who are themselves teachers – who can help solve problems voluntarily but the high level of support of commercial systems is missing and application can get a bit messy at times.

Alternative Systems – Sometimes systems not typically designed to be LMS’ can be con�gured or used for the purpose. For example, a mesh of various web-based tools organized around a content manage-ment system (such as Wordpress) or an in-house intranet application (such as Sharepoint) con�gured to meet the requirements could serve as an alternate learning management system.

Steven, (2009)Guild Research, (2009), Evolution of the LMS – From Management to Learning, available at: http://www.blackboard.com/resources/proed/guild-lmsreport.pdf

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the type of media involved – has increased, the needfor an organizing framework has become critical. Table 2.4 lays out types of learning management systems.

In fact, LMS’ have been a part of the Edtech eco-sys-tem for more than 15 years to the extent that, in the eyes of some, both have become almost synonymous. A 2009 report by Guild Research puts the global LMS market at $750 million. In 2013, this market was expected to be at $2 billion with further growth potential to about $7 billion by 2018. Moodle is leading the way as one of the most popular LMS products and the most commonly used learning management system globally. Moodle comprises an open source virtual learning environment that allows users to manage content as well as other functionality necessary for seamless use. Many institutions use Moodle to supplement classroom-based instruction with online content, known as blended learning. Basic building blocks of Moodle include registration and enrollment, course management and lesson planning, communications, site management, and user management. Currently, there are 174,350registered sites using Moodle to o�er almost 12 million courses to around 112 million users across the globe in 255 countries. This makes Moodle the most widely used learning platform. (Please see the appendices for more details.)

In addition to Moodle, there are other notable open source and proprietary LMS success stories. These include: Sakai LMS - An open source community as well as a Learning Management System (LMS), Sakai was built by a consortium of �ve universities including Michigan University, Indiana University, Stanford University, and MIT that worked together to form a common collaboration and learning environment alternative to the proprietary LMS. The Sakai LMS comprises over 35 tools for course management and collaboration. It enables users to create struc-tured lessons, assignments and tests, allows stream-ing videos, conduct virtual training sessions, and include other collaborative tools for research and group projects. Today, over 400 institutions in higher education, K-12, government, and the corporate sector worldwide are using Sakai in 19 di�erent languages.

.LRN - Developed by MIT, .LRN is one of the most popular open source web portals and web applica-tions for supporting e- learning in higher education and K-12. .LRN is a full-featured application o�ering a diverse set of teaching tools for web-based learning communities such as �le storage, forums, slide presentations, syllabus, gradebooks and evaluations, attachments, calendar, and FAQs. Instructors can administer online ‘classes’ or ‘com-munities’ with customised layout, language, time zone, etc.

Blackboard-Blackboard is a proprietary learning management/course management system aimed at creating better education experiences. It is in use at educational institutions and corporate training facilities as the main learning management system that either supplements classroom learning or builds online courses with few or no face-to-face interaction.

http://anisakai.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Why_SAKAI.pdf http://dotlrn.org/ http://www.blackboard.com/platforms/learn/overview.aspx

Ibid. Ibid. McIntosh, (2014), Vendors of Learning Management and e-Learning Products, available at: http://www.trimeritus.com/vendors.pdf

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2.5 Gami�ed Education

Gami�cation refers to “the use of game elements and game-design techniques in non-game contexts.” Digital games take some input from the players, process it according to the pre-de�ned rules, and provide some visual digital information to one or more players. It includes mass market products that are either developed for leisure or education. The engaging content produced by the

gaming industry can be consumed across a variety of devices such as games consoles, personal com-puters, tablets or mobile phones. There are also several elements of games that make them great learning tools and resources. Textbox 2.5 provides a few such important elements.

Textbox 2.5: The Elements of Games

Progress paths – Allow users to transition from one level to the next level and get them ‘addicted’ to these transitions with the complexity of the ‘game’ increasing as the game progresses.

Feedback and reward – Ensure that users’ interest in the game is kept alive with instant feedback and reward from success through game points or scores as well as virtual and monetary rewards.

Leader boards and rankings – Create the competitive spirit within the game that allows players to benchmark their performance against others and keep working hard to out-do them.

Leveraging social networks – Allow players to gain support and kudos from peers and create a sense of competition within the game environment.

Aesthetics and cross platform integration – Enrich the user experience and ‘fun’ thus increasing engagement and allow the players to compete with anyone anywhere.*

* Palmer, D., Lunceford, S and J. Patton, A. The Engagement Economy, Deloitte Review

Werbach, K., & Hunter, D. (2012). For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business. Wharton Digital Press. Kirriemuir,J. and Angela McFarlane, C. (2006), Literature Review in Games and Learning Futurelab series. Report 8

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Gami�cation mainly provides participants with a series of speci�c goals and upon successful comple-tion users can receive an award and a sense of achievement. It stimulates competition among peers and allows them to track their performance against other players. Games create engagement – through fantasy, challenge, and curiosity – which is a necessity for any learning experience. The ‘natural desire for competition, achievement, and status’ element means that learners can be provided with incentives to work by introducing gaming elements into the classroom.

Although the gami�cation of education is a relative-ly new and emerging phenomenon it has gained a wide support among researchers as well as educa-tors who believe that games simulate productivity and creative inquiry among learners. Advance-ments in mobile technology and networked devices expand opportunities for game play and allow participants to engage any time from any place. Educators need to �gure out that how mobile platforms and technology-rich activities can be employed for instructional purposes to enhance educational learning.

In more advanced situations, the course material can be embedded in game environments through simulation, animation and storylines to improve students’ engagement in the learning process.

2.5.1 The Demand for Gami�ed Learning

In 2002 the world market for games and edutain-ment stood at $16.9 billion. A recent report by Gartner Inc. – an in�uential Global Market and Technology Research Firm – puts the worldwide

NMC Horizon Report, (2013), Higher Education Edition.http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2013-horizon-report-HE.pdf Burke, B. (2014), Gami�cation 2020: What Is the Future of Gami�cation? Gartner http://dotgroup.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Gartner-2020-Trends.pdf ELSPA. (2003) Gartner Inc.,(2013), Gartner says Worldwide Video Games Market to Total $93 billion in (2013), Stamford, CT Kirriemuir,J. and Angela McFarlane, C. (2006), Literature Review in Games and Learning Futurelab series. Report 8 PricewaterhouseCoopers as quoted in Next Gen: Transforming the UK into the world’s leading talent hub for the video games and visual e�ects industries. Nesta Venture beat, (2013), With a mobile boom, learning games are a $1.5B market headed toward $2.3B by (2017), available at: http://venturebeat.com/2013/08/16/with-a-mobile-boom-learning-games-are-a-1-5b-market-headed-toward-2-3b-by-2017-exclusive/ Richards et. al., (2013), Games for a Digital Age: K-12 Market Map and Investment Analysis, The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, available at: http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/glpc_gamesforadigitalage1.pdfAmbient Insight, (2012), The (2011-2016) Worldwide Gamebased Learning Market: All Roads Lead to Mobile, available at: http://www.ambientinsight.com/Resources/Documents/AmbientInsight-Worldwide-GameBased-Learning-Market.pdf

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mobile and PC games, at $93 billion in 2013. By 2015 it is projected to reach $111 billion. These games are more popular among children who play dedicatedly for long hours and with full concentra-tion. A recent study of the UK gaming industry also documented exponential growth over the last decade far outstripping growth in �lm, music, and TV with online and mobile segments growing faster. Table 3.4 highights the key drivers and challenges of gami�ed learning.

The gami�ed learning – also called ‘serious games’ – market, though still a small subset of the overall market, has also continued to grow. A recent report by Ambient Insight – a research �rm – predicts the game-based learning market will grow from $1.5 billion in 2012 to $2.3 billion in 2017. The larger simulation-based learning market, which includes corporate training games, is expected to grow even more from $2.3 billion in 2012 to $6.6 billion in 2017. Altogether, the learning games market will grow from $3.9 billion to $8.9 billion in 2017. Much of the growth will come from apps that target the mobile market.

The game-based learning segment has received a lot of funding interest. The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) reported that investment in education technology companies has tripled in the past decade rising from $146 million in 2002 to roughly $429 million in 2011. The increase in funds began to pick up signi�cant speed beginning in 2009, with investments increasing by $150 million from the previous year, even though the economy was entering a recession. A number of large players, such as, Nintendo Wii, Microsoft, Mojang (creator of Minecraft), and Electronic Arts (EA) have entered the market.

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wide video game marketplace, which includes video game console hardware and software, online,

Table 2.4: Key Drivers and Challenges of Gami�ed Learning


Ubiquity of Mobile Devices: Mobile platform is driving the gami�cation market. Ambient Light notes that Mobile– Local–Social (MOLOSO) is a key driver in gami�ed learning.

Signi�cant improvements in visual e�ects: Signi�cant improvements in processing power and visual e�ects means that games are more realistic and engaging even on minimalistic platforms (such as mobiles).

Explosion of Networked Devices: The explosion of network devices from computers to tablets and smartphones add addictiveness and anywhere anytime play element to games.

Poor Game Design: Gartner predicts that 80% of gami�ed applications will fail by 2014 because of poor game design. It is critical to understand what makes video games engaging.

Perception: Teachers may get criticized for using games to teach. There is a barrier of cultural acceptance of games through which learning can take place and this has to deal with wider public percep-tions of games.

High costs: Teachers might have limited resources, funding or inadequate training to teach using gami�cation. Training and localization can further increase costs.

Games are increasingly being deployed to make the classroom experience fun and engaging around the world. A 2012 Ambient Insight survey found Finland, the Netherlands, and Singapore as major hubs of game-based learning innovation. China was also fast catching up. Other countries such as the United States and United Kingdom are not far behind. In United States, President Obama called for “investments in educational technology that will help create digital tutors that are as e�ective as personal tutors, educational software as compelling as the best video game.” In United Kingdom, the gaming industry has been found to be larger than �lm or music industries and a thrust is ongoing towards creating serious games.

The world over, gami�cation is getting strong interest from very well-established players. Some examples include:

Foldit – In 2011, University of Washington launched Foldit – a game designed to enable players to solve molecular problems (such as protein structure prediction) that alluded scientists for many years. In 10 days, 46,000 players helped solve problems that had remained unaddressed for 15 years.

SimPhysics - Produced by The Institute of Physics for 13-16 years olds – provides a collection of games that help teachers to teach basic concepts including energy, astronomy, and the physics of sound, etc. Math Blaster - A product of Knowledge Adventure is designed for Grade K-8 students to learn basic Mathematics. It consists of math games based on speci�c topics and skills and used as supplemental learning material for any classroom.

DragonBox - An educational game focused on teaching maths that is more popular than Angry Birds in Norway. It is a learning tool that “secretly teaches” students algebra by turning it into a game. When �rst introduced, more than 10% of all iPad users in Norway downloaded it in �rst two weeks.

123 Kids Fun Apps Collection - Consists of iOS and Android Apps for kids to sustain their interest in learning. For example, 123 Kids Fun Alphabet is designed for children between ages 3 to 7. The aim is to allow kids to independently learn the alphabets without any help. The letters are combined with pictures along with a readers’ recording enabling the kids to quickly learn the alphabet.

Fleming, N. (2012). Gami�cation: Is it game over? BBC Future, available at: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121204-can-gaming-transform-your-life Kirriemuir,J. and Angela McFarlane, C. (2006), Literature Review in Games and Learning Futurelab series. Report 8 Richards et. al., (2013), Games for a Digital Age: K-12 Market Map and Investment Analysis, The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, available at: http://www.joanganzcooneycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/glpc_gamesforadigitalage1.pdf Ambient Insight, (2012), The 2011-2016 Worldwide Game-based Learning Market: All Roads Lead to Mobile, available at: http://www.ambientinsight.com/Resources/Documents/AmbientInsight-Worldwide-GameBased-Learning-Market.pdf Ibid

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Alleyoop – A gami�ed learning platform supported by Pearson. Structured as a game with missions, Alleyoop is built around achievements and earning a virtual currency – Yoops. It creates a learning environment that is empowering, relevant, and a game. By August 2012, Pearson had announced content partnerships for Alleyoop with NASA eClips, National Geographic, National Science Foundation, Scienti�c Minds, Patrick JMT, Virtual Nerd, Adaptive Curriculum, and Brightstorm.

Ibid. Ibid.

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2.6 Localised Content

Localisation in the most fundamental and simplistic sense is the translation of content in the language of the learner. However, that is an extremely narrow view of localisation. Nowadays, localisation is understood as the adaptation of a product or service to a certain language, culture and to a desired look or feel.

Digital learning platforms are nothing without appropriate content to populate them. In fact, the availability of content has often been described as the most signi�cant challenge in the mainstreaming of e-learning. Without appropriate provision for content development, e-learning and m-learning initiatives are bound to fail to make the desired impact. This is precisely why Malaysia’s Smart Schools Initiative involved a massive content development exercise. While countries are inclined towards investing in developing their own digital educational resources, they are challenged by the signi�cant costs of the undertaking. The lack of a formal market for educational content also deters commercial ventures in this area. Used to receiving free or relatively cost-less content, schools �nd software costly to buy or license. In recent years, crowd-sourcing and user-generated content move-ment has provided a promising opportunity to defray the costs of content development.

2.6.1 Demand for Local Content

development and delivery of content and imple-mentation resources such as intellectual property licenses to publish material.

