Can't Wait to Learn — adaptive tablet game for out-of-school children in Sudan

"Can't Wait to Learn" is a solar-powered, offline tablet game developed by War Child Holland with UNICEF that teaches literacy and numeracy through self-paced adaptive exercises to out-of-school children lacking access to functioning schools; in Sudan it was piloted from 2016 in West Kassala locality and Sinnar state, targeting children aged 7–9.

A quasi-experimental mixed-methods evaluation (Journal of Development Effectiveness, 2020) followed 221 children (183 completing pre- and post-assessments) in matched intervention and comparison villages. Six months into implementation, children using the tool showed significantly greater gains in mathematics and Arabic literacy than children in Sudan's government Alternative Learning Programme (ALP); UNICEF reporting states reading skills improved almost 2.7 times and maths skills nearly twice as much as ALP peers. The same peer-reviewed study found a statistically significant negative effect on children's self-reported self-esteem.

The evaluation used matched villages rather than randomised assignment, with a modest completed sample and self- and caregiver-reported measures, so causal claims should be read cautiously. The programme has since been replicated in Uganda, Jordan, Lebanon, Chad and other crisis-affected settings, and won UNESCO's 2018 King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for innovation in education.