
In poor countries technology can make big improvements to education - ivm
https://www.economist.com/international/2018/11/17/in-poor-countries-technology-can-make-big-improvements-to-education
======
soneca
_" In poor countries technology can make big improvements to education_

 _Teachers are often unqualified, ignorant or absent; tablets show up and work
"_

I reached the article limit, so I could only read this, and I disagree.

I live in Brazil and my wife works in a big NGO focused on education. She
visits schools in poor regions all over the country. Her current understanding
is that she sees no evidence that technology helps at all. And the NGO piloted
lots of tech initiatives on lots of schools.

 _" Teachers are often unqualified, ignorant or absent; tablets show up and
work"_

The first part is definitely true, the second one not so much.

What seems to make a difference is a prepared and motivated school principal.

EDIT:

I just read the whole article (thanks to _ivm_ letting me know about Outline).

The title is kind of clickbaity. Big programs, with a lot good things going
on, and they focus on the small part that use tablets and I don't think it is
even an absolute necessity.

 _" The coach-and-tablet element is just one part. A curriculum based on
synthetic phonics (widely used in developed-country schools) has been designed
and 23m books distributed, along with detailed lesson plans to make life
easier for teachers. But the technology is crucial to supporting them and
providing their bosses with data about their performance."_

It is _" crucial"_ for a small part of the program with good results.

They at least acknowledge some high profile programs that did not work and go
on to share a few other few and specific cases that are very interesting and
explain how tech could indeed help.

I still think it overrates the tech part, but looks like the classic case
where the journalist writes a more down to earth article and the editor adds a
exagerated title.

~~~
Nasrudith
I had a power outage last night that really had me appreciate one aspect of
technology we have taken for granted - power. I can certainly see how
electrification can boost children's grades - they can read and do homework at
night when their days may be dedicated to farmwork after school. From what I
read that sort of labor is essential given some horrifying unintended
consequences like banning child labor too early for their economic development
apparently resulting in increases in child prostitution (correlation isn't
causation).

I haven't spent time in the third world but I think it is safe to say the
technology that does them the most good is infrastructure whether it is
ancient like sewers or new like cellphone first deployment.

I think tablets are largely something for the far end of the bell curve - good
for autodidacts who would seek out new things when given the means. Most
people don't spend their frer time say looking up obscure history and quantum
physics but those who do can be enriched by it.

There are smart people everywhere - I had a professor who grew up in the third
world and disassembled and reassembled electronics from a young age. My
deceased grandfather had a middle school education but sure could learn -
despite working as a plasterer he managed to learn quite a bit of completely
unrelated trades untaught, perspective in wood art, and write an eloquent
sermon about his time in the Pacific theater when he accidentally made a more
generous than expected donation in the dark - giving a $20 bill which is about
$300 today and worth even more to the natives. It would have fit in as a
chapter of a quality novel perectly.

~~~
soneca
Yes, eletricity is essential. By _" technology"_ I was refearing mostly to
computers/tablets/phones in the classroom.

Also, not all _"third world"_ are equal. Brazil, Senegal and India, to take
three semi-random examples, are very different in its structure.

And inside a country, there is also a lot of inequality. I am from Brazil and
got basically the best education money can buy (excluding fancy, elitist
schools for millionaires).

~~~
smokeyj
> I am from Brazil and got basically the best education money can buy

So maybe you're not the best qualified to determine what works best for the
poor?

Have you ever been 1 of 40 students with a text book that is falling apart,
with kids fighting in the class room, with a teacher who doesn't give a shit?
What's easier, buying a $100 tablet, or turning a school around?

The idea that education won't be revolutionized by technology is willfully
ignorant. Kids will put on a virtual reality headset and talk to AI teachers,
if someone had the pocket to build it.

Kids don't need to go to school. Obedience training needs to end. Poor kids
need a way to learn skills that are in demand. Technology is the only way
forward, not lining the pockets of NGO employees.

~~~
soneca
I do not determine what works best for the poor. I was reproducingy wife's
opinion (that has a very different background from mine) that is backed by
some studies.

