To use, or not to use tech, that is the question.

• In Event: Digital interventions in Pakistan: what do Global South teachers need for a 21st-century experience?

Proposal

There is a global push towards the adoption of technology in education, with many seeing it as a catalyst or a silver bullet to overcome Pakistan’s learning woes. In many instances, the adoption of technology is also equated with the development of 21st century skills, with the implication that it is not possible to develop these skills without technology. In this case study, we present the use of technology at a Government College of Teacher Education in Karachi, Sindh, being managed under a public private partnership. The private party in this arrangement, a non-profit by the name of Durbeen, is currently offering a 4-year undergraduate Bachelor of Education degree program for prospective Elementary Public School Teachers. All student-teachers sign a 7-year contract with Durbeen, wherein Durbeen commits to fully subsidize the cost of the 4-year degree program, while students are required to do mandatory 3 years of public service in government schools as contractual employees.

Even though all student-teachers are provided laptops at the start of the program, Durbeen has made a purposeful distinction between the use of technology as a planning tool versus a teaching tool for teachers. This distinction has been necessitated by the ground realities of Pakistan’s public schools which often lack even basic infrastructure. The ASER Report (2023) found that only 45% of rural government schools in Sindh have electricity. In such environments, edtech has little to no role as a teaching tool. Instead, teachers have to be trained to offer a high quality of education and develop 21st century skills in schoolchildren using low/ cost resources. Accordingly, Durbeen discourages its Faculty in the B.Ed. program, as well as student-teachers, from using technology to teach their lessons. When using technology, Faculty rationalize this usage and ask student-teachers to reflect on how such pedagogies may be implemented within the resource constraints of typical government schools.

In contrast to government schools, technological access amongst teachers is relatively better with 91% households in Sindh owning a mobile/ Smart Phone and 32% households reporting having an internet facility (Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, 2020). This presents opportunities to develop teachers’ digital literacy so they may use their phones or computers to research and develop high quality teaching plans using low-cost teaching & learning materials. With this goal, Durbeen extensively develops the digital skills of its student-teachers, including but not limited to building their proficiency over the use of Artificial Intelligence, online research, media literacy and critical consumption of information, using of a variety of educational applications and applications within Microsoft Office, Office 365 etc.

As student learning outcomes stagnate or worsen across Pakistan, policymakers are scrambling to find quick solutions to this challenge by turning to Edtech providers, who make big promises for circumventing teacher quality issues and for educating children at scale. Whether this promise will be fulfilled in Pakistan, remains to be seen. Against this backdrop, this case study is as much a showcase of how to use technology in education, as it is a showcase of how not.

Author

• Salma Alam