The ‘Massive Open Online Courses’ (or MOOCs) have gone a step further to provide tools (such as peer grading) for large scale participation in these OERs. A number of platforms, such as, EdX, Coursera, Udacity, P2PU, championed by traditional universi-ties o�er free educational courses designed by top professors, with the aim of providing access to a large number of learners.

One of the most visible and popular content devel-opment e�orts is the Khan Academy. The Khan Academy Platform features a number of key elements including: a library of content covering-math, science and humanities, with playlists on �nance and history. Students can make use of this extensive library of content, including interactive challenges; videos that can be accessed from any computer with access to the web; practice problems that test learners’ capabilities to answer questions; feedback on time spent and where that time is spent that allows teachers (coaches) and parents can also have unprecedented visibility into what their students are learning and doing on Khan Academy. The website features around 5,500 instructional videos and 100,000 practice problems for a variety of topics. The website also sequences content through a knowledge map and makes use of gami�cation elements such as badges, etc. to incentivize children to learn. The platform serves nearly 10 million students across the world in 200 countries every month.

In the appendices, we discuss Khan Academy as one of the most famous content development initiatives in the world. It has become so famous that a number of clones have come up around the world, including some in Pakistan.

Globally, there has been demand for free or relative-ly cost-less access to localized content. This has created, among other things, an Open Educational Resources (OER) movement that provides digitized materials that can be used and re-used for teaching, learning, and research. OER includes learning content such as full courses, modules, textbooks, videos, tests and software tools to support the

UNESCO, (2012), ICT in Primary Education, Paris, France UNESCO, (2002) OECD, (2007) Conole, G. MOOCs as disruptive technologies: strategies for enhancing the learner experience and quality of MOOCs, available at: http://www.um.es/ead/red/39/conole.pdf

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But Khan Academy is not alone, nor is it the only form of content development there is.

There are a number of OER initiatives set up with the aim to maximize the reach of education by providing high-quality, openly licensed, online educational materials for people everywhere that include, among others:

MIT Open Courseware seeks to publish all MIT course content and make it available to anyone, anywhere. The program features free audio/video lectures, online textbooks from MIT as well as other supplementary resources relevant to many di�erent courses.

http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm http://www.oeconsortium.org/ UNESCO., (2012), ICT in Primary Education, Paris, France

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Open Education Consortium seeks to scale educa-tional opportunities by providing free and open access to high quality educational resources global-ly. Moreover, people can share resources and exchange material, researchers can build new networks, and teachers are enabled to explore new ways to assist students. Tatweer is a Saudi Royal initiative launched in 2006 with the aim to reform public education in Saudi Arabia. The objectives are to enhance learning, encourage students, teachers and experts to produce digital content that will help to provide a rich learning environment for all.

Any child born since the beginning of this century is growing up in a digital world. Those born at the start of the century, already in the middle years of primary school, have been dubbed the “net generation” or, more descriptive-ly, “digital natives”. Theirs is a world of television, text messaging, camera phones, iPods, MP3, and interactive video games. They can watch television, listen to their iPods, send text messages, and work online – all at the same time.

- Jonathan Anderson, Emeritus Professor, Flinders University, Australia

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Pakistan’s Edtech Landscape

Historical Evolution of Edtech in Pakistan

Pakistan’s Edtech Eco-System


Sectoral Edtech Pro�les

PAKISTAN’S EDTECH AND ICT4E LANDSCAPE 3

Jumani, N.B., Rahman, F., Chishti, S. H., and Malik, S., (2011), Teacher Training through Distance Mode at Allama Iqbal Open University Pakistan, in Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education-TOJDE April 2011 ISSN 1302-6488 Volume: 12 Number: 2 Article 5

Following up from the two key drivers for Edtech that may be at play in Pakistan, we provide a brief snapshot of the Edtech eco-system in the country.

We begin by brie�y reviewing the historical evolution of educational technology usage inPakistan.

3.1

First Forays in ICT for Education

The use of ICT in education is not new to Pakistan. Nor is technology being seen for the �rst time as an enabler or a ‘force multiplier’. The informal use of information and communications technologies to support learning probably began in Pakistan with the use of radio and television programmes aimed primarily at the general population (‘adult learning’) but also at speci�c target populations such as farmers or skilled workers, etc. This connection was formalized through the creation of an Open University – the Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) – which was the country’s �rst distance learning university that, for a long time, used ‘blended learning’ that mixed traditional face-to-face instruction with television-basedinstruction. In these early days, while television was clearly a richer, more e�ective medium for educa-tion, radio still had a far wider reach particularly for the far �ung rural population and so both these played an important role in the �rst wave of Edtech(or ICT4E) in Pakistan. The AIOU for instance, ran hundreds of programmes on radio and televi-sion through the 1980s and 1990s.

In the 1990s, �rst personal computers and then the internet became accessible. In early 2000s, the Virtual University (VU) was established as the twenty-�rst century reincarnation of the Open University idea with signi�cant emphasis on the use of ICT and internet for education.

Historical Evolution of Edtech or ICT4E in Pakistan

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Over the years, VU has adopted a model much similar to Allama Iqbal Open University with one major di�erence: it replaces traditional television programming with its own dedicated television channels operated through Pakistan’s dedicated educational satellite.

While both AIOU and VU have developed their own content to support these e�orts, their utility has been unclear and rigorous evidence of impact has not been collected. Moreover these have been restricted to primarily tertiary education.

Experimenting with Technology in the Schools

In the 1990s, technology also arrived in schools. Most of the initial use of technology in the schools was at high-end private schools that could both a�ord to establish computer labs but also had the kind of clientele that valued this critical skill. Howev-er, there was a general problem with this technolo-gy-driven approach. While computer labs were established in schools – and computers made available even in the classrooms – there were very few teachers with the capability and experience to properly integrate technology within the classroom with the unfortunate result that the use of technology could not go beyond super�cial use of writing reports (word processors), making presentations (power point), and browsing the internet (explorer, etc.).

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A second, somewhat related, challenge faced by these early attempts to deploy technology in the schools was lack of availability of content, in gener-al, and in local languages, in particular. In addition, there were very few teachers who could develop or procure quality content. Most just muddled through. Teacher training and content availability remains a challenge even today.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) programme in the 2000s, so popular in Latin America, Africa, and some parts of South and South East Asia skipped Pakistan. Consequently, there has been no serious attempt in Pakistan to provide schools with laptops. By this time, however, public schools began to jump on the technology bandwagon and computer labs were established in thousands of public schools in both urban and rural settings. These had their challenges. Establishing a computer lab was one thing, main-taining it was another task altogether and the schools were least equipped and resourced to do. There is considerable anecdotal evidence to suggest that computer labs in most public schools were either in a state of disrepair for most of the school calendar or could simply not be used due to unavailability of power for a signi�cant portion of a typical school day. The Emergence of a Community

The situation began to change in the latter part of the 2000s. The important thing that happened was the development and penetration of new technolo-gy – primarily the mobile telephone but also access to the internet and low-cost computers and tablets – that made technology more accessible to a wider section of the school going population – not just those studying in elite private schools. Even though a vast majority of those enrolled in a low-cost private school or a public school probably still do not own a computer at home, this is gradually changing and children have easier access to mobile and low-cost tablets. This technology push has been confounded with the emergence of several new players who have been energized and are, in turn, energizing this important space. We have also seen an emergence of a small but fast growing and promising content community on the back of a technology developer community in the e-learning space.

The global popularity of Khan Academy has spawned similar e�orts elsewhere including several

in Pakistan. Sabaq Foundation is a Khan Academy-clone that has invested heavily into content development that is freely available. Others, such as JugnuTV, Jugnoo Media, To�eeTV, Knowl-edge Platform and TeleTaleem, among others, are a part of this exciting technology community that is beginning to invest in local content development. There are others experimenting with content-peda-gogy combinations to see what may work in the peculiar circumstances of Pakistan’s educational system. The Reading Room Project, EDeQUAL, and NUST ITE are three such ventures that have experi-ment with localized models of blended learning that may work within Pakistani settings. There is also a small but growing technology community that is building educational software and content for the international market. Companies such as Agnitus, Arbisoft, GeniTeam, and 3iLogic are probably the most visible.These can have a signi�cant in�uence on the development of local standards and bring new ideas to the local technology and content development e�orts. The �nal set of these new players are implementing entities that are taking whatever is available to be implemented and deploying these in the classrooms.

The demands of an ‘Educational Emergency’

These developments have coincided with a growing socio-political consensus within the country on the urgent need to catch up on the country’s obliga-tions to educate its young ones. An ‘educational emergency’ has been declared and several donors – The UK Department for International Development (DFID) and US Agency for International Develop-ment (USAID), in particular – are driving a massive e�ort to improve the state of education in the nation’s schools in partnership with the provincial governments.

Pakistan has a large number of school going age children who are currently out of school and a vast number of those who do go to school end up dropping out because it fails to capture their imagination. Article 25A, which demands access to universal education is the clear sign of a political commitment to this cause. However, the education-al budgets still fall short of the required levels and the political promises in this respect have remained unful�lled.


There is also a growing sense that the country cannot possibly build schools at a rate that will bridge the gap. There is a clear need for technology to become a ‘force multiplier’ that could give the educational establishment some breathing room and an possible advantage over demography in the scramble to create physical infrastructure.

The ubiquity of mobile devices holds considerable promise and the recently concluded 3G/4G auctions could provide the high-speed mobile internet that could carry rich video content to the last mile. While technology cannot replace schools, it can lower the administrative burden of the teachers, become a facilitator in the classroom, and reach out to those kids who are still out of school to ensure that they receive some literacy and are not forgotten by the system.

A number of non-governmental players have already begun to work on the assumption that e-learning is a key component of their future strategy. The Citizens Foundation, for example, has embarked upon an e�ort to consider the use of technology in the classrooms.


3.2 Pakistan’s Edtech Eco-System: Key Players

Others, such as CARE Foundation, may be willing to embrace it if appropriate technological solutions become available. The provincial governments have also jumped into the fray. Punjab government, for instance, has launched Punjab E.Learn – an online portal – that provides interactive content and videos for grades 9-10. Plans are afoot to provide all this content in a CD to public schools across Punjab for greater access. Other parts of the Punjab govern-ment such as the Department of Sta� Development (DSD) are looking at the use of technology in other areas such as teacher training as well as monitoring and planning. Here there is a plan to distribute tablets to enable DSD teacher trainers and assessors to better address gaps in teacher training.

The educational emergency creates an opportune environment for the Edtech movement to materialize and �nally mature in Pakistan, by providing the perfect backdrop for the alignment of interests of various actors within this emerging eco-system.

It would take an entire eco-system for Edtech to make its mark on Pakistan’s education challenge. The government, private sector, or the donors alone cannot do a complex job requiring assent and participation of a vast number and variety of actors.

The student or the learner must be at the center – both literally and philosophically – of the Edtech landscape since the eco-system must revolve around its needs and requirements. Pakistan’s Edtech eco-system can be divided, broadly, into four types of actors. These are brie�y described below:

Government and International Entities

Government and international entities have an important role to play in the emerging Edtech

eco-system, not only because the government as the �rst (or last) resort provider of educational services, is a big player in the education service provision but also for two other reasons.

First, the government plays an important role in quality assurance and certi�cation of the education-al system and its product. Second, it could have a disproportionate in�uence on the Edtech market as a major procurement entity.

According to one industry expert, the government spends about $200 or so per child on education every year while private sector claims to deliver the same in two-thirds to half of that cost. There is some anecdotal evidence that mixed public-private models (such as CARE Schools) can be more

Mahboob Mahmoud, Scalable Quality Education in Pakistan at the Ilm Apps Challenge Hackathon in Lahore at LUMS on June 25, 2014.

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Cost-e�cient. CARE, for instance, has adopted or taken over large government schools in Punjab and claims that it can deliver decent education if it can supplement government investment in infrastruc-ture, etc. with PKR 300 per child per month of additional support. Should the government decide to in�uence the learning technologies market by procuring as little as 10-15% of this annual spend (lets say, $25 per child) from the private sector providers, it would create a market of at least $1.5 billion a year for Edtech in Pakistan alone and this would create a powerful incentive for Edtech service providers (both technology as well as content) to enter the market. There are several players within the government. The most important among these are the provincial departments of education since education is a provincial subject in Pakistan after the 18th consitutional amendment. While these deparments of education play a policymaking and oversight role, day-to-day implementation is managed by the educational bureaucracy at the district level (such as EDOs, DCOs, etc.). Also, the apex institutions such as Provincial Institute for Teacher Education, Bureau of Curriculum and Extension Centre and Textbook Boards, play an important role in the curriculum development and teachers training.

Finally, each of the provinces has an Educational Foundation which is a public-private partnership designed to provide public sector support to the private sector educational delivery.

In addition, other ministries such as the Higher Education Commission (for teacher education curriculum and accreditation) and Ministry of IT (for infrastructure provision) play a role, as do several international entities such as UNICEF and UNESCO, etc. by providing best practices and advocacy. Entities such as the National ICT R&D Fund which provides funds for research and development (R&D) for ICT projects (e-learning falling very much under its mandate) and Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) could also play a signi�cant role.

Schools and Education Service Providers

The other important class of actors is the schools and the education service poviders themselves. This is where the action really happens (or does not happen).