I also made very clear that there is lack of evidence that technology (as in
computers in the classroom) help so far. I never said I am against trying to
revolutionize the education with tech, I just said it isn't revolutionizing
right now, as the article implies.

You are fighting an idealized enemy here, not debating with me. You are
arguing to inexistent arguments that would make you feel good about your own
strong ideas. Not actually bothering to understand my point.

And acusing my wife of corruption or unethical behavior was just shitty.

~~~
smokeyj
> I was reproducingy wife's opinion (that has a very different background from
> mine) that is backed by some studies.

What studies? Help me out here. I'm trying to understand how having high
quality instructions are harmful to people who can't afford quality teachers.

> I also made very clear that there is lack of evidence that technology (as in
> computers in the classroom) help so far.

What about the evidence in the article? Did you read it? What evidence do you
have?

> Not actually bothering to understand my point.

That your wife is some authority on education and thinks technology is bad.
Profound.

> And acusing my wife of corruption or unethical behavior was just shitty.

Didn't say that. But at some point "cancer awareness" organizations exist to
keep their members employed and not actually curing cancer. Human nature and
all that.

------
voidhorse
It’s important to recognize access to information does not equate to
education. No matter what sophisticated tools you have at your disposal, you
still need an educator to do the job of teaching, to separate the wheat from
the chaff, and to craft some kind of coherent picture that synthesizes
connections between what’s being learned. Niel Postman’s _Technopoly_ puts
forward a pretty good argument for why we can’t simply replace teachers with
sophisticated tools and hope the information sticks. Technology is a great
boon and enabler in the field of education, but’s it no replacement for
teachers or communities, which remain integral to the pedagogical process.

The same logic, at its extreme would suggest you could replace parents with
sophisticated tooling and come out with children that are just as well
developed and ready to contribute to society in meaningful ways.

~~~
yters
And then we could replace the children with tools and no humans are needed for
education!

~~~
FiveSquared
/s

------
choot
One major problem is that in poor countries, opportunities are few, so a lot
of effort is spent in you competing against your peers.

Until i arrived in the West, i didn't realize what's possible with the
collaborative approach instead of competing against each other.

In west, average people were teaming up and achieving better result as a group
than couple of sharp kids in my country where they spent a lot of effort
killing competition.

This is my experience, excuse if it's full of bias.

~~~
rafiki6
This is all too common in developing economies. Due to general economic
mismanagement leading to limited opportunities and sticky cultural beliefs,
students are pegged against each other. A national exam is used as a filter to
allow those the exam deems "smartest" into the top programs in the country.
These exams are notorious for being cheated on, and many students effectively
spend their secondary education over fitting their education to succeed on the
exam reducing the likelihood they will pursue any other interest.

The thing that I don't think most of these countries realize is, if you've
spent an entire child's life teaching them to compete with others, and making
that a ticket to their success, all you do is enable that behavior and it
becomes a habit.

I've met many foreigners working in the West who strongly believe that because
they were top performers academically in their countries they are better than
everyone and it shows through in arrogance much more frequently than people
who we in the West might consider "top performers". What I like about many
Western education systems is the emphasis on collaboration. Some Western
countries don't have a national entrance exam and that's really for the best.
You create a funnel of homogeneity in your academic system by using that as
your qualifying metric without much thought to anything else and your economic
development persists on that path with those deemed to be top performers
looking down on their fellow citizen.

Of course, I do not want to over generalize. This is not ALWAYS the case and
I've also met many foreigners who are humble and amazing to work with and
Westerners who are arrogant and dismissive.

------
swiley
I don't live in a poor country, but as a college student every time I've had a
class that relied heavily on technology it's been miserable. The math classes
where homework was done on paper, from a math book were pleasant.

