The Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education has officially launched findings on a survey report on Building Foundational Learning through technology in Sierra Leone in collaboration with VSO.

Building of Foundational Learning Through Technology (BFLTT) project aimed to address these challenges and improve foundational literacy and numeracy for young learners in Class 1-3. Led by VSO, partnered with EdTech Hub, and funded by the Hempel Foundation.

The initiative ran from October 2023 to July 2024 and brought innovative EdTech solutions to classrooms in Pujehun, with five sessions weekly across 24 schools. Learners used One Billion’s one-course software through three learning modalities: standard (one-tablet-per-learner), tablet-sharing, and whole class projector in both English literacy and numeracy in school.

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Additionally, the study’s findings indicate that the intervention, applied in three distinct modalities (standard, tablet-sharing, and projector), significantly improved literacy and numeracy learning outcomes for Class 1-3 students.

All three intervention modalities proved equally effective in improving literacy and numeracy skills compared to the control group (no intervention), with no statistically significant differences between them. While improvements were observed across the board, the analysis revealed that these interventions helped lower-performing students catch up with their higher-performing peers. Specifically, students with initially lower literacy skills showed the greatest improvement in the standard modality. However, higher-performing students benefited more from the whole-class projector approach, indicating that the different modalities benefited students to varying degrees based on their initial literacy and numeracy levels.

Furthermore, the report shows that Students in all three treatment modalities improved more than control schools in both literacy and numeracy. The greatest improvement was in the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) where students’ scores improved on average between 39-42% more than those at control schools and Class 1 learners from all intervention arms outperformed class 3 learners from control schools by at least 15 points (out of a total of 62 and 47 for EGRA and EGMA respectively), indicating the potential for the intervention to produce significant learning gains in a short period.

Also, in Gender Equity in Learning Outcomes, an important finding is the intervention’s potential to reduce gender disparities in learning. In the intervention schools, boys and girls performed equally well across literacy and numeracy. In contrast, in control schools, boys outperformed girls in numeracy, with the gender gap widening significantly by the end of the study.

Teachers reported that boys tended to pick up new technologies faster than girls, that the boys are more likely to ‘properly use the tablets’ while the ‘girls find it difficult to use the tablet’.

Further research is needed to corroborate the findings of this study and to determine the impact of mother-tongue education in this context. In addition, more support for teachers in the use of these languages is needed to ensure teachers are equipped with the required linguistic knowledge.

The report also suggests a focus on enhancing program effectiveness by strengthening teacher training and support. Building of Foundational Learning Through Technology (BFLTT) project aimed to address these challenges and improve foundational literacy and numeracy for young learners in Class 1-3.