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There are several sub-classes of schools , each with its own motives and dynamic and they may respond to Edtech opportunities, policies, and incentives di�erently. These include: high end private schools, low-cost private schools, public schools, public-pri-vate partnership schools, and foundation assisted schools. Some of these are in fact schools systems with several branches and franchise schools, which bestows disproportionate in�uence and marketing power to them. Non-pro�t foundations probably have the tightest linkage between investment and bene�t. They want to deliver quality education and may only invest in technology provided it delivers some bene�ts. Another class of educational service providers are the teacher training institutes that is critical to the development of the edtech system in Pakistan. These range from large programmes such as the B.Ed. and M.Ed. programmes housed in major universities and teacher training colleges to boutique teacher training programmes such as Ali Institute, VMIE, AKU-IED and others. With the exception of a few, these focus primarily on tradi-tional classroom teaching rather than the use of technologies in the classroom.

As noted in the overview of the Edtech landscape in Pakistan, high-end private schools and school systems are continuing to embrace the Edtech bandwagon, albeit sometimes for the wrong reasons and without appropriate thought and preparation. These schools often have �nancial resources to procure expensive solutions. The low-cost private schools struggle with catching up and do not invest enough in learning technology. Public schools fall somewhere in between. They sometimes do have access to technology but it is often not enough and does not come with quality soft skills to deliver the kind of bene�ts expected of it. By and large, the public schools and low-cost private schools is where both the market and the biggest problems lie.

Civil Society Organisations

The third pillar of the Edtech eco-system is the civil society. Again, primarily because of the nature of Pakistan’s problems, the civil society must play a large and active role in education policy-making and implementation in Pakistan.

Mahboob Mahmoud, Scalable Quality Education in Pakistan at the Ilm Apps Challenge Hackathon in Lahore at LUMS on June 25, 2014.


Figure 3.1 Summarizes the Edtech Innovation Eco-System in Pakistan

Here international donors (bilateral and multilateral) often take the lead in organizing the civil society through a host of policy (e.g. Oxfam), advocacy (e.g. Alif Ailaan), advisory (e.g. GIZ), and implementation (e.g. Ilm Ideas, USAID) initiatives. Increasingly private actors such as Intel Pakistan are also playing a role as are entrepreneurship and incubation programmes.

Technology Platform Developers and Content Providers

The �nal pillar of the Edtech eco-system is the technology developers and content providers. For a variety of reasons already explained, this is the most exciting addition to the eco-system that is driving the current push for adoption. These are the main subjects of subsequent sections

3.3 Pakistan’s Edtech Landscape: Capabilities Analysis

This section presents the summary capability pro�le of some salient players making up Pakistan’s Edtech landscape. Also, included in the lists below are the teacher training institutions as well as entities

supporting innovation and entrepreneurship – including learning innovation and entrepreneurship – within this space.


Box 3.1: The IlmAppsChallenge

Ilm Ideas and Pakistan Innovation Foundation (PIF) organised a learning innovation challenge – The IlmAppsChallenge. The Challenge focused on developing mobile and web applications aimed at enhancing quality and access to education. The Challenge engaged more than 170 teamsfrom across the country through a series of activities, including brainstorming sessions, hackathons, mentoring and a product develop-ment bootcamp to create locally relevant learning applications for children aged 5-16. 27 teams participated in the Hackathons where 16 semi-�nalists (and 4 wild cards) made it through. 13 teams were invited to make a pitch to the �nal jury after a 1.5 month long product development bootcamp where teams were exposed to training and mentoring by Nigar Nazar(Cartoonist), Sarah Adeel (Designer), Shoaib Malik (Game Developer), and a number of experts on pedagogy and assessment, etc. Eight Teams were declared ‘Winners’ of the Ilm Apps Challenge and three teams were �nally selected by Ilm Ideas to receive funding to develop and pilot test their proposed solutions.

The value of the IlmAppsChallenge was multi-fold. First, it provided the �rst systematic attempt to invite a plethora ofstakeholders to �nd ways to use technology to addressPakistan’s education challenge. Second, it attempted to put together multi-disciplinary teams to address a challenging socio-technical problem. Third, it opened up the educational space to technology providers by lowering the barriers of entry. Finally, it has sought to create and support a cultureof experimentation, rigorous analysis and evidence –basedpolicy implementation in the educational technology space.

The timeline of the IlmAppsChallenge is presented below:


The Capability Matrix is organized in the following manner:

On the left-hand column are the various actors that make up the educational eco-system. These are divided in 6 broad categories:

Platform – Content Developers: Local entities that create learning platforms (such as learning management systems) as well as local content. Though mostly software companies, increasingly, mobile gaming and application companies are also joining this group. Some of these produce and sell international quality software and content in US, Europe, and the rest of the developed markets but may now be convinced to look at the local market as well.

Third Party Solution Providers: Local entities selling internationally available software and learning platforms to the local market.

Implementors: Entities that do not, largely, produce the software and learning platforms themselves but implement these. They are an important part of the eco-system for the learning that is produced in the deployment of these learn-ing platforms. These are mainly schools and large school systems.

Teacher Training Institutions: Teacher training institutes are an important part of the education eco-system. This report looks at the capabilities of a range of di�erent public, private, and innovative teacher training models. Other Potential Players: Social media agencies and new media content providers, virtual universi-ties, and other non-traditional learning providers.

Educational Entrepreneurship Entities: Entities that promote entrepreneurship – including educa-tional entrepreneurship – and innovation in Pakistan.

A

B

C

D

E

F

• What type of initiative they are and their primary area of focus, whether entrepreneurship, pedagogy, training, domain expertise, technology, content development, or an implementation or deployment capability.

• What level of development these are currently at, whether this is just an idea, partially or fully developed prototype, or in deployment.

• What is the incidence of the service being provided, particularly, whether they only target private schools in urban areas or the services is equally relevant to rural and public schools.

• What is the focus grades-wise and subject-wise of the proposed intervention. Speci�cally does the initiative apply to K-5, 9-12, or 12+ grades in the classroom and does it teach science, mathematics, language, or social studies.

• Finally, what is the type of intervention, namely, is it animation, content/lectures, gami�cation, assessment, interactivity, or LMS, etc.

These entities are assessed on �ve sets of parameters, namely:


EntrepreneurshipTraining

PedagogyTechnologyDom

ainContent

Deployment

Develop ( Partial )Develop ( Full )

Deployed

Idea

Public

Rural

??

??

?

??

Type of Initiative Stage Development Incidence

Platform-Content Developers

Sabaq.PK

To�eeTV

Knowledge Platform

TeleTaleem

Communicators (BroadClass)

EDeQUAL

Punjab E.Learn

3iLogic

NUST ITE

Arbisoft

Agnitus

3Restart

PiLabs

AMAL

GeniTeam

The Reading Room Project

Academic Achievement Plus

Rehan School

Rabtt

JugnuTV

Jugnoo Media

FESF

Third Party Solutions

Matheletics

Socio Engineering Consultants

Implementors

Beaconhouse ELE

Roots Millennium Schools

The Citi School

The Citizens Foundation

Allied Schools

Care Foundation

A

B

C


Grades K-5Grades 9-12

Grades 12+M

athematics

ScienceEnglish

Urdu

Animation

Lectures/ContentGam

i�cation

Social Studies

Assessment

Interactivity

Focus Grades Subjects Types of Intervention

LMS

Platform-Content Developers

Sabaq.PK

To�eeTV

Knowledge Platform

TeleTaleem

Communicators (BroadClass)

EDeQUAL

Punjab E.Learn

3iLogic

NUST ITE

Arbisoft

Agnitus

3Restart

PiLabs

AMAL

GeniTeam

The Reading Room Project

Academic Achievement Plus

Rehan School

Rabtt

JugnuTV

Jugnoo Media

FESF

Third Party Solutions

Matheletics

Socio Engineering Consultants

Implementors

Beaconhouse ELE

Roots Millennium Schools

The Citi School

The Citizens Foundation

Allied Schools

Care Foundation

A

B

C

Invest2Innovate (i2i)

EntrepreneurshipTraining

PedagogyTechnologyDom

ainContent

Deployment

Develop ( Partial )Develop ( Full )

Deployed

Idea

Public

Rural

Type of Initiative Stage Development Incidence

Educational Entrepreneurship

Pakistan Innovation Foundation (PIF)

Plan 9 and X

WECREATE - Pakistan

The Nest i/o

LUMS Centre for Entrepreneurship

IBA Invent

Teacher Training

AKU-IED

Ali Institute of Education

VM Institute of Education

Teach for Pakistan (TfP)

Department of Sta� Development (DSD)

Allama Iqbal Open University

Other Potential Players

Team Ants

Creative Chaos

Mindstorm Studios

TinTash

iEarn

Meri Taleem

Flickable

Robotics Lab

Virtual University

Comsats Virtual Campus

Sharp Image

P@SHA (Launchpad)

P@SHA Social Innovation Fund

MIT Enterprise Forum - Pakistan (MIT EFP)


D

E

F Acumen Fund


Grades K-5Grades 9-12

Grades 12+M

athematics

ScienceEnglish

Urdu

Animation

Lectures/ContentGam

i�cation

Social Studies

Assessment

InteractivityFocus Grades Subjects Types of Intervention

LMS

Acumen FundP@SHA (Launchpad)P@SHA Social Innovation FundMIT Enterprise Forum - Pakistan

Invest2innovate

Team AntsCreative Chaos

Mindstorm StudiosTinTashiEarn

Meri Taleem

FlickableRobotics Lab

Virtual University

Comsats Virtual CampusSharp Image

Technology for People Initiative

AKU - IED

Ali Institute of EducationVM Institute of Education

Teach for Pakistan

Allama Iqbal Open UniversityDSD - Punjab

Fig. 3.2: Compatibility Matrix of Key Players in Pakistan Edtech Landscape

Pakistan Innovation Foundation (PIF)

Plan 9 and X

WECREATE - Pakistan

The Nest i/o

LUMS Centre for Entrepreneurship

IBA Invent

D

E

F

Other Potential Players

Teacher Training

Educational Entrepreneurship

There are a number of experienced potential players (such as Mindstorm Studios, Tintash,Sharp Image) that could jump into the fray if and when such an enabling environment becomes available.

Finally, there is also a burgeoning innovation and entrepreneurial eco-system that is begin-ning to address entrepreneurial opportunities in non-traditional areas such as education delivery and new content creation. The Ilm Apps Challenge run by Pakistan Innovation Foundation (PIF) and Ilm Ideas is one example. Other programmes such as Invest to Innovate, P@SHA Social Innovation Fund, and Plan9 have begun to incubate ideas (such as Meri Taleem, The Reading Room Project, 3Restart, etc.) within the Edtech domain and this will enhance the capability and capacity of Edtech entrepreneurs.


There are several trends that emerge from �gure 3.2.

First, there is no shortage of platform and content developers whose activities encompass the whole range of training, pedagogy, technology, content, domain, and deployment scenarios - many of which are active across several domains simultaneously. There is also wide variety of type of interventions, namely, animation, content/lectures, gami�cation, assessment, etc. within this group of developers and designers. Given that there are not enough end-to-end Edtech interventions in Pakistan, this is quite a welcome sign, demonstrating that there is latent capability within the system to ramp up and deliver programmes should conditions become ripe for large-scale deployments in Pakistan. Second, we have seen, in the last few years, the emergence of a small number of good quality teacher training programmes - such as Ali Insti-tute of Education, Teach for Pakistan, and VM Institute of Education which add to the mix of existing programmes such as DSD, AIOU, and AKU-IED. Even when coupled with in-house training initiatives of large private sector school chains, this is still not enough to meet the demands of teacher education, in general, and technology education for teachers, in particular. Although some headway has been made at the provincial levels – particularly in Punjab – to introduce IT in teacher training, if there is one thing we have learnt from past experience it is that it is not enough to deploy an IT teacher or introduce IT as a subject in the curriculum but to integrate IT across all subjects and this may require a re-think of the entire curriculum and pedagogy. Building the capacity of teachers to handle technol-ogy in the classrooms to enable proper utilization and integration of technology is fundamental to realizing the Edtech potential in Pakistan.

Third, there is a considerable dearth of actual deployment experience – i.e. running initiatives on the ground and learning from these – that could be addressed through creation of an enabling environment and providing funding for such initiatives.

3.4.1 e-Learning in Pakistan

e-Learning has a fairly long history in Pakistan even if it has sometimes su�ered from a lack of consisten-cy and sustained political support from successive governments over the years. Starting in the late 1970s and 1980s when the �rst conscious e�ort was launched to use television and radio for supporting adult literacy and vocational training of the masses. The Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) – Pakistan’s �rst Distance and Open Learning Institution of higher learning – was founded in 1974 as a replica of the UK’s Open University and became one of the world’s largest institutions of its nature with an annual enrollment of over 1.1 million students in the year 2010 and a course enrollment of 3.3 million in 2011. The AIOU uses a blended learning model with face-to-face instruction, television, and distance learning materials. A Virtual University (VU) was established in 2002 with a view to using the information and communications technology (ICT) to support tertiary education in Pakistan.

There have been few experiments to support K-12 education and certainly none of the size of AIOU or VU. The high-end private schools such as Grammer Schools, Beaconhouse School System, Roots, and Citi Schools have taken the lead in establishing computer labs to impart IT education to the students. Some have even gone on to experiment with using smart boards and other high-end devices in the classrooms. However, integrating ICT within the national curriculum has still been a challenge because of a dearth of teachers trained to do so. The situation in low-cost private schools and public schools is much worse. Low-cost private schools often do not have the resources to invest in class-room technology. Besides, a general lack of invest-ment in infrastructure often prevails and this limits

the investment in computer labs and classroom technologies. Similarly, fewer than 20% of the public schools have a computer lab and anecdotal evidence suggests that these are often dysfunction-al and in a state of disrepair. Recent attempts by Punjab government to fund computer labs in public schools is a step in the right direction, though it cannot be fully utilized without a proper strategy of ICT integration in the national curriculum.

