The Education Landscape
Education has served humanity well. In fact, one could argue that no other system has benefited mankind more. From the first forms of written communication some 5,000 years ago to the founding of the first universal primary education school in Prussia (1717), the human condition has steadily improved. The adoption of formal education over the last two hundred years provides a compelling case for its positive effect on human prosperity. At the individual level, education enriches our lives as it helps us develop a better understanding of the world around us. At the macroeconomic level, better educated countries tend to become more productive. Increased productivity generates wealth. Wealth improves quality of life and can be reinvested back into education. The good news is that there is evidence of this virtuous cycle around the world. The bad news is that in the developing world this cycle has struggled to take hold. More puzzlingly, even, are those instances where economies have grown and developed their own systems of formal education, yet educational outcomes have lagged.
So what are the underlying attributes of education, distinct from its formal adoption, that make it effective? It’s hard to say what exactly is needed in order to achieve quality education. The conventional thinking is that more money and more resources is the answer, but the lagging educational advancement in some countries with economic growth suggests otherwise. Perhaps it’s time to start considering alternative solutions for improving education.
The Good News
Wherever countries have formally implemented universal primary education, charts of GDP and educational outcomes have shown promising results. As seen in the chart below, countries tend to move up and to the right. Rates of enrollment in primary education have also steadily risen, contributing to a rise in global literacy rates. Higher education has grown too, leading to improvements in average years of schooling.
However, these rates of progress have varied across countries and, in some cases, have been frustratingly flat — as demonstrated by the number of out-of-school children in the chart below. This is particularly true in parts of the developing world, where political instability and economic stagnation have contributed to a divergence in educational outcomes. For instance, there are countries in Sub-Saharan Africa where adolescent literacy rates remain below 50%.
The Problem
The problem is complicated by the fact that education is not solely a function of wealth and, therefore, this divergence can’t be solved by spending money alone:
“Differences in national expenditure on education do not explain well cross-country differences in learning outcomes, the data suggests that generic policies that increase expenditure on standard inputs, such as the number of teachers, are unlikely to be effective to improve education outcomes. (World in Data — Global Education)”
Take, for instance, Ethiopia. Despite having a booming economy, the country’s education system has continued to struggle. Primary schools are plagued by low participation rates and other obstacles preventing widespread accessibility. Lack of funding, overcrowded classrooms, and a scarcity of qualified teachers have led the World Bank to consider Ethiopia as “one of the most educationally disadvantaged countries in the world.” It’s cases like Ethiopia that make the problem of providing high-quality, universal education such a vexing one. The problem runs deeper than economic growth.
So what are viable solutions?
The traditional model suggests that building a formal education system fueled by economic growth is the cure for a plateau in measures of educational progress. Build more schools. Hire more teachers. But what about outliers like Ethiopia? And what does this model predict for countries with more precarious economic futures? Raising these questions is not meant to suggest that the developing world is destined to fall further behind, but instead to suggest that the traditional formula for improving education may not work everywhere, nor should it be expected to. A formal education system is heavily reliant on factors beyond an individual’s control — political stability, economic growth, and access to quality resources like trained teachers. While some of these conditions can’t be addressed by simply revamping formal education, advancements in technology can help us expand the set of possible solutions.
In Sustainable Development Goal 4.1, the United Nations explains:
“Basic literacy skills across the world have improved tremendously, yet bolder efforts are needed to achieve universal education goals for all.”
The Path Ahead
Knowledge is a powerful tool that allows us to solve increasingly complex problems in less time. Achieving universal education is one of these complex problems — one that has proven to be particularly challenging for the developing world. Fortunately, the world has never been better equipped to solve such a problem. Thanks to a combination of rapid improvements and declining costs, technology may provide the means to learn at scale in a way that is unencumbered by traditional constraints. We may finally have the bold effort needed to achieve ambitious education goals like those set by the U.N.
The new paradigm to facilitate learning and improve educational outcomes is educational technology, otherwise known as EdTech. This technology has many advantages: it’s cheaper to provide at scale, remotely accessible, and can be personalized. EdTech is not necessarily a substitute for traditional education; instead, it’s an opportunity for educators to deliver time-tested teaching methods more efficiently while incorporating new good ideas. Accessing learning modules through audio translations without the need for high-bandwidth internet, creating fun and engaging lessons through the use of animated stories, and providing positive feedback in real time to help students adopt a growth mindset — these are just some of the ideas we’re working on at Oppia. A new educational model that leverages EdTech can decouple wealth and high-quality education. No longer is it the case that economic and other challenges in the developing world need to determine educational outcomes. At Oppia, our mission is to make high-quality education accessible to everyone. Thanks to a vibrant community of volunteers and open-source contributors, we are dedicated to making that mission a reality.
If you’re interested in volunteering with the Oppia Foundation or just want to find out more about us, you can do so by going to oppiafoundation.org. You can always check out our effective, interactive lessons for free at oppia.org.