I also always like to think about Dijkstra and his opinion on technology vs
paper for teaching. He seemed to avoid it's use when it replaced a more
personal teaching style _but_ he also seems to be a pioneer in distance
learning[1]. I think a lot of people could learn a lot from him.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX3URhx6i2E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX3URhx6i2E)

------
amrx431
Although this article addresses the situation in rural areas of poor
countries, I have personal experience that access to technology contributes to
better education even at undergrad level of the education. I personally went
to a college which was trying to mitigate the lack of good professors and
instructors. I had the idea of doing assignments, recitals and lectures(if
necessary) from Edx. I personally believe that completing and doing good in
courses from MIT on Edx certainly if nothing else contributed to my self
confidence.

~~~
bluGill
Technology is a tool.

Would a wrench help your education? If you take it out on the playground and
throw is around it wasn't useful. If you leave it in the closet it wasn't
useful. If you use it to cut the clay for your art project it was useful but
you could have done better. If you use it to rebuild and engine thus learning
how to do a career it was useful - how useful depends on if you actually want
to be a mechanic.

A computer is a tool, just like a wrench. You can use it to play games and get
no use. They can gather dust and be useless. They can however open a world of
information in some cases this can be a big difference.

------
dahart
> Paying teachers more is not likely to improve the situation. As research by
> Justin Sandefur of the Centre for Global Development shows, poor-country
> teachers tend to be remarkably well-paid, by local standards (see chart).
> And evidence from countries as diverse as Indonesia and Pakistan suggests
> that teachers’ pay levels have little impact on learning.

Is it at all reasonable to use units of GDP to compare salaries? That doesn’t
seem right to me. The US GDP per capita in USD is about $60k. The Ethiopia GDP
per capita in USD is less than $800. The only way to claim that teachers are
“remarkably well-paid” by using units of GDP, while in reality 7 * GDP /
person in Ethiopia (about $5,400 per year) is not enough to buy food or pay
rent.

If the cost of living in Ethiopia were 1% of the cost of living in the US,
then teachers would be better off. But the cost of living there is only
slightly lower, so teachers’ buying power there is a tiny fraction of what it
is here. They’re getting a lot less than our minimum wage in _relative_
dollars.

[https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/country_result.jsp?cou...](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/country_result.jsp?country=Ethiopia)

~~~
screye
Nope, the OP you are replying to is correct.

In India, teachers are paid very handsomely when compared to other disciplines
(~ Rs. 35000/month for fresh grad, after 7th pay commission). I and my brother
grew up in a very high cost of living part of India, with my parents making a
similar total wage and life was just fine. We rarely ate out (but my mom is a
fabulous cook), nor went on vacation or splurged on fancy gadgets and toys,
but the basics were in very much in place. Good nutritious food, large enough
2 bedroom house, decent schooling, working computer, internet access, all
utilities, all while staying well groomed and growing up happy. In lower COL
areas, it may even be possible to live with a bit more luxury than we did
growing up.

Cost of living calculations are misleading. The biggest expenses are rent,
transportation and food. Those 3 much much cheaper in poor countries. ( joint
families, public transport and dirt cheap food)

Cultural traditions enable a cheaper lifestyle too. Retired Grand-parents take
care of children and help with household tasks, so don't need to pay for day
care and outside food. Adults usually stay with parents and slowly take over
as head of family, instead of paying rent or needing to go in debt to buy a
house upfront.

> They’re getting a lot less than our minimum wage in relative dollars.

Dunno about Ethiopia, but when compared to India, numbeo says Mumbai is 5
times cheaper than Boston. I am making ~10 times (for 1 person) more than what
my parents made (for a family of 4) and QOL is not much different. I can
afford fancier gadgets and a lot more fast food. But, human services like
house cleaning, home cooks or a domestic help are waaaaay out side my pay
grade, while my Indians making ~20 times less can afford some of those.