Opportunities for Further Development

These challenges may highlight avenues for further development:

There is a need to develop, experiment with, and deploy lower cost and easier to maintain hardware solutions that can deliver high quality

learning while making large-scale deployment of e-learning feasible and cost-e�ective.

One part of the cost equation is the number of devices per student that may be required to deliver an e�ective intervention. There is a need to experi-ment with pedagogies that lead to e�ective learn-ing while allowing multiple users per device. This is important from the perspective of lowering overall cost of implementation and reaching scale.

There is a need to properly de�ne the role of the teacher in the e-learning process and create platforms and models that incorporate teacher training and ICT integration within the intervention. The development of platforms or software to enable the creation of localized and tailor-made content for students to allow more interactivity as well as localization and alignment with the national curriculum is critical to mass adoption and deploy-ment of e-learning in Pakistan.

3.4 Sectoral Edtech Pro�les of Pakistan


Picking up on our classi�cation of di�erent types of ICT4E, we look speci�cally at Pakistan’s case in this section.

3.4.2 Mobile Learning in Pakistan

The adoption of mobile learning in Pakistan has been relatively limited due to low smart phone penetration and the high cost and unavailability of high speed mobile internet and broadband.The recent launching of the 3G/4G services in the country and falling prices of smart phones (now between 10-15% of total mobile users) and tablets (there are several options now available between PKR 8-20K) will likely enhance the attractiveness of mobile learning.

Nevertheless, there have been attempts, isolated as they may be, to use mobile devices for text-based low-end applications such as adult literacy (see Appendix B). The adult literacy model piloted by UNESCO, Mobilink, and Bunyad Foundation has delivered and demonstrated learning outcomes through multiple waves of implementation incorpo-rating several thousand users. However, scale and replication through a large-scale public sector take up has so far evaded this successful model. The real promise of the mobile phone-based learning paradigm – not so much in-the-classroom than in informal, out-of-school, and informal settings – thus remains unful�lled. With the passage of time, there has been consider-able interest in using tablets among high-end private schools, though this remains a costly propo-sition for others.

Over the years, the dominant paradigm of e-learning in Pakistan has all but shifted towards mobile devices, particularly, tablets, as computers are still considered very expensive and di�cult to maintain. Tablets have grown in capability over time as prices have declined. However, for most low-cost private and public schools, tablets still remain prohibitively costly. Recently, there has also been talk that Punjab government may make tablets and phone projectors available for teacher training and classroom instruction respectively.

Opportunities for Further Development:

The various challenges identi�ed above could be the focus for further development:

There is a need to �nd the right type of mobile platform (cost and performance ratio) that could be used in schools of variety of economic circumstanc-es. Tablets, for instance, get in closest to the learning experience of a full-�edged computer but are also quite expensive.

Where tablets are used, there is a need to look for solutions that allow one-to-many rather than one-to-one usage of tablets by students. This will require pedagogical innovation aimed at identifying and perfecting learning approaches that use one-to-many devices.

There is also the need to develop content that can extract more value out of an ordinary mobile device which remains, for the foreseeable future, the only viable option for millions of out-of-school children.


3.4.3 Technology for Teachers and Teacher Education in Pakistan

Pakistan su�ers from a chronic under-supply of teachers to meet the needs of its fast growing population. According to a recent survey by Alif Ailaan – the educational advocacy campaign funded by D�D – only 43% of teachers in govern-ment schools and 17% in private schools have a Professional Teachers’ Certi�cate (PTC) while a vast majority of teachers (48% in public schools and 73% in private schools) have a B.Ed. or M.Ed. quali�cation. 57% of public school teachers and 21% of private school teachers have received some kind of training in the last 5 years but a high percentage of teachers dont think that the training they received was relevant or satisfactory. On the one hand, teaching has traditionally not been seen as a viable profession that can compete with other preferred professions (such as medicine, engineering, business, etc.) for talent and, on the other hand, there are too few quality teacher training institutes that could really prepare a teacher to meet the challenge of e�ectively educat-ing young minds. Moreover, there has not been a proper and credible credentialing system for teachers. Anyone with any kind of quali�cation with or without formal training could become a teacher.

Successive government policies have made promises to improve the state of teacher education in Pakistan. The 1992 National Education Policy (NEP, 1992) called for ‘improving quality by reasserting teachers role in the teacher-learning process’, ‘modernizing curricula and text books’, and ‘introducing activity oriented computer sciences at all levels of school education.’ Subsequent policies (National Education Policy 2009, National Educational Policy 1998-2010, Educational Sector Reforms 2001-2006, and Educational for All National Plan of Action, 2015, etc.) have only reasserted these commitments to pre- and in-service teacher training, creation of teacher resource centers (TRC), and the use of technology in teacher education.

For example, National Education Policy 2009 states “A Bachelors degree, with a B.Ed., shall be the requirement for teaching at the elementary level. A Masters level for the secondary and higher second-ary, with a B.Ed., shall be ensured by 2018. PTC and CT shall be phased out through encouraging the present set of teachers to improve their quali�ca-tions, while new hiring shall be based on the advanced criteria.”

Things have begun to change in some instances with recent attempts to formalize teacher training. Credentialing in the teaching profession is taking root, though challenges still remain. There has been an e�ort, led by the Higher Education Commission (HEC), to make the B.Ed. a foundational degree for those in the education profession. In Punjab, the Department for Sta� Development (DSD) is engaged in a massive teacher training and capacity building activity to keep up with the Punjab Schools Roadmap under which thousands of lessons plans were written and distributed across the province. There is also talk that DSD Teacher Trainers and Subject Specialists who monitor performance and help build capacity shall be provided with tablets to support their jobs.

A large USAID project on Teacher Education has been instrumental in this progress as are many smaller interventions by other donors such as GIZ. Other e�orts – such as those by Intel Education – focus primarily on the use of technology in educa-tion. Several private sector teacher training programmes such as AKU’s Institute of Educational Development (IED) in Karachi, Ali Institute in Lahore, and AIOU’s Educational Planning and Management Programme (EPM) are making strides in revamping the old paradigm of teacher training to bring in new ideas and technology to teacher education.

Several private school chains such as Beaconhouse and Roots School Systems have developed their own in-house processes to train teachers with technology and to use technology in the classroom. The Roots School Systems’ Millennial Enhanced Learning and Teaching (MELT) Programme encompasses the three basic areas; i.e. curriculum

110 SAHE and Alif Ailaan, (2014), The voice of teachers: learning from teachers across Pakistan, Islamabad: Alif Ailaan. xii-122 pp.

110

111

111

UNESCO-USAID, (2006), Situation Analysis of Teacher Education in Pakistan: Towards a Strategic Framework for Teacher Education and Profess- ional Development, UNESCO

112

112 Ibid.


for the students, technology for classrooms, and training for teachers. MELT’s aim is to enhance creativity and innovation amongst students and teachers. MELT Programme introduces smart boards, Windows-based tablets for teachers, and COWs (Computers on Wheels) in all Roots’ class-rooms. These e�orts notwithstanding there is not enough content available or technology in the hands of the teachers to e�ectively teach with technology in the classrooms.


These challenges may highlight avenues for further development:

There is a need for proper teacher certi�cation and licensing and quality assurance of curricu-lum-relevant content to be available to teachers seeking to teach through technology.

There is dire need for more content to be devel-oped on a priority basis, perhaps, through a co-pro-duction or crowdsourcing model allowing a large number of teachers to develop standardized content cost-free.

There is a need for greater sharing of best practic-es and experiences within a teachers’ community of practice enabled, ideally, through an online portal accessible to all.

There is need to develop an ICT in education strategy at the provincial level with the consultation of the provincial departments of education to tackle ICT issue rationally. The strategy will help the education department to develop PC-1 to allocate funds further to implement ICT at the provincial and district levels.

In Pakistan, the use of learning management systems has grown as the scope and scale of educa-tional institutions has increased over the years. Starting from the e�ciency gains of automating traditional campus and learning processes, the use of LMS’ has now entered more sophisticated realms such as the collection and dissemination of various kinds of media, lesson planning, and online collaboration.

As these uses have become more demanding, however, the LMS’ shifted away from purpose built in-house solutions to more mature proprietary and open source software such as Moodle. Though, there is still a large number of small learning man-agement systems that were developed from scratch for a particular client. The Smart Schools (TSS) – a franchise of the Citi Schools System – uses relevant Information and Communication Technology (ICT) such as computer labs, a web portal, and a combination of e-learning and traditional teaching tools to support its Edtech initiative. The web-based learning management system allows users to access an e-library equipped with interactive simulations, animations, presenta-tions, and tutorials, allows parents and teachers to keep track of student progress, and communicate with each other on a regular basis. Opportunities for Further Development

Although learning management systems represent only a part of the solution, there are still a number of features of learning management systems that could bene�t from further development. These include:

Greater development within the open source community to create systems that are easier to deploy, modify, maintain and use. Improvements in graphical user interfaces and usability (e.g. drag and drop features) and integra-tion with a variety of open source content and media to enable less-trained teachers to easily use these systems.

Greater simplicity within learning management systems to allow usage in simpler formats (such as mobile devices) and �exibility for use in cross-platform environments.

Enable learning management systems to integrate with the crowd sourcing or user gener-ated content movement to self-populate with appropriate content.

3.4.4 Learning Management Systems in Pakistan


3.4.5 Gami�ed Education in Pakistan

Gami�ed education is in its infancy in Pakistan with the �rst developers making pioneering inroads into this exciting and emerging area. There are a number of relatively small players based out of Pakistan that are producing gami�ed education solutions for an international market. Agnitus Inc. is a US-based venture funded start-up with founder roots and a development o�ce in Pakistan that seeks to gamify education for learners of Grades K through 5. Agnitus Learning App provides access to over 60 titles that seem to improve learning capabilities and literacy retention while enhancing thinking and reasoning skills. Agnitus believes in fun and engag-ing education that allows kids to learn more. Agni-tus’ Learning Platform has been well-received and it has won accolades including 2014 NAPPA Gold Award for National Parenting Publications Associa-tionand two KAPI (Kids@Play) Awards for Best Children’s App (for pre-readers) and Best Education Technology.

Other players include GeniTeam and Folio3 (Secret Builders), which produce gami�ed educational content for early learners aimed at the Global (primarily US) maket.

The Knowledge Platform recently launched a new platform that allows learners to compete with each other on simple Maths challenges in multiplayer settings. Knowledge Platform’s o�erings are mostly targeted at the Asia Paci�c market with deploy-ments already underway in China and Pakistan.

Other new entrants experimenting with gami�ca-tion include entities such as NUST’s Innovative Technologies in Education (ITE) programme,3Re-start, and Jugnu Games, among others.


Gami�cation is clearly a fast-growing trend. It is also in the very early stages of development in Pakistan and require further e�orts towards:

Development of educational games for low-cost platforms (such as normal phones, smart phones, and other one-to-many devices) that would allow their mainstreaming in poor neighborhoods.

Use of ‘learning analytics’ and personalized feedback in a culturally relevant way to direct e�orts towards at-risk learners in order to improve their retention power, etc.


3.4.6 Local Content in Pakistan

The local content movement within Pakistan is relatively new. Generally, schools that do use forms of ICT4E or Edtech use content already available on the web to mix and match what is required. This content sometimes does, but often does not, correspond with the national curriculum. Over the years, there have been e�orts to develop some of this curriculum by Khan Academy clones (such as Sabaq Foundation) as well as other provid-ers (such as JugnuTV, TeleTaleem, and Knowledge Platform etc.). Sabaq Foundation is the oldest and most advanced of these e�orts. Sabaq’s videos have received considerable recognition and traction. These have been downloaded a few hundred thousand times and are being used by a number of institutions such as Citizens Foundation, SOS Children’s Village, Read Foundation, and Dar-e-Arqam Schools. Having recognized lack of internet access as a major roadblock, Sabaq is in discussions with Punjab govern-ment to put these videos on CDs and make these available to students directly. Upto 100,000 of these CDs are planned to be distributed. Punjab E.Learn – the Government’s e-learning portal – also uses Sabaq Foundation’s videos alongside its content. Thus far, there has been no systematic study of learning impact carried out by Sabaq Foundation.

Jugnu TV is an internally-�nanced project of 3i Logic – an e-learning and Edtech company. JugnuTV is made for Pakistan and is based largely on national curriculum guidelines. Jugnu TV currently has �ve subject areas, each of which has central characters for kids to relate to. Titles include Aao-Ur-du-Seekhain (Urdu), Piyara Pakistan (History and Geography), Little Scientist (Science), Maths Mon-ster(Mathematics), and Let’s Learn English (English Language). Each of these title areas contain short lessons, games and animated nursery rhymes and stories.

There have also been government-led e�orts to create local content ranging from merely digitizing textbooks to introducing other media elements such as video lectures and simulations, etc. Punjab E.Learn is a project of the Punjab govern-ment which comprises a web portal that has digitized and aggregated the curriculum for the Punjab Text Book Board for grades 6 through 10 for Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Maths, and Science. This curriculum has been augmented by animations, videos, simulations, and assessments to make these sessions more lively and engaging. The Punjab government is pushing for the adoption of this portal by public schools that fall under its various jurisdictions.


In spite of these e�orts the production or provision of localized content has generally lagged across all platforms – desktop, web, and mobile. There are several opportunities for further development:

There is a dire need to develop a local content industry and a market in Pakistan. This can be achieved through a concerted push from

educational community, telecom companies or an act of policy/regulation (e.g. by PTA).

