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ICT4D Practice track V: Amazon Does Not Deliver to This Address: Track and Trace for School Materials

Mon, March 26, 1:15 to 2:45pm, Hilton Reforma, Floor: 2nd Floor, Don Diego 2

Group Submission Type: Paper Session

Proposal

To learn to read, students need textbooks and supplemental reading materials. Unfortunately, even when books are purchased, they often do not arrive at schools and in the hands of the students who need them. Damage, waste, and lost books caused by poor distribution systems is an important contributor to high textbook costs and low availability. Reading materials can go astray at any stage in the delivery process – from the point-of-entry for imported materials, to central warehouses for nationally produces materials, to transportation across difficult and sometimes insecure routes or even during final distribution to classrooms. Corruption in the supply chain can mean that ordered books are never printed, or books “fall off the truck” and make their way to informal markets. Weak management systems can mean inaccurate information about book needs, insufficient storage abilities, and no knowledge about resources available at the school level. "About half of textbooks are wasted in some SSA countries and 20% annual loss and damage is not unusual." (Fredericksen et al, 2016) This is a loss that reverberates through the entire education system, from the monetary investment made by governments, to the lack of reading materials available to students – especially those just learning to read.

Experience in developing countries suggests that when parents, teachers, and other local stakeholders know what books are to be delivered and when, they will advocate for on-time delivery. But even governments rarely have this information and even when they do, they are not able to track books during the delivery process in real time, much less share this information with parents, teachers, and local communities. Recent efforts to address these problems—such as the All Children Reading: Grand Challenge for Development for tracking and tracing books--are making great strides towards ensuring reading materials arrive in the hands of learners around the world. Several technologies developed or adapted for the Track and Trace methodology are seeing real results when it comes to ensuring the availability of reading materials in the classroom, among them those applied by Creative Associates International in Afghanistan and Mozambique.

The implementation of any digital system, however, comes with its own set of unique challenges. This panel will summarize recent implementation of digital Track and Trace systems for book delivery, and explore the setbacks and success experienced by teams during design and implementation through the lens of the Principles for Digital Development. (Principles, n.d) Presenters will describe the technology design, application, and core challenges. The panel will also explore the two central motivations for implementation of digital Track and Trace systems: insurance on government investment in reading materials and improvement of the efficiency and accuracy of management systems. Panelists will share experiences with stakeholder up-take and practical insights on digital Track and Trace for materials delivery, as well as comment on the possibilities that lie in the advancement towards equitable access to reading materials.

Structure of the Session

Four panel presentations of 10 minutes each, followed by discussant questions and response (10 minutes) and open discussion guided by the three key questions.

Fredriksen, Birger; Brar, Sukhdeep; Trucano, Michael. “Getting Textbooks to Every Child in Sub-Saharan Africa.” The World Bank. 2016

Principles for Digital Development. “The Principles.” http://digitalprinciples.org/

World Bank publication 2015, Where have all the textbooks gone?, p. 5.

Sub Unit

Chair

Individual Presentations