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Adapting Distance Education in Resources Constrained Contexts: Lessons from a Multimedia Distance Science Education Project for Girls in Afghanistan

Sun, March 23, 9:45 to 11:00am, Palmer House, Floor: 7th Floor, Dearborn 1

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

In August 2021, the Taliban took control of Afghanistan and imposed a ban on girls' secondary education. Despite widespread international condemnation, this ban persists, leaving millions of middle and high school girls without access to education. This reversal follows two decades of considerable educational progress, with girls' school enrollment rising from 100,000 in 2000 to 3.8 million by 2019 under the previous government.
The educational crisis in Afghanistan is exacerbated by severe shortages of teachers, classrooms, and educational resources. With millions of girls out of school and poor learning outcomes among those still attending, there is an urgent need for innovative solutions. Educational technology presents a promising avenue for improving access to education and learning, yet several significant challenges persist:
Digital Divide: Many regions, especially in fragile contexts like Afghanistan, struggle with unreliable internet access and limited technological infrastructure. This digital divide poses a major barrier to the successful implementation of standard multimedia educational models.
Technological Competency: Low levels of technological literacy among both students and educators further hinder the effectiveness of digital learning initiatives.
Access to Infrastructure: Limited access to digital devices and other technological resources makes it difficult for students to fully engage with and benefit from multimedia education.
Socio-cultural Barriers: Adapting technology in traditional societies presents additional challenges, even when access issues are resolved.
In 2022 New York University’s (NYU) International Education Program and Politics Department partnered with Lapis/Moby Media to create the Expanding Access to Education in Afghanistan initiative. The research team functioned as external, but closely connected research and development collaborators on the project, thus offering state of the art methods to target particular program elements. In this role as the external research and development team, our activities involved two main aspects: (1) technical support for concept development of the education program, working with Moby Media to feed into the content and learning strategies that were to be tested in the evaluation; (2) a multipronged impact evaluation, examining the accessibility and effects of Moby’s mass media and direct service programs on secondary school children’s access to education, learning, and social and emotional development. This initiative aimed to deliver science education—covering chemistry, biology, physics, and mathematics—to students in grades 7 to 10. The program featured televised science lessons, interactive web-based learning platforms, mobile app engagement, and SMS-based learning tools, complemented by community outreach and support for educators.
In this panel, we discuss (1) the situation in Afghanistan that demanded such innovation and describe how we designed and localized the content and overall approach to address challenges like limited technology access across the digital divide; (2) discuss and show the educational broadcast program; and (3) present findings from our randomized controlled trial assessing the take up and learning effects from the educational broadcast.

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