An education solution maybe?

The problem of how to help poor African countries develop economically and help them get out of their grinding poverty - with hungry children, illiteracy, nights with no lighting, etc. confronts anyone who visits a country like Zambia. It ought to be possible to improve things, it is peaceful and not overpopulated, and it is easy to grow food and stuff like cotton to sell.  They do also have some natural resources in terms of copper and hydroelectric power.

So the standard theory is that they just need a bit of a leg up especially with improving literacy and education and malaria control, and then gradually growth and development will accelerate.

Education in particular has had huge help from Donors, and schools everywhere have signs indicating which particular charity or country has paid for their newest building. Many of the secondary pupils are sponsored by donors who pay for fees, books and even food.

But standards of education are dire. Class sizes are huge-not surprisingly,  with  the average age of the population of Zambia around 16, and an annual population growth rate of nearly 3%.  Many children miss school years intermittently due to lack of funds to buy uniforms and books. Then there are poor English language skills, lack of books, poor teacher training, and poor teacher motivation, which means that even secondary school pupils lack basic numeracy skills.  At the same time other parts of the world including India and China are leaping ahead in terms of their education especially in high tech areas. So Zambia is falling even more behind.

Is there any way of improving this situation? One possibly is to work outside the existing school system. Is one possible solution is Edulution. Using content from the US based online provider the Khan academy they employ coaches to help groups of 30 pupils in 3 hour sessions once a week throughout the year with their numeracy. Each pupil has a small tablet computer, which is linked to the coaches laptop. No internet connection is needed as the content is preloaded.  The  cost to sponsors is around $10 per month per pupil, which is much less than conventional school sponsorship. This system has recently been started in this area by the main local charity Projectluangwa.org and, at my recent visit to the local school, pupils and teachers and coaches seemed happy and enthusiastic. It is early days but after my visit I am cautiously enthusiastic that this is one situation where new technology may be at least part of the answer.