Report captures impact of EdTech innovation for UNESCO GEM Report

In response to the research questions posed in the 2023 UNESCO Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report concept note, All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development (ACR GCD) — a partnership between World Vision, USAID, and the Australian Government — hosted a virtual GEM Report Consultation in May 2022 with more than 30 current and former ACR GCD awardees and GEM Report researchers. ACR GCD also conducted in-depth follow-up interviews with 11 awardee organizations. The consultation and this report focused on the GEM Report Concept Note’s Research Question #1: What do we know about the role of technology in addressing each of the education challenges identified with respect to access, equity and inclusion? More deeply, the consultation focused on two sub-topics:

• Access for Disadvantaged Groups: How can we provide education to all hard-to-reach learners?
• Access to Content: How can more knowledge reach more learners in more attractive and cheaper formats?

ACR GCD, which concluded in September 2023, aimed to advance EdTech innovation and research to improve reading outcomes for marginalized children in low-resource contexts. Initiated in 2011, ACR GCD sourced nearly 1,200 innovative proposals and funded and tested 60+ promising applications of EdTech to support language and literacy for children in low resource contexts. Through testing, ACR GCD and its awardees learned what works and does not work to improve access, equity. and inclusion. This includes thinking beyond the EdTech solution itself, to include the appropriate training, needs assessment, screening, infrastructure, device, coaching and monitoring support, advocacy, and ecosystem necessary to ensure effective use at scale.

For more information visit allchildrenreading.org.