January 21, 2022
A student at Miriam Bint Imran School in 2016 using Qysas, an interactive and animated Arabic early grade literacy app featuring more than 125 eBooks that introduces reading through a leveled reading platform and provides automated feedback and recommendations for a child-centered and differentiated approach to learning. In 2018, Qysas was transformed into a digital leveled library called Let’s Live in Harmony—adding 120 digital books co-created with the Jordanian Ministry of Education.
Education plays a key role in building sustainable and resilient societies. It is a proven factor in reducing poverty and hunger, improving health, promoting equality and building peace. Yet UNESCO reports that 258 million children and youth do not attend school–a statistic compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and worldwide migration crises.
Prior to the pandemic, UNESCO reported that 387 million primary age children were estimated to lack basic reading skills, which is foundational to a child’s ability to participate in and complete their education. Due to the impact of the pandemic and the migration crises, that number has risen to 584 million. At particularly high risk are those in low-resource contexts, especially children with disabilities.
Marking International Day of Education 2022, UNESCO declared that the world stands at a turning point when it comes to education–either we continue on an unsustainable path or radically change course. Without new, appropriate solutions, we risk leaving behind the most vulnerable children.
All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development believes that education in the 21st century must leverage innovation and technology to help children learn to read, complete school and escape poverty.
All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development believes that education in the 21st century must leverage innovation and technology to help children learn to read, complete school and escape poverty. For over a decade, ACR GCD has catalyzed innovation by assuming the risks of research and development to support and strengthen innovators who have implemented and scaled game-changing solutions and tools to help address gaps and barriers to child literacy in and outside of school and in crisis and emergency situations to increase reading outcomes for vulnerable children in low-resource contexts.
Technology and innovation can increase literacy and transform education
ACR GCD research reveals that EdTech innovation and approaches are proven to help address gaps and barriers to child literacy in and outside of school and in crisis and emergency situations, including those impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic or the more than 4 million children who were out of school due to migrant and refugee crises around the world.
While not a replacement for traditional education, EdTech can serve as an effective supplement to traditional learning and can positively influence the learning of children who lack access to school. Our research reveals that technology-based literacy projects can effectively disseminate new or existing learning materials to underserved populations in languages they use and understand, offer beneficial individualized learning experiences to students, and facilitate the digital tracking of students’ literacy experiences. In addition, EdTech enables greater access to teaching and learning materials for children with disabilities, who remain among the most vulnerable and marginalized in access to education.
EdTech solutions can be powerful tools to increase literacy for vulnerable children. But if we are to radically change course in the way we approach advancing literacy and education, these solutions need to be open source, scalable, born-accessible and inclusive.
EdTech solutions can be powerful tools to increase literacy for vulnerable children. But if we are to radically change course in the way we approach advancing literacy and education, these solutions need to be open source, scalable, born-accessible and inclusive.
Solutions must be open source and scalable
ACR GCD is firmly committed to open source solutions based on Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licensed materials to support innovators, solvers and users around the world in developing, scaling and using EdTech solutions to improve reading outcomes in low-resource contexts.
One successful example of how open source technology inspires and promotes scaling beyond original funding is Feed the Monster, which was created through our EduApp4Syria competition to develop smartphone apps that build foundational literacy skills in Arabic and improve psychosocial well-being for Syrian refugee children.
Since the competition, Feed the Monster—originally developed in English and Arabic—has scaled far beyond its original funding. Curious Learning, through its own initiative and funding, attained the open source code from GitHub to adapt Feed the Monster into more than 48 languages. In 2021, Feed the Monster was adapted into Nepali and is currently being used by more than 60,000 users in that country in addition to being integrated with the EdTech Matrix, a tool being developed and implemented by UnrestrICTed awardee World Education to help teachers choose the right technologies to support children with disabilities. Curious Learning’s new Follow the Learners dashboard showcases the breadth of Feed the Monster use, now totaling more than 478,000 users globally.
ACR GCD also requires all content produced with our funding to be CC-BY licensed for anyone to use. This includes any books produced or adapted, training and coaching manuals, parent engagement booklets and more. All of the CC-BY licensed books, training manuals and resources, such as videos and flipbooks, to support teachers, parents and community engagement in children’s reading produced by ACR GCD innovators are available for others to use or adapt.
Solutions must be born accessible and inclusive
More than 93 million children globally have a disability. Prior to the pandemic, of those who reside in countries with high poverty levels, at least 90 percent did not attend school. Severe book shortages exist for children with disabilities, and if available at all, often lack accessible formats like braille, audio and sign language.
While all learners in low-resource contexts face serious learning losses as a result of the pandemic and migration, children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable due to the loss of support through in-person learning, interpreters, etc.
If the world is to realize the ideals of Sustainable Development Goal 4—to provide quality and inclusive education for all children—by 2030, quality, engaging and age-appropriate reading materials in languages children use and understand must be provided.
ACR GCD, which has grown to be one of the largest innovation funds focused on reading for children with disabilities, is committed to born accessible publishing to ensure that learning materials and books should also be accessible to the broadest audience. Producing books in accessible formats–like audio, braille, large print and sign language books–not only can save time and cost when compared to retroactively adapting materials to meet accessibility standards, but also helps publishers and writers think about the broader range of needs of children learning to read.
ACR GCD has awarded innovators for developing tools for anyone to create accessible books and working with publishers to more easily and affordably adopt accessible publishing standards. The two winners of our Book Boost prize, eKitabu and SIL LEAD, created and tested tools to reduce accessible digital book production costs and streamline publishing of high-quality accessible reading materials:
- eKitabu created an Accessible EPUB Toolkit, which helps publishers and content creators adopt accessible publishing standards, including the development of accessible EPUBs with image descriptions, accessible navigation, dyslexic fonts, and sign language videos.
- Accessibility features like audio narration and image descriptions were added to SIL Lead’s Bloom book creation software. An accompanying accessibility toolkit was also put together for others using Bloom to create local language books for children. The Bloom development team has since added a sign language video tool to Bloom as well.
As a Grand Challenge, ACR GCD has established a much-needed focus on inclusive education and technology aid to make inclusive education a possibility. Over the past 10 years, we have distributed over 1.8 million learning materials, including more than 1 million books and ebooks in 50+ underserved languages and materials in sign languages and braille, improving literacy outcomes for children in low resource contexts around the world.
Be part of the solution
This year, millions of children will come of age to start school in the midst of a pandemic and forced migration crises. Of particular risk are children in low-resource contexts and children with disabilities. Learning to read will be a key factor in improving their lives and reducing poverty.
ACR GCD will continue to lead in the EdTech for literacy space, implementing and scaling game-changing solutions and tools to address gaps and barriers to child literacy and supporting and empowering innovators who are developing groundbreaking solutions to provide opportunities for all learners–including those in and out of school, in crisis and conflict situations and children with disabilities.
We invite you to be part of the solution for the more than 584 million children globally waiting for the opportunity to learn to read.
We invite you to be part of the solution for the more than 584 million children globally waiting for the opportunity to learn to read. Explore our solutions and tools to help you increase literacy opportunities for marginalized children in your work and programming. Get involved by signing up for our newsletter to get the latest news about opportunities, ideas and EdTech innovations to increase reading outcomes. Join us in advocating for meaningful investments in and use of accessible solutions that increase access to local spoken and signed languages. Partner with us to pilot or scale a solution or innovation in your community.
Together, we can advance EdTech solutions to improve reading outcomes for marginalized children and change the course of education across the world.
ACR GCD is a partnership between USAID, World Vision and the Australian government.
