A decade of EdTech innovations in Cambodia - why have some things ‘stuck’ and some fallen by the wayside?

• In Event: Challenging the perception of AI and edTech

Proposal

Over the last decade, Cambodia’s Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) has been recognized globally for its forward thinking approach to the use of technology to help the country meet its education goals. As described in its Policy and Strategy for ICT, it has aimed to increase the application of ICT in its management and governance processes, as well as to integrate ICT as a teaching, learning, and knowledge sharing tool to equip students with the ICT knowledge and skills needed to transition to the 21st-century world of work. MoEYS has committed to increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of teaching and learning in teacher training centers, schools, and other educational institutions by using ICT tools, e-resources and using e-learning to support the delivery of education services to all sub-sectors in education. Last year, in August 2022, MoEYS National Statement of Commitment to Transform the Education System in Cambodia placed digital education as one of its eight top priorities. Concerted efforts to meet this goal have been evidenced through MoEYS’ development of such innovations as a Ubiquitous Learning (U-Learning) platform, Open Education Resources site, digital education content, as well as the Digital Education Center, for example.

World Education has accompanied MoEYS on much of this journey. The decade-long perspective gives World Education a rich opportunity to critically look back at some of these digital innovations, both those that have endured and remain in use by MoEYS personnel, teachers and students, and those that have not. Our support for the use of ICT to address educational management challenges has ranged from working with MoEYS in the development of digital formative and summative reading assessment tools, to the digitization of the teacher mentoring system, with an accompanying dashboard for real-time data visualization, and even a digital textbook ordering and tracking system. In the teaching and learning sphere, our assistance over the last ten plus years has encompassed everything from a student early grade reading app, to a digital high school equivalency program and now an eLearning platform for teachers’ own professional development.

Analysis of the reasons for the differing levels of success of these innovations will use, as its starting point, the lens of the Principles for Digital Development. For instance, one principle to be examined - Design with the User - will generate reflection whether the digital tools were truly designed with users and in an iterative approach, with co-creation methods aimed at building community, developing capacity, and supporting ongoing sustainability. Another principle - Understanding the Ecosystem - will help us assess whether sufficient attention was paid to identifying barriers to access, use, or sustainability, whether other tools were already in use, and if the ‘shiny new tool’ was really needed and relevant. The Design for Scale principle will be used for critical assessment whether technology/software choices considered usability, cost, and end users’ devices and data-use patterns; while the Build for Sustainability principle will require genuine reflection whether each innovation was built around MoEYS ownership from the start, was aligned with government priorities, could be fully embedded into MoEYS policies, daily practices and user workflow, invested in local IT service providers, and had a design that could be adapted as user needs and the context change.

Under this microscope will be five of the digital innovations on which World Education has worked with MoEYS since 2014. These are i. the externally evaluated Aan Khmer mLearning app; ii. a digitized, automated early-grade reading formative assessment; iii. a Moodle-based Learning Management System that provides 9th grade equivalency courses to out-of-school youth nationwide; iv a digital textbook supply and tracking tool; and v. an integrated online platform for teacher and teacher educator continuous professional development and accreditation. These five have been picked for the mixed nature of their long-term success. For instance, despite being showcased at the time by DAI/USAID Development Innovations Project as a model project for its use of the Human Centered Design process, the formative reading assessment app is today only used on a small scale. On the other hand, the digital textbook supply tool - Track and Trace - is now fully owned, managed and funded by MoEYS and used for the ordering and tracking of government textbooks for every school in the country.

To deepen further understanding of the reasons for success and failure, the presentation will also utilize recent findings from World Education’s Cambodia Digital Education Landscape Scan. This studied existing or emerging digital learning interventions for teachers and students, including platforms and centers, that were or are in use and for whom and in what contexts they are effective or not.

The presentation’s final conclusions will attempt to summarize key learnings and pick out which of the Principles for Digital Development appear to have been most pertinent in the context of these five ICT innovations in Cambodia at the time. It is hoped that the presentation will raise useful discussion and, potentially, lessons for the future for others working in this field.

Author

• chanmony ung, World Education