In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures, learning losses were exacerbated in contexts that lacked technology-based solutions. To promote education systems’ resilience in low-income countries, ministries of education are improving technological infrastructure to make solutions more effective and widely available. This project seeks to address COVID-19 losses by promoting improvements in teaching and student learning through engagement with the evidence-based and evidence-proven interactive multimedia software called ABRACADABRA (ABRA) and READS. ABRA contains dozens of game-like activities designed to build early literacy skills, while READS is a catalogue of over 2,000 free digital stories in over 30 different languages that can be used to help develop fluency skills.
A new collaborative relationship with the Kenya Information and Communication Technology Authority (ICTA) has proven critical to ensuring widespread access to the ABRA software on the Digital Literacy Program (DLP) devices. On March 4, 2022, the ICTA Regional Director oversaw the installation of the Learning Toolkit (LTK) software in participating Kenyan schools. This collaboration with ICTA that has since strengthened as the project has expanded to other Kenya schools, with co-facilitation of teacher professional development activities and ICTA’s preparation of ICT support material, highlights the importance of such partnerships for scaling the use of the software across Kenya.