The basics here in the US : housing, transportation and good food are pretty
expensive in the US.

~~~
dahart
> Cost of living calculations are misleading.

I can totally agree, but using isn’t GDP units more misleading since GDP
inherently reflects neither income nor cost of living?

> The biggest expenses are rent, transportation and food. Those 3 much much
> cheaper in poor countries. ( joint families, public transport and dirt cheap
> food)

Totally, the relative costs for various things I would expect to be different
in different countries. But I don’t understand why that invalidates cost of
living as a metric. It should be an absolute number that accounts for locally
adjusted costs. I expect the local cost of living to account for whatever the
normal average costs are for rent & food, regardless of how that compares to
other countries.

Of course there are a _lot_ of problems comparing costs in the US to India or
Ethiopia. But isn’t looking at what the average person makes relative to what
the average person has to pay to live there a lot more relevant than the
country’s GDP?

> Mumbai is 5 times cheaper than Boston. I am making ~10 times (for 1 person)
> more than what my parents made (for a family of 4) and QOL is not much
> different.

Right, exactly. You’re only making in relative terms 2x more, not 10x. And not
all services scale the same way. Hiring human services in the US is relatively
much more expensive.

That’s all expected and agrees with what I’m saying. I don’t see how any of
this supports GDP per capita as a QOL metric. Maybe the PPP adjusted metic
like @nabla9 suggests, in which case the teacher pay factor in Ethiopia is
2.5x compared to the US, not 7x.

~~~
screye
> I don’t see how any of this supports GDP per capita as a QOL metric.

My bad, I should have clarified.

I was trying to make a point about teaching being a relatively well paid job
in (in this case) my home country of India and that thinking of COL or QOL in
simple terms of scalar multiples is not all that helpful.

That being said, your other point totally holds. GDP is 100%, a flimsy metric
to gauge QOL. Also, India-US disparity may be closer to 7-8x, but in the
Ethiopia-US case it appears to be closer to 60-70x.

You correct, that 800$/year is a laughable income to live any kind of life,
and no difference in GDPs or cost of products is going to make up for such a
massive difference in wealth. This is a country living almost entirely in
poverty, and earning a standard deviation for two more than the median would
still leave one in crippling poverty.

------
ArtWomb
The missing piece in the technology puzzle for rural education is broadband
satellite internet. Iridium Network's bandwidth will be able to support HD
video and rich internet applications. The key difference: every student,
teacher and indeed every member of the village community will be able to use
their connections _in parallel_. Rather than one person at a time or each
sharing a single conn. Low-power, low cost ARM based hardware running linux or
chromeOS, especially in networked appliance configurations for classrooms,
could become standard. We'll witness a ton of emerging user scenarios: live
video teaching, IoT, telemedicine. The future is already here. And it is about
to get distributed everywhere ;)

~~~
veddox
Have you had any experience with computers in a school setting? It's all most
school in Germany can do to keep their computer infrastructure up and running.
Never mind rural Africa!

Setting up and operating such a network requires some serious know-how - know-
how that pretty much nobody in your scenario is going to have. And never mind
the practical problems of running computers in a rural setting (see my post
above).

------
Mankrik
I like the idea of holograms being projected to schools
[https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/holograms-of-
teachers...](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/holograms-of-teachers-
beamed-into-london-classrooms-from-around-the-world-a3449181.html)

This could be useful for general teaching, while the role of face-to-face
teachers may change for more one-on-one teaching. Something that many parents
long for their children in an age where schools are being shut down and
combined into "megaschools" (UK)

------
qaq
I live in 3d richest county in US in my kid's middle school it's not super
uncommon for a teacher to just put on some YouTube video that covers what they
are studying ...

~~~
HiroshiSan
You could just home school your kid with khan academy.

~~~
qaq
I am seriously considering it

~~~
HiroshiSan
Look into artofproblemsolving.com as well. They have online classes for math
that are very enjoyable. It's a great supplement to the horrendous math
curriculum in schools.

~~~
qaq
thanx for the pointer!!!

------
clueless123
In (some) poor countries, public teaching pays poorly and tend to have strong
unions. Unfortunately this combination attracts bad actors that politicize
education putting the interests of the children last. Technology can't do much
about this.

That said, is unbelievable what kids are getting on their own from access to
what is available on the internet. It is truly transforming rural areas.

~~~
FiveSquared
When you have only 2 dollars a day, you ain’t have no time for unions.

------
Cenk
I can confirm from first-hand experience that access to technology can make
big improvements at the university level too. Tens of thousands of people from
developing countries use one of Citationsy’s features to access scholarly
research and papers that their universities do not pay to provide them access
to.

