Can digital data collection facilitate community-level learning and innovation in education programmes?

• In Event: Digital Promises and Analogue Realities: Educational Technologies in Resource-Limited Settings

Proposal

This presentation will explore how digital data collection can enhance the effectiveness of education programs in low-resource settings, using the Speed School program in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger as a case study. Implemented by Strømme Foundation (SF), the Speed School program provides education to out-of-school children in some of the world’s most challenging environments, where fragile security, displacement, and climate change disrupt learning.
Strømme Foundation has recently digitalized its Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) system, which covers education and livelihoods programs across nine countries in East and West Africa and Asia. This digital transition has allowed SF and its local partners to gain real-time, accurate insights into the challenges faced by Speed School centers, enabling timely interventions and the development of innovative solutions tailored to the local context.
In these remote areas, Speed School animators (teachers) receive one month of intensive training and follow a set curriculum. However, their daily teaching experiences are shaped by diverse local realities. With digital data collection, SF and local partners can monitor the performance of individual centers, adapt to emerging trends, and ensure that program adjustments respond effectively to community needs. Additionally, the active involvement of local communities through School Management Committees has been key to the program’s success, fostering local ownership and accountability.
This presentation will share SF’s experiences and lessons learned from the digitalization of data collection, focusing on how access to real-time data has facilitated a more inclusive and adaptive learning process at the community level. It will also reflect on how this approach can drive innovation and improve program quality. Finally, the presentation will consider which elements of SF’s digital data collection strategy are transferable to broader education systems in low-resource contexts, with a particular emphasis on West Africa.

Author

• Anne Breivik, Strømme Foundation