There is a need to create credentialing and quality assurance processes that help encourage generation of quality content. This could then create opportunities for using crowd-sourced or usergenerated content.


“”

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Policy Recommendations

Conclusions: Gaps in Pakistan’s existing Edtech Eco-System

The real role of leadership in education – its true at national, state, and school level – is not and should not be command and control. The real role of leadership is climate control. Creating a climate of possibility. And if you do that people will rise to it and achieve things that you completely did not anticipate and could not have expected.

Sir Ken Robinson, Educational Critic, Edtech Evangelist, in How to Escape Education's Valley of Death


4. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The sections above provide a brief snapshot of Pakistan’s e-/m-learning landscape. This section summaries these ideas and lessons learnt to de�ne the gaps within the e-/m-learning eco-system of Pakistan.

4.1 Conclusions: Gaps in Pakistan’s existing Edtech Eco-system

A number of conclusions can be drawn from the above analysis, which further lead to recommendations discussed in section 4.2.

Pakistan’s ICT, mobile gaming and applications industry is home to high-level technical capability to deliver world-class e-/m-learning software and content.A number of Pakistani software and mobile apps development companies have the capability to deliver high quality products and services. GameView Studios, TinTash, GeniTeam, Mindstorm Studios, to name only a few, have made a name for themselves by delivering high quality services for foreign and their own game titles. Some of this capability can be deployed in support of the educational software market in Pakistan.

Pakistan is also home to signi�cant domain expertise in the educational technology space that is successfully delivering high-end educational products to clients worldwide.Companies such as Agnitus and Arbisoft stand out. Agnitus hosts a development center in Islamabad that is responsible for its award winning product – The Agnitus Learning Programme – that is being used by thousands of users in developed markets such as the United States. Arbisoft produces and delivers high-end content for Ten Marks – a US company that was recently acquired by Amazon.com as well as other leading players in the US. These two examples clearly demonstrate the potential not only of producing high-end educational software and content on spec but also the ability to manage the idea to commercialization process.

There are also a number of indigenous and innovative solutions developed speci�cally to cater to conditions within Pakistan.Tele-Taleem’s Ilm-on-Wheels uses mobile vans equipped with tablets, satellite communications, and power supply to go in far-�ung areas that are deprived of electricity to deliver e-learning. Beaconhouse’s computer on wheels (COWs) programme has been speci�cally designed to deal with frequent power outages even within urban centers. Power FM 99’s Broadclass solution uses a low-end and readily avail-able technology, such as a radio, to reach out to classes in both urban and rural areas. The project distrib-uted its own rechargeable radios to address the electricity challenge. These examples demonstrate that innovative thinking can address the challenges confronted by developers of e-/m-learning platforms and initiatives.

There is a considerable lack of local language-based content in Pakistan.Most of the content available is either of a rather rudimentary nature or is simply not enough to deal with the fast growing needs of the society. In recent years, there have been e�orts to create (or translate) content in local languages (particularly Urdu). Sabaq Foundation, for instance, has translated and


and localized considerable portion of Khan Academy’s lectures and added to it and made it available for free. To�eeTV has developed animated nursery rhymes in Urdu primarily aimed at the expatriate market. Dheere Bolo is another venture that has delved into the local content market as have JugnooMedia and JugnuTV. There are several others but their numbers are insigni�cant as compared to what would be required to meet the content challenge. A similar situation prevails vis-à-vis the need for localized content in the aftermath of the 3G/4G auctions.

There is an under-developed ’market’ for educational software and content in Pakistan. Most of the localized content is available for free and not monetized thus seriously undermining e�orts to create commercial ventures aimed at local content creation. On the whole, there is not yet a fully developed ‘market’ for either educational software or content thus dampening the enthusiasm of market players to enter. There are several reasons for this, including lack of enforcement of intellectual property rights, small market size, lack of quality certi�cation, absence of veri�able performance and impact data, among others. Most e�orts right now are either an entrepreneur’s unfunded ‘labour of love’ or supported by donors like Ilm Ideas or Sub-National Governance Programme (SNG), among others.

There is insu�cient information and sharing of best practices within the educational technology sphere. There are no organized platforms for sharing of information and best practices within the educational technology sphere. This often results in multiple e�orts trying to do the same thing thus leading to duplication, ine�cient use of resources, and a slow learning curve for the industry. For instance, there are now a number of potential players seeking to develop local content for grades K-12, many of them using Khan Academy’s content to dub it in local language / dialect. Yet, nobody knows who is doing what and how to coordinate this distributed and fragmented content development e�ort so that things could be done better and faster. Similarly, a few players are beginning to experiment with blended learning and have learnt to lower the device-to-pupil ratios. However, this knowledge is not trickling down to those who are still looking for budgets to buy laptops or tablets for every child.

Learning initiatives in Pakistan, particularly within the public sector, are usually hardware focused.As with most other development work, ‘hardware’ takes priority and is preferred over software. Yet, in the case of educational technology initiatives, technology is merely a small part of the overall solution. Content, as they say, ‘is the king,’ and this is where most Pakistani initiatives – particularly those within the public sector - seriously lack. Most conversation about learning innovation and interventions begin with setting up a computer lab or buying the best (or the cheapest) tablets without much a conversa-tion about how would the content be created, who will choose it, and what would it cost. Subsequently, while hardware is procured with much fanfare, content development only receives cursory interest as an after-thought and is usually collected in a haphazard manner.

Creating e�ective solutions in Pakistan requires innovating within the constraints de�ned by the country’s unique situation.Electricity, for instance, is a major challenge in Pakistan and remains the single most important road block to implementing e-/m-learning solutions particularly in rural areas, but also increasingly in urban areas. Most initiatives that we looked at face the lack of electricity as a major challenge rendering some literally worthless. Other challenges may include cultural bottlenecks, poverty, security, and even avail-ability of the internet and these must be kept in mind as entrepreneur-innovator-implementors seek to launch e/m-learning initiatives.

A�ordability must be uppermost in the decision calculus when deciding hardware-software combinations for e/m-learning interventions.It is important to design interventions and pick hardware-software combinations with purchasing power and a�ordability in mind. This means tablets will probably not become a mass solution for Paki-stan’s educational problem for at least the foreseeable short-to-medium term future and lower-cost

devices (SMS phones, or one-to-many terminals) will remain the hardware of choice. Also, this demands that designers of products and services optimize the use of hardware (e.g. using lower power device, where possible) and make use of low-cost options such as Arduino or the Raspberry Pi.

Most e/m-learning initiatives in Pakistan lack the strategy to scale. Most importantly, most e/m-learning initiatives in Pakistan fail to progress beyond the pilot scale and do not have a viable strategy to scale where they could begin to make a dent in Pakistan’s educational challenge. A classic case in point is the UNESCO-Bunyad Foundation project, which delivers high impact for minimal cost and yet has not been able to scale beyond a few thousand people over a half-a-decade. Initiatives must be planned and designed for scalability. Given the important role of the public educa-tion sector in achieving scale and creating a robust and vibrant ICT for education market, the lack of a government strategy on the subject is a major deterring factor.

There is little or no impact data or evidence on what works and what does not work.Finally, there is little or no impact data or scienti�c evidence on what works and what does not, and under what circumstances. Before one can begin to think about scaling an intervention, it is important to know that the intervention works. Even beyond impact data, there is considerable opportunity to learn from various e-/m-learning initiatives. The insights gleaned from actual implementations – even if they did not achieve the desired impact – can be invaluable in planning new interventions or scaling those already tried.

It is important that these lessons learnt - gaps and failings within the e-/m-learning eco-system – are internalized and addressed for e/m-learning to make a noticeable impact on Pakistan’s educational challenges.

Addressing some of the challenges facing education, in general, and Edtech, in particular shall require concerted action on a number of fronts and by various actors within the educational eco-system in Pakistan. Since the passage of the 18th Constittutional Amendment in Pakistan, education is now a provincial subject with little federal control over the matter. The provincial ministries of education and the educational bureaucracy, therefore, becomes of paramount importance in creating and implement-ing any policy geared towards education. A number of policy recommendations emerge from the above analysis:

Recommendation 1: Create programmes and opportunities that encourage rapid prototyping and experimentation with new platforms and content.Edtech or ICT4E, particularly in its current form, is still a very nascent phenomenon in Pakistan. Rapidly advancing technology and declining costs are changing the dynamic of adoption and pushing what is within the realm of the possible. There is a need to quickly learn from a number of experiments to �nd the model (or models) that work under the Pakistani socio-economic environment. We need to create a formal mechanism to encourage and fund such experimentation, perhaps, through a consortium of various donors and actors who may be willing to commit resources towards such learning and experi-mentation. This will be a very small fraction of the overall development budgets of donors but will generate immeasurable value and return through learning within the system.

Recommendation 2: Invest in low-cost, scalable solutions customized to the state of Pakistan’s education sector.When one looks at the landscape of Edtech activity currently happening in Pakistan, there is a lot of emphasis on high end solutions – laptops for everyone, smart boards, tablets, and gami�cation, etc. –

4.2 Policy Recommendations


and while these could become accessible to ordinary people in the medium to longer run, the solution of the immediate future requires something that is low cost and high impact. There is a need to invest in solutions that are appropriate to the local environment and are likely to be replicable and scalable very fast. It is also important that we learn from the examples of projects like the OLPC and Simputer and, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, use low-cost o�-the-shelf components. Similarly, there is a need to fund projects that leverage technology through sharing of devices such as using low-cost clickers vs. other high cost devices, or blended learning systems that utilize one computer for every four students than systems that user one computer per student, and putting technologies in the hands of teachers (e.g. projector phones) than putting them in the hands of students (e.g. tablets in the classroom).

Recommendation 3: Generate evidence of impact and rapidly learn about implementation challenges within variety of deployment contexts.Following from Recommendation 1, there is a clear need to generate evidence of impact as well as create a better understanding of the implementation challenges in a variety of deployment contexts. More often than not, while a lot of e�ort and resources go into creating the intervention in the �rst place, impact assessment or monitoring gets neglected for want of resources and the desire to move forward. A properly resourced research element to measure both qualitative and quantitative impact of the intervention needs to be part of the programme design upfront. This impact assessment should be independent and carried out in a manner that it gets due care to capture important insights about implementation as well. For example, answers to questions like, ‘does a particular kind of intervention only work in urban settings, and not rural schools?’ or ‘does a particular intervention achieve di�erential impacts under di�erent circumstances?’ provide invaluable guides for policy-making and scale up. Recommendation 4: Document, disseminate and adopt best practices and lessons learnt from implemented programmes.As evidence on implemented initiatives begins to grow, there will be value in creating a public reposito-ry of successful programmes and best practices in the implementation process. This resource should be detailed and available to all those seeking to develop, copy, or deploy an Edtech intervention. There are several examples of such resources and the most recent and notable one is the study carried out by the National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts (NESTA) in the United Kingdom that explored the global landscape of learning innovation and captured best practices from a large number of programmes worldwide. Once a community of Edtech professionals and initiatives begin to emerge, there will also be value in having annual conferences, training workshops, and other platforms for sharing of best practices from both national and international front. Recommendation 5: Create master trainer programmes for Edtech and IT Integration.There is considerable dearth of teacher skills and competency to use ICT and Edtech within the curricu-lum. Most e�orts that we examined were somewhat haphazard and sought to take an easier route rather than properly integrate ICT within the curriculum and the classroom. This is understandable given that most teachers are either not formally IT literate or trained in how to integrate IT with the curriculum, or both. Even when they are pushed by the institution to do so, their lack of formal training becomes a major bottleneck and they are often restricted to merely showing videos in the classroom, or using word processer and power point software. Formal teacher training and credentialing at a massive scale are necessary to make Edtech deliver in the classrooms. We recommend using a master trainer approach whereby several teacher trainers are �rst trained and certi�ed by a competent authority who can then go ahead and train teachers in various cities.

NESTA, 2011, Decoding Learning Report, National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts, London, United Kingdom

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Recommendation 6: Take a proactive approach to creating culturally aware, socio-economically appropriate, and cutting edge educational content.The challenge of content creation is far bigger than most single actors can assume. It has to be a collec-tive e�ort to proactively curate content that could feed the Edtech programmes. A crowdsourcing platform to engage hundreds if not thousands of teachers around the country could be one part of this strategy. A concerned plan of action for key stakeholders such as Ministry of IT, PTA, PEMRA, Provincial Ministries, Textbook Boards, various education donors and actors must be another part of this equation. There have been successful examples around the world where a small amount of regulation (for exam-ple requiring every television channel or mobile developer to ensure that a small part of their online or mobile content must be educational in nature) could help catalyze and create a vibrant content industry in the country and may provide an inducement to established �rms as well as new entrepreneurial ventures to enter this market. Similar requirements can be made of international content providers or local entities selling internationally developed content to ensure that foreign language (usually English) content is also translated and made available in Urdu as a precondition for selling into the Pakistani market. Policies like these have worked well in several markets within Asia Paci�c and can play a part in developing a local content industry in Pakistan.

Recommendation 7: State must take a strategic view towards making aproactive policies and strategies for enhancing use of ICT in education. As discussed above, the government’s policy and strategy for ICT4E has important implications for the development of this industry. It is thus important for provinical governments to look at this as a policy issue and develop an ICT for Education strategy as well as allocate funds to implement the action plans. The international agencies and organizations having technical capacity that must assist in development of these ICT strategic plans, if required.


