This week at World Bank EduTech
week of March 8, 2021
This week, we:
- released a new podcast episode about our World Bank #edtech strategy;
- shared the webinar recording of our conversation with HundrED about transforming teacher professional development;
- shared new blogs about teacher professional development, the changing role of teachers and technologies amidst the COVID 19, and critical skills, such as digital skills, that will enable job participation, creation, and innovation in formal and informal sector;
- hosted our first Clubhouse call to engage the broader edtech community in our conversations;
- participated in a webinar with Educate! about building and assessing youth skills remotely during COVID; and
- shared a Call for Expressions of Interest for At-Scale Research announced by the EdTech Hub, a joint initiative of the World Bank, UKFCDO, and the BMGF.
- Bonus: #edtech by the Numbers!
🎙 New EdTech Podcast Episode
Our World Bank EdTech team recently released a paper about our edtech strategy — 5 key principles that it follows to support countries to effectively use edtech to improve the access to and quality of education globally. Today, we are speaking with the EdTech team about this strategy. You can download the strategy paper here. This is part 2 of a two-part conversation with the Robert Hawkins, Cristobal Cobo, Alex Twinomugisha, Mike Trucano, and Inaki Sanchez. Listen to the episode on Apple, Spotify, Anchor.
Webinar: Transforming Teacher Professional Development with HundrED
Last month, HundrED hosted a webinar on Transforming Teacher Professional Development through Technology, featuring guest speaker Cristóbal Cobo from our EdTech team. The conversation brought together a diverse group of over 160 education stakeholders from around the world. During the workshop, participants were encouraged to share their experience with teacher professional development both the challenges and potential solutions. Watch the webinar recording here.
And, if you are an education innovator, remember to submit your solution before March 20th!
New Blogs
- How can education systems enhance and scale teacher professional development through the integration of tech-based solutions? Aishwarya Shivaji Patil (World Bank) and Tom Kaye (EdTech Hub) explore this question:
- How is the role of teachers and technologies chaning amidst the COVID 19 pandemic? Read about key findings from a cross-country study.
- How will critical skills, such as digital skills, will enable job participation, creation, and innovation in formal and informal sectors? Read about how entrepreneurship skills will help Burundi’s youth build capacity to apply gained knowledge and skills to create jobs.
Our first call on Clubhouse
To engage the broader edtech ecosystem in our conversations and share what we are learning about edtech, our team hosted our first clubhouse call and invited our Twitter community to join in. Look out for future call announcements on Twitter!
Webinar: Building and assessing youth skills remotely during COVID: the experience of Educate!
In early 2020, most countries around the world made the decision to partially or fully close schools to contain the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19), affecting 90% of the world’s learners. Without the ability to provide in-person instruction, countries have turned to delivering learning content to students and parents through various modalities, including online, TV/radio, and via delivery of hard-copy learning packets. As countries’ experience over the last year have shown, many children and youth do not have access to digital resources, due to poor connectivity or limited access to digital devices. In this context, more low-tech and readily available modalities, such as basic mobile phones, can facilitate learning continuity by ensuring that learning resources are effectively used and that students continue to move along their learning trajectory.
At the same time, the COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated the importance of socioemotional skills for coping with the adversities and uncertainties brought about by the pandemic.
In this webinar, Educate! presented the organization’s approach to building a comprehensive skill set for youth, discuss how Educate! adapted its flagship model for low-tech remote delivery and skills assessment amidst widespread school closures, and share the lessons they have learned thus far. Learn more about the webinar here.
Call for Expressions of Interest for At-Scale Research
The EdTech Hub, a joint initiative of the World Bank, UKFCDO, and the BMGF, has released a new Call for Expressions of Interest for at-scale research to increase the amount of high-quality research evidence available regarding the impact of technology-based solutions to improve learning and education.
- up to GBP 750,000 in funding
- for work in one (or more) of the six EdTech Hub focus countries: Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Tanzania
- deadline: 11 April 2021
Complete information is available here.
EdTech by the Numbers
#GlobalEdTechMarket: EdTech is increasingly Big Business, a trend that COVID-19 has greatly accelerated. Depending on who you talk to, the current size of the global edtech market (today valued at just under US$86bn by one reckoning) will grow to US$181bn by 2025, or perhaps to US$285.2bn by 2027, or to US$404bn by 2025.
#EdTechUnicorns: There are currently 20 edtech ‘unicorns’ around the world — private companies with market capitalization over more than US$1bn. 8 of these are from the USA, 7 from China, 2 from India and one from Canada. Sharp eyes will notice two IFC investments among this group of 20. For the first time in a long time, there are more U.S. than Chinese companies on this list, as one Chinese company recently had an IPO (and so is no longer private) and a new U.S. company joined the list. (If you want to understand what’s happening now in edtech, and what is likely to happen next, you would do well to look to China for insight and inspiration. But be aware: Things move fast in this space; the most valued company on the edtech unicorn list at the end of 2020, China’s Tencent-backed Yuanfudao, just announced plans to seek new funding at a valuation of US$20bn, a level US$4.5bn higher than where it stood on 31 December!)
#MoocLearners: Back in 2012, Thomas Friedman (NY Times) announced the ‘year of the MOOC’. While in hindsight this pronouncement appeared (at best) premature, in 2020 over 180m learners participated in a massive open online course, or MOOC — and this figure excludes China (!), which arguably the largest market for MOOCs in the world (but where related reliable, comparable data can be hard to come by. To repeat: If you want to understand what’s happening now in edtech, and what is likely to happen next, especially when it comes to MOOCs, you would do well to look to China for insight and inspiration.
#LMSmarket: Fueled in part by COVID-related exigencies, the global market for learning management systems (LMS) began to grow again in 2020. For those of you considering the use of LMS in your tertiary education projects, this handy graphic will give you a sense of the major industry players, and how they have evolved over time.
#AfricanEdtechStartups: At least 39 African edtech startups received new funding last year, continuing a trend of slow and steady growth in this nascent industry across the continent. If you are looking for representative examples of edtech firms emerging across Africa, the new Africa EdTech 50 list from Holon IQ might be a good place to start, together with the list of 39 startups supported by Injini, Africa’s first edtech startup incubator (and a partner in the EdTech Hub initiative).
