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BEFIT — Building Education Foundations through Innovation & Technology: AI-adaptive foundational literacy and numeracy for Malawi's primary schools

Malawi · Lilongwe · See the Malawi profile

Malawi national programme deploying onecourse (onebillion) AI-adaptive tablets for Standards 1–4 literacy and numeracy across all 6,000 public primary schools by 2029. Nine RCTs back the software (ES 0.34–0.37 in literacy); Year 1 (2023–24): 500 schools, 18 districts.

9
RCTs conducted supporting onecourse software
0.34
Effect size in overall literacy (Malawi RCT) (2018-2019)
0.37
Effect size in overall literacy (Malawi RCT) (2019-2021)
4.2 months
Additional months of learning in literacy (13-month RCT) (2019-2021)
3.6 months
Additional months of learning in mathematics (13-month RCT) (2019-2021)
0.46-0.59
Effect size in literacy skills (Global Learning XPrize RCT, Tanzania, out-of-school children)
500
Schools reached (Year 1, 2023-24)
18
Districts covered (Year 1, 2023-24)
6,000
Target public primary schools by 2029
3.8 million
Children to be served annually in Standards 1-4 by 2029
BEFIT — Building Education Foundations through Innovation & Technology: AI-adaptive foundational literacy and numeracy for Malawi's primary schools

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Ministry of Education, Malawi; Imagine Worldwide; onebillion
Period
2023–2029
Keywords
primary education, adaptive learning, nonprofit, government, EdTech

Context

BEFIT is a national programme led by Malawi's Ministry of Education, implemented by Imagine Worldwide in partnership with onebillion and VSO, funded by the Global Partnership for Education, aiming to strengthen foundational literacy and numeracy for children in Standards 1-4.

Objectives

To deploy onecourse — child-directed, adaptive learning software delivering self-paced literacy and numeracy instruction via Android tablets — to children in Standards 1-4 (ages 6-10), with each 30-minute session adapting to the learner's level in Chichewa-medium foundational skills covering reading, writing and basic mathematics.

Activities

BEFIT rolled out to 500 schools across 18 of Malawi's 28 districts in Year 1 (2023-24) and is on track to reach all 6,000 public primary schools — serving 3.8 million children annually in Standards 1-4 — by 2029. Funding partners include the Global Partnership for Education and Sun King, which supplies solar-powered tablets.

Results

The evidence base for onecourse is among the strongest in EdTech globally: nine RCTs have been conducted across multiple countries. Malawi-specific RCTs from 2018-2019 and 2019-2021 with Standard 2 learners in government primary schools produced effect sizes of 0.34 and 0.37 in overall literacy, and a 13-month 2019-2021 RCT (disrupted by COVID-19) demonstrated approximately 4.2 additional months of learning in literacy and 3.6 months in mathematics. A Global Learning XPrize RCT in Tanzania with out-of-school children produced effect sizes of 0.46-0.59 in literacy skills. BEFIT's own Year 1 results are described as 'consistently positive and meeting or exceeding expectations.'

Conclusions

UNESCO lists BEFIT in its financing toolkit for digital education transformation, and the programme is on track to scale nationally by 2029.

Implementation

Implementation detail (cost, timeline, staffing, conditions for success) is not yet available for this practice.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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