Appendices

Edtech Initiatives - International

Edtech Initiatives - Pakistan

“”

Every education system in the world is being reformed at the moment. And its not enough. Reform is not enough anymore because that’s simply improving a broken model. What we need is not evolution but a revolution in education. This has to be transformed into something else.

- Sir Ken Robinson, Educational Critic and Edtech Evangelist, in Bring on the Learning Revolution

A–CASE STUDIES: GLOBAL SUCCESS STORIES

A1: Global Best Practice Case Study 1 - Malaysian Smart Schools Project

ContextThe Smart Schools Project was one of the seven �agship applications of the Multimedia Super Corri-dor (MSC) initiative as a catalyst for high-value jobs in the country. The conceptual blueprint launched in 1997 by Tun Mahathir Mohamed identi�ed democratization of education and creating a technolo-gy literate workforce as key objectives and created a collaborative e�ort between the Ministry of Education (MoE), the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), and Telekom Smart School (TSS) industry consortium.

InterventionFive elements are key to the Smart School Integrated Solution(SSIS), namely, Teaching-Learning Materials (1,494 items of courseware and printed material for students from Year 1 to Form 5 in four subject areas: Bahasa Melayu, English, Science, and Mathematics); Smart School Management System software for managing and administering student enrolment, educational resources, school �nances, human resources, external resources, facilities, technology, and hostel facilities); Technology Infra-structure provided to schools such as hardware, software and other equipment; Systems Integration (to ensure integration between the various components and processes and to ensure data integrity and security) and Support Services (such as Help Desk services, maintenance and support).

ImpactA Frost & Sullivan benchmark study of the Smart School Integrated Solution with eight other coun-tries (including Australia, Britain, Canada, Singapore, and United States) rated it as an exceptional educational initiative and found that it resulted in more e�cient school processes both in manage-ment and teaching.

Critical Success Factors Strong government leadership throughout the conceptualization, development, and phased implementation of the SSIS initiative across the entire country; A public-private partnership between Government and the private sector for development and deployment; A focused e�ort to develop locally relevant course content that is compatible with the curriculum.

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114 This case study draws heavily from Kalaš, Bannayan et al., (2012), ICT in Primary Education: Analytical Survey - Volume 1: Exploring the Origins, Settings, and Initiatives. Moscow, UNESCO.

Appendices

Kim and Buckner, Integrating Technology and Pedagogy for Inquiry Based Learning: The Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE) available at: http://www.academia.edu/2047298/Integrating_Technology_and_Pedagogy_for_Inquiry_Based _Learning_The_Stanford_Mobile_Inquiry-based_Learning_Environment_SMILE_ Seol, S., Sharp, A., Kim, P., (undated), Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE): Using mobile phones to promote student inquires in the elementary classroom, available at: https://gse-it.stanford.edu/sites/default/�les/worldcomp 11_SMILE.pdf UNESCO, (2012), Mobile Learning for Teachers in Latin America, Paris, France

A2: Global Best Practice Case Study 2 – Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based m-Learning Environment

ContextStanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment (SMILE) aims to help students develop critical thinking, creativity, and reading and writing skills through interactive learning. The SMILE programme was �rst launched in February 2011 in India and Malaysia, and later implemented in Argentina. It seeks to actively engage primary school students in underserved communities in learning, in group, through asking questions.

InterventionThe SMILE mobile platform consists of two basic modules, namely, Junction Quiz which is a mobile-based application that enables students to create multiple choice questions and share them with peers, and a Junction Quiz Controller that allows the teacher to control and monitor progress of all of the students’ activity in real time. Student are divided into groups and encouraged to explore and discuss content to deepen their understanding and knowledge. They then create multiple choice questions using multi-media enhancements and post them on SMILE platform through a smart phone. The teacher (and other students) then review each question and answers with the students. The group with most correct answers wins. The platform enables interactivity as well as ensures high level of engagement with the content.

ImpactSMILE claims to have encouraged teamwork and critical thinking among students by asking them to work in groups as they create multimedia multiple-choice questions. The group work also creates opportunities for participating students to discuss their concerns and it stimulates collaboration within groups as well as healthy competition between them.

Critical Success FactorsThe following features are intentionally designed to maximize the e�ectiveness of the SMILE programme:

Use of multimedia such as graphics and imagery, enhances learners’ involvement; Self directed learningencourages the develop deeper understanding of the content; The process of creating multiple choice questions require deeper comprehension and critical thinking skills; Peer learning and peer-assessment creates a “non-pressured” competitive learning environment; An initial workshop and ongoing support prepares teachers to apply the SMILE method and technology

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A3: Global Best Practice Case Study 3 –Text2Teach Teacher Training Programme in the Philippines

ContextText2Teach is a mobile learning initiative of BridgeIT in the Philippines. BridgeIT is a global network comprising Nokia, the International Youth Foundation (IYF), Pearson and the United Nations Develop-ment Programme (UNDP). The organization aims to improve the basic standards of education across nations focusing on the underprivileged schools in developing countries and enabling teachers to utilize digital resources to supplement the local curricula. This is done through delivering digitized education content to in-classroom TV sets through mobile technology.

InterventionEach school is given a mobile phone, a TV set, a satellite dish, and a storage device that also serves as a video player. Teachers use mobile phones to order videos by sending an SMS containing the catalogue number of the desired video and to communicate with other teachers to compare notes, or share their experiences. The material is downloaded with help of a high memory smartphone loaded with Nokia proprietary software and stored, ready for viewing. The smartphone can be connected to the TV or a projector to screen the video to the whole class. The instructional design of the project is aligned with the Department of Education’s basic education curriculum for Maths, English and Science (Grades 5 and 6).

ImpactMore than half a million students in 555 schools in 9 provinces of the Philippines have bene�ted from Text2Teach. More than 1,500 teachers have also been trained in Math, English and Science subjects, as well as on how to use the ICT (T2T) tools for teaching. The project has had a considerable impact on education. It helped students achieve learning gains in English and Science, improved teachers ICT using skills, and reduced absenteeism and dropout rates. The M&E team at T2T also concluded that T2T increases students’ attentiveness. Children are more interested in watching interesting videos that enables a longer retention of the concepts. Critical Success FactorsThere have been a number of factors that have contributed to the success of the BridgeIT programme in the Philippines and elsewhere. An e�ective project methodology and phased rollout that learns from earlier deployments is one of them as is the presence of a strong partnership of the right kind of institutions and buy-in from the national educational policy agencies. However, the most signi�cant success factor of the BridgeIT programme is its focus on teachers rather than students as the ultimate user – though not necessarily the bene�ciaries – of technology. Instead of using technology to bypass them, the project acknowledged the essential role of teachers and helped expand their pedagogical and curricular repertoires by training them to leverage technology. Each video is accompanied by a lesson plan there by reducing teachers’workloads and making their jobs simpler. Teachers are also trained in how to integrate the videos into lessons and to use the mobile devices to share best prac-tices and experiences with peers.

Ayala Foundation, (2011) UNESCO, (2012), Implications for Policy Makers and Planners, Paris, France Ayala Foundation, (2011)

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Appendices

devices (SMS phones, or one-to-many terminals) will remain the hardware of choice. Also, this demands that designers of products and services optimize the use of hardware (e.g. using lower power device, where possible) and make use of low-cost options such as Arduino or the Raspberry Pi.

Most e/m-learning initiatives in Pakistan lack the strategy to scale. Most importantly, most e/m-learning initiatives in Pakistan fail to progress beyond the pilot scale and do not have a viable strategy to scale where they could begin to make a dent in Pakistan’s educational challenge. A classic case in point is the UNESCO-Bunyad Foundation project, which delivers high impact for minimal cost and yet has not been able to scale beyond a few thousand people over a half-a-decade. Initiatives must be planned and designed for scalability. Given the important role of the public educa-tion sector in achieving scale and creating a robust and vibrant ICT for education market, the lack of a government strategy on the subject is a major deterring factor.

There is little or no impact data or evidence on what works and what does not work.Finally, there is little or no impact data or scienti�c evidence on what works and what does not, and under what circumstances. Before one can begin to think about scaling an intervention, it is important to know that the intervention works. Even beyond impact data, there is considerable opportunity to learn from various e-/m-learning initiatives. The insights gleaned from actual implementations – even if they did not achieve the desired impact – can be invaluable in planning new interventions or scaling those already tried.

It is important that these lessons learnt - gaps and failings within the e-/m-learning eco-system – are internalized and addressed for e/m-learning to make a noticeable impact on Pakistan’s educational challenges.

Addressing some of the challenges facing education, in general, and Edtech, in particular shall require concerted action on a number of fronts and by various actors within the educational eco-system in Pakistan. Since the passage of the 18th Constittutional Amendment in Pakistan, education is now a provincial subject with little federal control over the matter. The provincial ministries of education and the educational bureaucracy, therefore, becomes of paramount importance in creating and implement-ing any policy geared towards education. A number of policy recommendations emerge from the above analysis:

Recommendation 1: Create programmes and opportunities that encourage rapid prototyping and experimentation with new platforms and content.Edtech or ICT4E, particularly in its current form, is still a very nascent phenomenon in Pakistan. Rapidly advancing technology and declining costs are changing the dynamic of adoption and pushing what is within the realm of the possible. There is a need to quickly learn from a number of experiments to �nd the model (or models) that work under the Pakistani socio-economic environment. We need to create a formal mechanism to encourage and fund such experimentation, perhaps, through a consortium of various donors and actors who may be willing to commit resources towards such learning and experi-mentation. This will be a very small fraction of the overall development budgets of donors but will generate immeasurable value and return through learning within the system.

Recommendation 2: Invest in low-cost, scalable solutions customized to the state of Pakistan’s education sector.When one looks at the landscape of Edtech activity currently happening in Pakistan, there is a lot of emphasis on high end solutions – laptops for everyone, smart boards, tablets, and gami�cation, etc. –

A4: Global Best Practice Case Study 4 – Moodle Learning Management System (LMS)

ContextMoodle is an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. It was originally developed as a free Course Management System (CMS) by Martin Dougiamas, an Australian graduate student in 1999 and the platform was released to the public in 2002. Moodle was designed from two basic components – PHP (the language for building dynamic web pages) and MySQL (Structured Query Language which is one of the world's most popular open source database) – as a �exible environment to help educators create online courses and promote collaborative learning. Currently, there are 174,350 registered sites using Moodle to o�er almost 12 million courses to around 112 million users across the globe in 255 countries. This makes Moodle the most widely used learning platform. InterventionMany institutions use Moodle to supplement classroom-based instruction with online content, known as blended learning. Basic building blocks of Moodle include registration and enrollment, course management and lesson planning, communications, site management, and user management. It can accommodate a variety of activities such as chat, choice, forum, glossary, lesson, quiz, resource, survey, wiki, workshop etc. Moreover, based on its ease of use it suits for low resource organisations like schools, non pro�ts and small businesses. Additional features in a recent version (2.5) include support for game based learning. Moodle Gami�cation toolkit includes group formation, results block, progress bar, certi�cates, activity completion, and badges that can be awarded after completing a certain activity or a course. ImpactMoodle’s impact has not been formally studied, although there are conferences, including a Moodle Research Conference that has been organized to study the impact of Moodle on learning. It was attended by 70 delegates from 22 countries. One measure of Moodle’s success would be the level of deployment. In August 2014, Moodle had a user-base of 88,070 registered sites with 76,675,352 users in 8,324,096 courses in 241 countries. The site with the most users, moodle.org, has 66 courses and 1,090,234 users. Following a £5 million investment in 2005, The Open University, UK is the second-largest Moodle deployment by user-base, with 714,310 users and 6,093 courses. A large Moodle developer community around the globe has emerged which is supported by a core team of 20 developers at Moodle HQ, further supported by tightly connected global developers, testers, documentation writers.

Success FactorsAs with any free and open source software, one of the most important hallmarks of Moodle’s success is its ability to assimilate user-driven feedback and innovation as it is created and re�ned by a global community of designers, developers, and testers – many of whom are themselves early-adopters and

Moodle, (2014), Moodle Website: http://www.moodle.org Ulmane-Ozolina, L., Kulmane, V., and Kazakevica, M., (2011), Collaboration Tools in Higher Education Students Everyday Life and Learning, published in International Journal of Teaching and Case Studies, vol. 3, Nos. 2/3/4 Moodle, (2014), Moodle Website: http://www.moodle.org http://www.monarchmedia.com/enewsletter_2010-3/open-source-lms-sakai-and-moodle.pdf Classroom-Aid, (2013), Gamifying Learning with Moodle, available at: http://classroom-aid.com/2013/11/18/gamifying-learning-with -moodle-gbl/ Jenner, M., (2012), The Future of Moodle is Well Within Our Grasp, available at: http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/ele/2012/09/17/the-future-of- moodle-is-well-within-our-grasp/ Moodle Wikipedia Entry available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle (Accessed: May 20, 2015) Ibid. Jenner, M., (2012), The Future of Moodle is Well Within Our Grasp, available at: http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/ele/2012/09/17/the- future-of-moodle-is-well-within-our-grasp/

users i.e. teachers – who bring in in-depth knowledge of what works within the classroom and what doesn’t along with the passion and energy that drives an open source movement. The fact that Moodle is free to install also means that this user-generated experience is relatively inexpensive and removes the ambiguity and additional layer of information loss between users and developers.

