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Good practice Imported

EIDU — AI-Adaptive Pre-Primary Learning in Kenya's Public Schools (Peer-Reviewed RCT)

Kenya · Nairobi · See the Kenya profile · See the Nairobi profile

Evidence: Randomised controlled trial Top 1% 87/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

EIDU pairs teacher training with an AI-adaptive app that personalises literacy/numeracy practice for Kenyan public pre-primary pupils. A cluster-RCT across 291 schools (1,955 children) found a 0.534 SD gain at endline, published in a peer-reviewed journal in 2026.

0.534 SD
Effect size, endline (combined literacy/numeracy)
0.425 SD
Effect size, midline
11 $
Delivery cost per child per year
94000
Children currently served in Kenya
EIDU — AI-Adaptive Pre-Primary Learning in Kenya's Public Schools (Peer-Reviewed RCT)

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
EIDU gGmbH, with EdTech Hub, University of Manchester and Women Educational Researchers of Kenya (WERK)
Period
2022–2023 trial (programme running since 2015)
Keywords
AI-adaptive learning, structured pedagogy, early-childhood education, public pre-primary schooling

Context

EIDU, a Berlin-headquartered non-profit founded in 2015, built a low-cost AI-adaptive digital personalised learning (DPL) tool for Kenyan government pre-primary classrooms, combining structured-pedagogy teacher training with a smartphone app that sequences literacy/numeracy exercises to each child's demonstrated mastery.

Results

The October 2022-October 2023 cluster-RCT found treatment effects of ~0.425 SD at midline and 0.534 SD at endline on combined literacy/numeracy outcomes — a large effect size by international education RCT standards. Delivery cost is reported at ~$11 per child per year.

Conclusions

The published trial does not report a gender-disaggregated breakdown, so the equity claim rests on the tool's low cost and placement inside the public system serving low-income families broadly, not on documented girls-specific outcomes.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Low (< €50k)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
classroom teachers (trained in structured pedagogy), EIDU technical/programme support staff

Conditions for success

  • integration inside government schools rather than as a parallel private offering
  • low per-child delivery cost
  • smartphone-based, teacher-facing progress data

Commonly funded by

Philanthropic / foundation funding

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Data sources

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

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