Tech for good is a concept that has always excited me. The idea of being able to make the world a better place by harnessing technology is powerful.
One sector where technology can help bring about real change is education, and we have seen that during COVID-19 with the unprecedented acceleration of edtech (education technology). Learning worldwide would have come to an abrupt standstill but edtech intervened and rose as a disruptive force for real good in an almost overnight fashion.
In the same vein, technology can make critical interventions simple and scalable in the long run. The same spirit of agility and adaptability in tech solutions can be applied to foundational learning and more.
This will be extremely relevant in today’s scenario where the increasing competition makes it harder to find the right jobs. It becomes even more challenging for those who do not have access to education and lack basic skills. The numbers are staggering -- a recent UNESCO study found that over 263 million children and youth are out of school worldwide.
Technology can play a crucial role in helping fill these gaps. Today, technology has the potential to disrupt traditional models of education and revolutionise the way we teach and learn.
Challenges faced by out of school and low-income groups in Singapore
With the world increasingly becoming a global village, English is becoming the lingua franca of business, and proficiency in the language is considered key to career growth in Southeast Asia and beyond.
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Singapore is one of the most English-literate countries in Asia, but, in reality, adult illiteracy in English is a common challenge here. According to the Department of Statistics, about 283,000 Singapore residents between the age of 15 and 64 years were illiterate in English in 2020.
Moreover, while pre-primary education is not mandatory here, students are still expected to have a good command of the English language before they commence primary school. This largely affects lower-income groups who do not have access to pre-schools and early education.
Technology enables us to bridge this gap between the privileged and underprivileged. We need to cast the tech start-up lens in a non-profit field. We can help make education accessible for all and create an efficient learning environment by leveraging AI-driven, data-based solutions to gamify education and get better user retention as well as engagement. This is exactly what we are trying to do with Solve Education.
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According to Statista, 100% of residents in Singapore aged 15 to 24 years were using smartphones, and around 88.5% were using the Internet in 2020. This level of smartphone usage and Internet penetration can be leveraged to help make education accessible, especially for those in the lower demographics of the city-state. For out-of-school youth, edtech can be leveraged for the integration of evidence-based curriculum in gameplay.
For example, by leveraging mobile game applications and chatbots on popular social channels like Telegram, edtech players now can enable out-of-school youth to get an education and enhance their English, literacy skills, and employment-related soft skills.
However, it is important to note that these tech solutions need to be designed specifically for low-end smartphones and intermittent internet connectivity so that they are easily available to the underserved population.
The role of AI and big data in changing the ‘game’ of education
AI-driven game-based learning allows users to learn at their own pace in a safe environment where they don’t have to be afraid of failing or being too slow. The model encourages learners to make mistakes and learn from them, making education an overall pleasant experience and thus igniting the passion for learning. By leveraging big data, we can learn how to help users improve and in which areas, while AI helps foster an environment where users can hone speaking and listening skills.
In Singapore, Solve Education! has been working closely with Yayasan Mendaki. The MENDAKI programme mostly targets the bottom 30% of the Malay population in Singapore and aims to enhance the learning motivation of children using gamified learning in the Dawn of Civilization application. This partnership has been ongoing since 2018 with the core objective of helping provide early assistance to the beneficiaries so that they will be school-ready and future-ready.
With these strategically-curated mobile game applications, out-of-school youth can enhance their English literacy and numeracy skills and develop life skills. They can also learn the values of grit, discipline and diligence, as well as gain work experience that can help them adapt to the changing world.
Games can present users with realistic and compelling challenges, making learning relevant, applied and practised within that context. For example, there are missions in the game that require the users to work as a team and help each other, teaching teamwork and negotiation skills.
Janine Teo is the CEO and co-founder of Solve Education, an educational technology non-profit
