The 21st century has more children in school than at any other time in human history. However, despite this accomplishment, over 250 million children receive no formal education. These children are in the hardest-to-reach locations, in low-income countries, with unstable infrastructure and socio-political environments that make it difficult for them to attend school.
The right to education is widely considered a fundamental human right, with the majority of nations protecting it through international conventions such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. However, for too many children, poverty, safety concerns, or socio-political factors make learning at home their only option. For these children, cheap and easy-to-use educational technology is a must.
When most people think of ed tech, they think of interactive tablets, cutting-edge AI, or polished game-based platforms. Most of the time, people think ed tech means high-tech. But it doesn’t have to be. For many, “low-tech ed tech” is a great way to open educational opportunities that would be otherwise closed. Simply, “low tech ed tech” means smart tools designed to work in environments with minimal resources. Instead of requiring new infrastructure, such as expensive devices, paid apps, or high-speed internet, low-tech ed tech prioritizes simplicity, allowing even the most hard-to-reach learners to access it.
Many families in these difficult situations have access to a low-tech tool already in their pocket: mobile phones.
Phones are affordable and available to 96 percent of people worldwide. Ed tech providers are using this accessible technology and text messaging apps like SMS and WhatsApp, to deliver quality education to millions of children who struggle to attend in-person school.
How Poverty Impacts Educational Opportunity
In many countries, children may have access to public education, but are unable to attend school due to extreme poverty. Families may prioritize their children working over attending school because, without their help, the family would not survive. This may mean working a paying job, working a family farm, or assisting with important tasks, like gathering drinking water from the local well. For many girls entering puberty, school can only be attended if families can afford menstrual health products, such as pads, which are often expensive, forcing girls to miss school while menstruating.
Unlike students in industrialized nations, children in these situations are unlikely to have access to a computer or tablet for at-home learning. With these limitations in mind, ed tech providers like Abdulhamid Haidar, the founder and CEO of Darsel, have created low-tech tools that can be integrated into the cheapest mobile phones. Darsel is a personalized learning chatbot that helps thousands of students learn and practice math in low- and middle-income countries.
“Low-tech solutions that are purposefully designed for low-cost phones are dramatically expanding the reach of ed tech,” Abdulhamid said. “These platforms are often the only technologies that are accessible to students in low-resource settings, where device and data restrictions keep most conventional ed tech tools out of reach.”
The cycle of poverty often means that parents are unable to support their children’s learning at home, either due to lack of formal education themselves and low literacy levels, or due to the sheer number os hours they spend working. Tools that integrate with cheap mobile phones and low-cost, popular apps help parents support their children without additional financial strain.
When families struggle financially, accessing high-quality learning on cheap devices the family already owns is revolutionary. Integrating with SMS and WhatsApp reduces the need for high-cost data plans, which are required for streaming or downloading content in most ed tech platforms.
WhatsApp, a messaging app owned by Meta, is the most popular messaging app in the world, especially in low- and middle-income countries. WhatsApp utilizes partnerships with mobile carriers to remain free or extremely low-cost in developing countries, which is crucial for a service that, besides messaging, also allows users to do things like order medical prescriptions or access public safety hotlines.
The cycle of poverty often means that parents are unable to support their children’s learning at home, either due to lack of formal education themselves and low literacy levels, or due to the sheer number os hours they spend working. Tools that integrate with cheap mobile phones and low-cost, popular apps help parents support their children without additional financial strain.
Dylan Brown, a Senior Engineering Manager with Rori, an AI-powered chatbot tutor used by thousands of students in West Africa, said that teachers and parents appreciate that his team keeps resource limitations in mind when developing solutions that can work on low-cost devices.
For engaged parents, being able to further enhance their child’s education at home through a device they already own can be a significant boon,” Dylan said. This helps us to contribute, in a small way, to breaking the cycle of systematic inequality and failures of access to quality education.”
How Does Safety Affect Educational Opportunities?
For many students, a daily trip to school is simply too dangerous to undertake. Children may have to navigate unsafe walking conditions, navigate extreme conditions as seasonal flooding, or they may encounter wild animals. Millions of girls are also at risk of being sexually assaulted while walking to school.
Many families have been forced out of their homes in conflict zones, where landmines or gunfire were all too commonplace. These families may remain displaced in temporary settlements or on the move for months or years. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, an estimated 7.2 million refugee children are unable to attend school because of war, conflict, or related problems.
For many vulnerable learners who cannot attend school in person, learning can be a solitary experience. The developers of ChatClass, a conversational learning platform, understand that for displaced children, social engagement is key to providing them with a rich learning experience.
“WhatsApp and other chat platforms provide chat groups, which create collaborative learning environments,” said ChatClass creator Jan Krutzinna. This helps isolated learners enjoy the benefits of social interaction in learning.
For many vulnerable learners who cannot attend school in person, learning can be a solitary experience. The developers of ChatClass, a conversational learning platform, understand that for displaced children, social engagement is key to providing them with a rich learning experience.
Tools like these are accessible despite safety concerns outside the home, are highly interactive, and enable rapid deployment.
“Low-tech, high-impact solutions like chat-based learning prove that innovation is not about complexity – it’s about making education more accessible and effective for the people who need it most,” Jan said.
How Do Socio-Political Factors Impact Learning?
Ever-changing socio-political factors can make or break a child’s ability to attend school. The COVID-19 pandemic was a significant example of social-political factors that forced students worldwide out of the classroom.
In India alone, millions of students were forced to study at home. Instead of introducing students to new, complicated online learning platforms, Avanti Fellows, an Indian not-for-profit organization, seamlessly brought students and teachers together using WhatsApp. Avanti Fellows created PLIO, which provides children from low-income backgrounds access to quality higher education by allowing teachers to transform any YouTube video into an interactive lesson by interspersing it with quiz questions. Learners can access PLIO on low-end Android phones via WhatsApp, eliminating the need for students to download new applications.
Co-CEO of Avanti Fellows, Akshay Saxena, said that the future of ed tech is “embracing the fact that students will learn from a variety of sources, in a variety of ways, and building solutions that aid this more natural form of learning digitally.”
As the global education community continues to grapple with inequalities that prevent 250 million children from attending school, low-tech ed tech tools offer a promising solution. Many developers and entrepreneurs are realizing that the flashiest high-tech solution is not always the best one. Rather, solutions grounded in real-world needs that prioritize accessibility, usability, and affordability are the bridge to a future where no learner is left behind.