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ContextMinecraft is a popular game developed by Mojang of Sweden (recently acquired by Microsoft). Minecraft allows players to build constructions out of textured cubes in a 3Dgenerated world. Activi-ties include exploration, resource acquisition, crafting, and combat. The game can be played in multiple ways including survival modes where the player must acquire resources to build the world and maintain health, a creative mode where players have unlimited resources to build and the ability to �y, and an adventure mode where players play custom maps created by other players. As if October 2014, nearly 54 million copies have been sold across all platforms, making it one of the best-selling video games of all time. Playing Minecraft leads to several educational bene�ts as well and many have commented on it. In 2012, Cody Sumter, a researcher at MIT, for instance, has said "Notch hasn't just built a game. He's tricked 40 million people into learning to use a CAD program."

InterventionIn 2011, an educational organization named MinecraftEdu was formed with the goal of introducing Minecraft into schools. The group works with Mojang to make the game a�ordable and accessible to schools.MinecraftEdu transforms Minecraft into a teacher-directed virtual learning environment. All of the open-ended possibilitiesof the base game still exist in MinecraftEdu, but with dashboard features that allow teachers more control. With MinecraftEdu, teachers can quickly host servers and build custom maps with integrated content as well as create and administer assignments and lessons. There is also a useful set of classroom management tools that make it easy to de�ne player abilities and items, to freeze, mute, and teleport students, and to create speci�c building areas with player permis-sions. For an example, one teacher built a world consisting of various historical landmarks for students to learn and explore. Another teacher uses MinecraftEdu to set up a class on Middle East.

ImpactIn September 2012, MinecraftEdu said that approximately 250,000 students around the world have access to Minecraft through the company. A number of teachers have reported using MinecraftEdu in classroomswith a variety of bene�ts including greater student interest, encourage creativity and collaboration, among other things.

Minecraft Wikipedia entry at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft Waxman, Olivia, (September 21, 2012). "MinecraftEdu Teaches Students Through Virtual World-Building," Time. https://www.graphite.org/game/minecraftedu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft

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Success factors Building on already existing networks: MinecraftEdu creates the network e�ects necessary for adoption;

Developer Communities: MinecraftEdu depends upon a growing community of developers (within Mojang and outside) as well as content creators – often teachers themselves – to quickly adapt and create that keeps the platforms to date;

Structured Discovery: MinecraftEdu provides additional features and control for the teacher that allows students’ gameplay structured and objectives-oriented that enabling them to learn what is intended rather than getting bogged down with the fun part of the game only.

Appendices

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A5: Global Best Practice Case Study 5 – MinecraftEDU

A6: Global Best Practice Case Study 6 – Content Development through Khan Academy

ContextKhan Academy is a non-pro�t educational website, founded by ‘accidental’ educationist Salman Khan to provide "a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere." The organization produces micro lectures in the form of YouTube videos. The purpose is to transform traditional classroom based learning to a personalized learning experience and provide learners with educational resources for free in any part of the world. The viewers listen to conversational tutorials and view step-by-step doodles and diagrams on an electronic board. While tutorials can be paused, a classroom lecture cannot be. Therefore, learners can take breaks to re�ect upon the knowledge gained and integrate it with their prior information.

InterventionThe Khan Academy Platform features a number of key elements including: a library of content covering math, science and humanities, with playlists on �nance and history. Students can make use of this extensive library of content, including interactive challenges, videos that can be accessed from any computer with access to the web; practice problems that tests learners’ capabilities to answer questions; feedback on time spent and where that time is spent that allows teachers (coaches) and parents can also have unprecedented visibility into what their students are learning and doing on Khan Academy. The website features around 5,500 instructional videos and 100,000 practice prob-lems for a variety of topics. The website also sequences content through a knowledge map and makes use of gami�cation elements such badges, etc. to incentivize children to learn.

ImpactThe platform serves near 10 million students across the world in 200 countries every month. The website has received a lot of visibility and celebrity endorsements including from Bill Gates and President Obama and a number of Khan Academy clones have come forward to localize its content to di�erent areas. Many non-pro�t organizations have also distributed the o�ine versions of these videos to rural areas in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Systematic studies of learning impact of Khan Academy’s videos are only now being carried out in controlled environments in certain Schools in San Jose.

Appendices

B—CASE STUDIES: LOCAL SUCCESS STORIES

B1: Local Best Practice Case Study 1 – “The Broadclass – Listen to Learn” e-Learning Initiative

ContextFunded by Ilm Ideas (DFID funded) and implemented by the Communicators (Pvt.) Limited in collaboration with Power 99 FM Radio station, Broadclass uses interactive Radio Instruction (IRI) to improve literacy, numeracy and healthy habits among young children (Age 3-8). Intervention The programme delivers 45-minute radio broadcasts daily, except for Sundays, exam days, and holidays, which are followed by students in teacher-facilitated classrooms as well as out-of-school children aimed at Math, English, and Healthy habits. Short pauses in the scripts enable teachers and students to participate in the radio programme by responding verbally and physically to questions and activities posed by radio characters. The content and pedagogy are based on the national curriculum. A dry battery radio was provided to each target classroom to ensure that schools where there are frequent electricity outages do not miss out on lessons.

ImpactThe programme has been initially piloted in 45 schools in �ve urban and rural areas of Islamabad, reaching approximately 120 classrooms (KG – Grade 1). Moreover, for lessons to be as e�ective as possible, it incorporates evaluations and feedback from parents throughout the year that further improves the quality of lessons. In contrast to other IRI programs, Listen to Learn radio programme gives greater attention to student interactivity and prompts their imagination. Critical Success Factors Teacher Training: Teachers were provided an initial 3-day training on how Interactive Radio works and how to facilitate the classes along with additional 20-minute teacher-focused radio broadcasts featuring teacher guides and other educational material.

Localized content: The content and activities of the radio program are mapped to the Pakistani national curriculum and are delivered through a series of structured learning episodes in which students are prompted to respond, do individual and group work, and perform learning tasks. Stakeholders’ involvement: The project successfully engaged various stakeholders, including the Federal Department of Capital Administration & Development (CADD), Provincial and District Educa-tion Departments in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), heads of participating schools, teachers as well as the children, and established an e�ective partnership.

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The Communicators Presentation, (2013), Broad Class – Listen to Learn, available at: http://www.meducationalliance.org/docs/Symposium-2013/Presentations/The%20Communicators_Broad%20Class%20Listen%20to%20Learn%20Presentation.pdfCenter for Education Innovations (2014), Broad Class - Listen to Learn, available at: http://www.educationinnovations.org/program/broad-class-listen-learn

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B2: Local Best Practice Case Study 2 – UNESCO-BUNYAD: Literacy Promotion through m-Learning

ContextLiteracy Promotion through Mobile Phones Project was initiated in 2009 in Lahore, Pakistan as a collaboration between UNESCO, Bunyad Foundation, and the mobile service provider, Mobilink. The project uses mobile phones to deliver basic literacy material to out-of-school youth, particularly women, to sustain interest in learning and enhance retention. InterventionThe participants are �rst taught a basic literacy course and then provided with mobile phones that received SMS messages. Messages contain basic literacy content in a fun and engaging style and learners are invited to read and respond. The participants copy messages in notebooks, reading out repeatedly, and answer questions through SMS. Teachers – properly trained to use mobile phones – interact and follow progress of students. ImpactThe project was piloted with 250 female learners in 3 districts in Punjab. Target and control groups were used to assess the impact of the intervention. 60% of the girls who used the system (target)earned an ‘A’ grade on the assessment while only 28% of those who did not use the system (control) thus demonstrating signi�cant learning gains in an a�ordable (about $50 per student) manner. Moreover, the learners reported enjoying the use of mobile phones resulting into greater self-con�dence, especially girls who shared their skills with family members.

Success factors Blended learning approach: The programme used a blended learning approach whereby face-to-face (in-class) instruction was supplemented with mobile learning and not any one of these alone;

Low cost mobile phones: The programme used low-cost mobile phones with simple text (SMS) based instruction that are already popular and relatively available in Pakistan. Distributed phones had other spillover bene�ts for participants too;

Compatibility with curriculum:The mobile-based post literacy programme was compatible with existing basic literacy programmes being implemented in Pakistan; Strong local partnerships: The programme depended upon strong local partnerships, particularly with Bunyad Foundation, an NGO with strong local roots, and Mobilink to ensure take up and success.

UNESCO (2013) Policy guidelines for Mobile Learning, Paris, France. Miyazawa, I., (2009), Literacy Promotion through Mobile Phones, Project Brief Paper, UNESCO, Islamabad, Pakistan, presented at The 13th UNESCO-APEID International Conference and World Bank-KERIS High Level Seminar on ICT in Education.

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B3: Local Best Practice Case Study 3 – AKU-IED: ICT Integration through Teacher Training

ContextWhile ICT4E has been in vogue in Pakistan for at least a couple of decades, most teachers are not properly trained to integrate ICT in the educational process. As a result, they end up using technology in a very super�cial and rudimentary manner. For instance, ICT4E interventions often focus on teach-ers presenting lectures on power points or forcing students to do the same falling far short of taking full advantage of the range of capabilities that new media and technology provides. This can only be addressed through focused pedagogical training that enables teachers to integrate technology in the curriculum.

InterventionThe Aga Khan University’s Institute of Education Development (AKU-IED) has, for many years, o�ered a 6 month immersive teacher training programme that is attended not only by teachers from across Pakistan but also throughout AKU’s international network that focuses on technology integration in the curriculum rather than just technology adoption. Teachers are selected through a process where-by principals nominate teachers who are often already engaged in ICT education with an understand-ing that they will provide these teachers with considerable autonomy to apply the lessons learnt during training. Teachers undergo an initial period of face-to-face instruction followed by a mix of onsite lectures and o�site implementation that maximizes learning.

ImpactThe project has had considerable impact on a majority of the participants. The phased approach allows participants to fully absorb content before they are required to start applying it in real-life situations within their own careers and this allows for immediate impact. Analysis of programme reveals that participants who are likely to be in decision-making positions are more likely to deliver impact than those that don’t.

Success factors Blended learning approach: The programme uses a blended learning approach whereby face-to-face (in-class) instruction is supplemented with o�site practical application of the work;

Top-level buy-in: The programme enables top-level buy-in by requesting that school principals nominate the teachers for the programme with explicit understanding that their support would be forthcoming to enable the teachers to apply what they’ve learnt in the classrooms;

Focus on pedagogy: The programme focuses heavily on the pedagogy of integrating technology within the classroom and fully equips the teacher with the tools necessary to make technology meaningful.


B4: Local Best Practice Case Study 4 – 3iLogic: A Moodle-based Learning Management System

Context3iLogic is an e-learning and corporate training solutions provider in Karachi. It creates proprietary content as well as does custom content development for clients. Content types include lessons, games, animations, simulations, assessments etc. In particular, 3iLogic uses Moodle-based solutions and have customized these for corporate learning and educational markets. 3iLogic has also been very active in the Moodle Developer Community having created several Moodle responsive themes and plugins.

Intervention3iLogic has developed a range of di�erent interventions based on the Moodle Platform. These include: Moodle Theme Plugins available-for-free onthe Moodle community – three of which have been among Top 20 Theme Downloads at the Moodle community website; Moodle Block Plugins are add-ons that integrate with Moodle such as SMS Noti�er, Learning Plan, Advanced Learning Plan, Course Status Tracker, etc.; Management Reports that provide users with detailed reporting features; Enperio LMSis a Moodle based corporate and educational learning management system solution; low-cost LMS for education; and Mobile Moodle Solutions.

Impact3iLogic’s Moodle products have been well-received. Three of 3iLogic’s Moodle responsive themes are listed in Moodle’s Top 20 Downloads list at the Moodle Community with 30,000+ downloads globally. Its Moodle users include businesses, educational institutions, non-pro�ts and government depart-ments in more than 30 countries. Recently, 3iLogic has been awarded as an o�cial Moodle partner for Pakistan.

Success factors Instead of reinventing the wheel, 3i Logic used a pre-existing and mature solution and sought to create value on top of it.

3iLogic experimented and invested resources in in-house R&D to develop capability and excel-lence in a narrow domain.

Email interview with Yahya Faruqi, Chief Executive of 3iLogic.138

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B5: Local Best Practice Case Study 5 -- Agnitus: Cutting Edge Educational Games for Export

ContextAgnitus Inc. is a US-based venture funded start-up with founder roots and a development o�ce in Pakistan that seeks to gamify education for learners of Grades K through 5. Agnitus Learning App provides access to over 60 titles that claim to improve learning capabilities and literacy retention while enhancing thinking and reasoning skills. Agnitus believes in fun and engaging education that allows kids to learn more.

InterventionAgnitus claims to provide the curriculum necessary for a child to ‘experience and master a broad variety of skills: recognizing colors and shapes, basic counting and sorting, enabling someone from preschool to 3rd grade for ‘just-right entry into structured learning environments’. Curriculum is divided into foundation skills, writing and language, math, and the world. The most critical founda-tion skills include development readiness (i.e. visual scanning, memory, motor control, attention), arts and music, as well as pattern classi�cations, etc. Progress reports and analytics are generated on a daily basis so that the right measures can be taken at the appropriate time to rectify problems. Di�erent educational apps are available through a monthly subscription; while kids can choose from a variety of available games, parents have the ability to get detailed progress that enables them to track their child’s progress over time.

