Growing up in Mombasa, Kenya, the most advanced technology we had access to in schools was scientific calculators. Fast forward to a post-pandemic world where Education Technology (EdTech) has taken centre stage in education, learners can continue learning when classes are disrupted, teachers are temporarily unavailable and even research school topics ahead of time.
Over the last 17 years, having worked with policy makers, educators, and other stakeholders in integrating technology to make education more inclusive, I have become a crusader for EdTech. The work we do at the Mastercard Foundation Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning includes supporting EdTech stakeholders on policy and thought leadership on best practices that can strengthen our education ecosystems in Africa.
A question frequently asked is, ‘what has influenced the change in technology in the education space, especially in Africa?’ First, the change in the youth population in Africa has doubled in the last 40 years and by 2030 it is expected to represent almost 50 percent of the world’s youth numbers. Second, with the burgeoning youth population, the jobs market is shifting exponentially. For example, agriculture jobs have gone down from 70% to 50% with a significant shift towards service-oriented jobs. Gone are the days when, excelling in a specific field guaranteed employment. In 2024, even human precision jobs, such as medical surgeries, are under threat from robotics. This highlights the need to equip learners with broad, adaptable skills to stay agile in shifting job markets.
Unfortunately, education resources in Africa today cannot keep up with the increased number of learners and the dynamic jobs landscape. This has given rise to innovations in technology to address gaps in access to quality education. The rapid and daily evolution of technology has played an influential role in how EdTech is found in some form in almost every learner’s and educator’s life. In Africa, despite infrastructure challenges, EdTech has leapfrogged, rapidly expanding access to education through mobile and digital platforms, such as the Eneza Education platform, one of the first Mastercard Foundation EdTech Fellows. Users of their platform can access educational content through phones via USSD code for as low as two cents a day!. With smartphone penetration at 50% in 2023, about 650 million mobile phone users have mobile-based learning as a primary mode of EdTech adoption.
Even with a very innovative, locally developed EdTech ecosystem in Africa, to the number of learners who constantly use EdTech is still very low. And one of the primary reasons for this is that countries have not adopted policies that can support the idea of learners and teachers using technology to improve the relevance and quality of education. For EdTech to flourish in Africa, policy alignment is crucial to ensure that digital initiatives are sustainable, inclusive, and aligned with broader educational goals. The role of policymakers is to drive initiatives, invest in infrastructure, and set standards that encourage innovation and make digital learning an integral part of Africa’s educational landscape. A well guided, multi stakeholder and data driven EdTech policy can plan the country’s ecosystem to address access to quality education by all, and above all prepare learners for emerging technologies such as AI, as well skill them for jobs of the future. It should also be intentional to tackle the problem of inclusivity: ensure access to education and technology to all learners irrespective of gender, equity disparities, disabilities, in displaced communities and above all, out of school youth. Indeed, cross-sectoral policy that enables innovation, was one the three recommendations that was agreed upon as top priority by Ministers and ministry representatives from 18 countries across Africa at the 2024 Mastercard Foundation 3rd Ministerial Forum in Abuja, Nigeria. The recommendations emerged from a collective call to action from the inaugural Mastercard Foundation EdTech Conference.
My earlier experience in supporting the drafting of ICT in Education policies, was that the subsequent implementation of the polices became a government-only domain. This often resulted in a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approaches with multi-millions spent but with minimal impact! Months or years after the projects have commenced, devices remain unopened in their original packaging! This observation is not restricted to one country in Africa, but observers from several countries have reported the same. It stems from a belief that with a minimum effort of devices, internet, content and basic training, classrooms will magically transform into models of 21st century learning. It’s like a classroom of 50 students where the teacher moves at the pace of the brightest pupil. Until governments stop implementing EdTech in isolation from the broader education ecosystem, success is doomed to be minimal.
The massive learning losses experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic changed the mindsets of many governments. At the Mastercard Foundation 2nd Ministerial Forum held in 2022 in Kigali, Rwanda, almost all Ministers and Ministerial representatives from 15 countries across Africa agreed on two main courses of action. First call was to instill resilience in education to withstand future shocks like the pandemic. This means adopting hybrid learning models that blend in-person and online education to enhance accessibility, engagement, and personalized learning experiences. The second call emphasized that, given the colossal task ahead, governments would require support from both public and private stakeholders, spanning from policy revision to implementation of hybrid models. The Deputy Minister from the Department of Basic Education in South Africa, Dr. Reginah Mhaule, even went on to say that the many corrective measures they had undertaken to overcome the learning losses, would be lost now that classrooms were resuming, unless captured in a new policy.
So, what should an EdTech policy development process look like? At the onset of a policy drafting process, it is important to outline a few objectives, or a “north star”, otherwise the policy will not be measurable nor provide a direction or a unifying vision. The objective could vary by country context, such as building a digitally empowered workforce for Africa’s future or simply providing universal access to quality digital education. The latter objective reminds me of a matter-of-fact statement made by a teacher when I visited a public school in peri-urban Cape Town, South Africa, in 2022: “the young learners are surrounded by all forms of technology the moment they step out of the school, so if we exclude technology in the classroom, we will lose their interest to study!”
While the policy will be owned by the government, it should be very inclusive and incorporate the input from all the stakeholders: the EdTech community, development partners, the users such as teachers, parents and above all, the young people. It should be cross-sector collaborated and decisions taken must be supported by data and evidence. In 2023, through our work at the Mastercard Foundation in partnership with the World Bank, I had the opportunity to enable this inclusive process when supporting the Ministries of Education in Rwanda and Ethiopia to draft an EdTech Policy and an ICT in Education policy, respectively. The Rwanda draft policy emerged from an EdTech strategy created after an EdTech Landscape study was carried out in the country. The study commissioned by the Mastercard Foundation provided data as a starting point for the strategy. In Ethiopia, the policy that that is now approved, has unfolded further opportunity of support from the World Bank for its implementation. In 2025, through the Mastercard Foundation Centre for Innovative Teaching and Learning, we are planning to support National EdTech Strategies in Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa.
Finally, even a well drafted policy is not a means to an end. At the Mastercard Foundation 3rd Ministerial Forum on EdTech in Africa, Albert Nsengiyumva, Executive Secretary of the Association of Development of Education in Africa (ADEA) said a policy will only be as effective as the resources allocated to implement it. I will add to this that there needs to be clear guidelines on the sense of ownership on who does what for the various aspects of the policy: digital infrastructure and access, content, teachers capacity building and skilling, etc. With the right attitude and stewardship, we can all come together to improve the education outcomes and skills of youth in Africa. Education, after all, is everyone’s business.