ImpactAgnitus’ Learning Platform has been well-received and it has won accolades, including 2014 NAPPA Gold Award for National Parenting Publications Association and two KAPI (Kids@Play) Awards for Best Children’s App (for pre-readers) and Best Education Technology. There is currently no publicly avail-able usage data available on Agnitus Learning Platform. Success FactorsKey success factors in Agnitus’ success is its visually pleasing graphics, extensive use of game elements, data-driven reporting and use of learning theory to drive interaction.

http://www.agnitus.com/curriculum.html http://www.agnitus.com/blog/ http://kapiawards.com/2014-kapi-awards/agnitus/

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B6: Local Best Practice Case Study 6 – Sabaq Foundation: A Khan Academy Clone

ContextIn Pakistan quality of instruction in the classrooms is quite poor with teacher absenteeism rampant particularly in the public sector schools. Even if the teacher does come to the class, his (or her) creden-tials and quality of delivery is far from perfect leaving the students with no other access to materials and instruction. Access to online materials is also severely limited and most materials are not available in local languages. According to a mapping carried out by Sabaq Foundation, about 70% of material on Khan Academy for grades 6-10 is easily mapped to the national curriculum and may only need some investment in localization. InterventionSabaq Foundation mostly takes instructional videos in Maths, Science (Physics, Chemistry, Biology) from Khan Academy and produces similar videos – localized from a language and culture perspective – for the Pakistani curriculum. Videos for other areas of curriculum that do not easily match with already available material are produced from scratch. These are then mapped onto the national curriculum and uploaded on a website. Sabaq has so far completed Maths and Science curriculums for grades 6-10 as well as O/A levels. These videos are available for free for anyone to view online. InterventionSabaq’s videos have received considerable recognition and traction. These have been downloaded a few hundred thousand times and are being used by a number of institutions such as Citizens Founda-tion, SOS Children’s Village, Read Foundation, and Dar-e-Arqam Schools. Having recognized lack of internet access as a major roadblock, Sabaq is in discussions with Punjab Government (Chief Ministers O�ce) to put these videos on CDs and make these available to students directly. Upto 100,000 of these CDs are planned to be distributed. Punjab E.Learn – the Government’s e-learning portal – also uses Sabaq Foundation’s videos alongside its content. Thus far, there has been no systematic study of learning impact carried out by Sabaq Foundation.

Success factorsThe most critical factor for the growing acceptance of Sabaq Foundation’s videos is their price, zero. This, unfortunately, is also a major weakness. Students may be able to try a ‘no-cost’ option. However, they may not take it as seriously as they if they were paying to use the videos. (Note: The completion rate for free courses is between 4 and 6%). Selling these videos for a fee may require considerable reputational investment not unlike tuition centers that sell seats for hefty sums on the basis of the reputations of rock-star tutors.

Appendices


B7: Local Best Practice Case Study 7 – TeleTaleem: Using Evidence to Scale Edtech Solutions

ContextTeleTaleem (T2) is a social enterprise that spun-o� from Comcept (Pvt.) Ltd. – a fairly successful telecom hardware and software company based in Islamabad. T2 leverages its deep expertise in of the telecom sector coupled with that of the learning cycle to create a technology and content delivery platform that platform that seeks to address Pakistan’s Educational Challenges. One of the key features of T2’s o�ering is the mobility through the use of a fully equipped mobile van (‘School Garee’) – an independent self-con-tained connectivity platform to deliver education services in remote settings. The School Garee has satellite based internet connectivity, IT infrastructure, and an uninterrupted power supply to deploy a digital classroom, on demand, in any location. InterventionT2 o�ers a number of speci�c learning interventions, namely, Rapid Assessment, Learning Boost, and Learning Mela, among others. T2 services are delivered through an Advanced Learning Environment (ALE), which is a combination of �ve sub-systems; Learning Management System, Content Management System, Virtual Classroom, Assessment System and Reporting Portal. The Learning Boost is a full spectrum teacher training program to work on multiple teaching-learning dimensions to achieve signi�cant gains in teacher-student competencies. It o�ers, for instance, provides schools with specially developed and curated content, delivered through a mix of onsite and o�ine facilitators, teachers, and teacher facilita-tors, followed by an assessment of outcomes through the use of tablets already available in the package. Content is either adapted or produced.

Located remotely and connected via the digital classroom, Master Trainers (MTs) interact live with teach-ers, to provide training and mentoring. Every teacher is provided with a tablet containing all the content used during training and beyond. The tablets also contain an assessment app, used by teachers to forma-tively assess their students before coming in for training; teachers are guided by MTs to better diagnose and respond e�ectively to learner needs. The assessment results are uploaded from tablets to a reporting portal, accessible to MTs, school administrators, education managers and parents. Results are also dissem-inated via SMS.

All of this is delivered through the fully equipped mobile van which makes it possible for schools in far-�ung districts to also bene�t from T2’s o�erings.

Impact: In all, T2 has implemented 7 technology enabled education programs, with a total value of US$ 2.5m. The geographic spread covered 6 di�erent districts, with the ADB assignment covering even a broader footprint in KP and Punjab, deploying a team of about 200 professionals and consultants.

The Learning Boost has been incrementally re�ned through two phases of deployment, starting from 46 schools in Balakot, KPK, in 2013 and scaling to 200 public primary schools in Vehari and Mandi Bahauddin in Punjab and 100 schools in Haripur, KPK, in 2014. Learning Boost is now poised to go to scale. Rapid Assessment has undergone a year-long commercial trial working with a broad category of private sector schools including foundation assisted, NGO managed and low cost private schools. Similar trials have been done with encouraging response for Learning Mela, with a current ongoing project servicing 70 schools in Nowshera, under the Sub-National Governance program.


B7: Local Best Practice Case Study 7 – TeleTaleem: Using Evidence to Scale Edtech Solutions (Contd)

Learning Boost has been most rigorously evaluated and has demonstrated statistically signi�cant learning gains in both phases of the program. In the pilot Phase I, it achieved an e�ect of 0.62(Medium E�ect) in case of Numeracy, whereas an e�ect of 0.96 (Strong E�ect) for Grade V Maths. In case of literacy, the weakest students’ mean score for comprehension increased by 26% for control group and 50% for treatment group while reading accuracy increased by 17% for control group and 34% for treatment group.

In Phase-II, statistically signi�cant results were achieved in both Literacy and Numeracy, with Literacy showing an even stronger result than Phase I. Teacher performance improved on pedagogy, content knowledge, and attitude. Formal endorsements and requests for scale-ups were received from EDOs and Teacher Associations.

T2’s interventions have been featured in and written up for premier international conferences like UNES-CO’s Mobile Learning Week and IEEE’s International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies and well-received by local donor community active in education reform, including DFID, DFAT, World Bank and ADB.

Key Success Factors T2 has taken a deliberate approach to creating a technology bundle (including content delivery, assessment tools, and deployment infrastructure) that is particularly suited to address peculiar challenges (such as lack of internet access, power shortages, maintenance, etc.) faced by Edtech providers in Pakistan. This optimized technology bundle creates a formidable advantage, at least initially, to provide T2 with a strong point of entry into the market. T2 has had access to a strong network of educationists and Edtech experts to develop and re�ne – not just its technology platform but also – content geared towards the technology bundle. T2 has focused on generation of systematic and rigorous data and evidence on learning impact of its interventions and have developed a step-by-step approach towards piloting, assessing and demonstrat-ing impact, and then achieving the necessary stakeholder buy-in to scale. T2 has carried out extensive research, including, systematic and formal market research to better understand market sizes, segments, preferences of users and key stakeholders, etc. and have prioritized and revised interventions aimed at market needs.Zualkernan, I. A., Burki, E., and Lutfeali, S., 2014, “School Garee: Harnessing mobile technology to bring

Learning gains for treatment and control groups were normally distributed (Anderson-Darlington; p>0.15). A two sample single-sided t test shows that learning gains for the treatment group (M=0.211, SD=0.22) were significantly higher than those for the control group (M = 0.077, SD=0.24), t(200)=-3.73, p= 0.000. The effect as measured by Cohen’s D was found to be 0.62 which can be interpreted as a medium effect. Cohen’s D also had a fairly tight 95% confidence interval of [0.56, 0.67] indicating that there is a 95% probability that the Cohen’s D is between 0.56 and 0.67. Since age, r(200)= 0.165, p<0.05 and pre-score, r(200) = -0.461, p<0.05 were correlated with the overall learning gain, an Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) using age and pre-score as covariates was carried out. After controlling for the effects of age and pre-score, treatment was found to be significant F(185,1) = 23.9, p<0.000. A Cohen’s f value of 0.29 for the ANCOVA also indicates a moderate effect after adjusting for the covariates where η² was 0.08.

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Zualkernan, I. A., Lutfeali, S., and Karim, A., 2014, “Using tablets and satellite-based internet to deliver numeracy education to marginalized children in a developing country”, IEEE Gobal Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC), San Jose, CA available at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=6970295

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Zualkernan, I. A., Burki, E., and Lutfeali, S., 2014, “School Garee: Harnessing mobile technology to bring math and literacy content to the hardest to reach”, UNESCO Mobile Learning Week, Paris, France. Available at: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/themes/icts/m4ed/unesco-mobile-learning-week-2014/symposium/breakout-sessions/school-garee/

Zualkernan, I. A., and Karim, A., “Using a Traveling Van to deliver Blended Learning in a Developing Country”, The 13th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, July 15-18, 2013, Beijing, China.


B8: Local Best Practice Case Study 8 – Knowledge Platform: Combining Content with Analytics

ContextThe Knowledge Platform is a ‘next generation’ knowledge solutions company based out of Singapore with the development o�ce in Pakistan. Started in 2001, Knowledge Platform initially focussed on IT Market Consulting and Corporate e-Learning businesses but has, since the acquisition of its corporate RiskMan-agement business, focssed on learning technology solutions aimed at K-12. Knowledge Platform delivers a four-pronged o�ering to its clients, namely, consulting, content, technology, and support. While majori-ty of Knolwedge Platform’s clients are currrently in Asia (China and Indonesia, in particular, it has recently moved inroards into the Pakistani Edtech market as well and was the winner of the Ilm Ideas’s Ilm Apps Challenge pilot grant in 2014-15. Knowledge Platform is looking to scale in 2016.

InterventionThe Knowledge Platform’s principal technology product is its Ultrabot learning management system, which is now in its ninth generation and is available for both educational institutions and corporate �rms.KP’ has designed, developed and deployed a low cost teaching and technology model, in which a singlelaptop and projector is deployed in a school or a classroom, and students are provided low-‐cost clickersto take assessments. All content and technology is loaded on to the laptop and the solution may be deployed without the need for an Internet connection. After lessons, student performance data issynchronized through a mobile connection so that results are available and integrated globally, andany student who may have an Internet connection at home can continue to study the same lessons thatwere taught in class.

The Ultrabot learning management system has a content management system and an adaptive assess-ment engine that enables the organization of content, teacher lesson plans and homework and provisionof reports based on mastery subjects. To make it easier to track student performance, each mastery skillis tracked for each student through �ve ‘performance badges’ (Pro�cient, Review, Struggling, Novice andNot Started).

Last year, Knowledge Platform launched ‘Learn Smart Pakistan’ - Pakistan’s �rst ever digital learning challenge by providing an online learning platform for students and teachers. Learn Smart Pakistan aims to extend the contest for both Mathematics and English, empower students to focus on self-study and teachers to demonstrate their commitment to strengthen their online teaching skills. The teacher and student boot-camps tend to provide learning opportunities to innovative ways of teaching and learning. The online learning challenge is followed with pre-award tests, a writing contest and national education forum with an awards ceremony.

Impact In 2014, LSP included a total of 167 students (65% girls) and 28 teachers from 39 schools across the country with access to more than 200 video lectures and 160 math drills and 2500 assessment questions covering the 9th grade Math curriculum and could achieve mastery over 45 topics.

This year, LSP launched with a much bigger mandate and ambitious outreach exercise and had, until the writing of this report, engaged 1,500 participants enrolled in the digital challenge, including 1,314 students and 219 teachers, from 78 locations and 325 schools across Pakistan. Students egaged with 40 mastery topics (23 in maths and 17 in English), 190 skills, 100 learning videos, 200 exercises and drills, 15 writing assignments, and 4500 assessment questions.

This year, Knowledge Platform also completed the pilot of its blended learning model funded by Ilm Ideas across 5 schools with . The results have been encouraging. Average class scores imporved between 14-25% in 3 out of the 5 schools; 98% of the students felt that teaching quality improved; 51% of the students used the Ultrabot system from home despite the lack of access; 97% of the students felt that the curriculum was relevant and would be helpful in preparing them for their board exams.

Knowledge Platform, (2014), Learn Smart Pakiostan Report 2014, available at: http://www.knowledgeplatform.com/reflection- from-learn-smart-pakistan-pakistans-first-digital-learning-challenge/ Knowledge Platform, (2015), Blended Learning Pilot: Evaluation Highlights, Knowledge Platform, Islamabad

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B8: Local Best Practice Case Study 8 – Knowledge Platform: Combining Content and Analytics

Key Success Factors Knowledge Platform uses and deployes an system developed to speci�cations for a fully developed global market. The revenue model uses multi-tiered pricing that enables the company to charge lower margins on poor markets like Pakistan but bene�t from the learning and experience gleaned from these deployments to use elsewhere (in China and Indonesia).

Knowledge Platforms’s international footprint and content and marketing teams allows us to learn from a range of di�erent circumstances and and implementation scenarios and this is fully incorporated into the new versions of the Edtech platform.

Knowledge Platforms has sought to gradually build its o�ering based on strong technolgy credentials but also a keen focus on evaluation and impact assessment and leverage the cloud and the crowd to deliver and promote their solution.

Technomics International (Pvt.) Ltd

101, Al Safa Heights 1Hilal Rd., F-11 Markaz, Islamabad

Ph: +92 51 8443223Email: [email protected]

Produced by:

In Collaboration with:Pakistan Innovation Foundation

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