This blog has been co-authored by April Williamson, Director of Global Projects, Digital Promise, and Prof. Sarah Younie, CEO, MESHGuides, co-leads of the Teacher Task Force Thematic Group on Digital Education and Artificial Intelligence.

Global education systems are undergoing rapid, but uneven, digital transformations. Increasingly, teaching and learning are moving toward blended environments that embed digital technologies. Yet, a stark global reality remains: many teachers are not yet adequately prepared or supported to teach using these modalities. 

This gap is most severely felt in resource-constrained and crisis-affected settings, where uneven infrastructure, lack of consistent internet access, and unreliable electricity fundamentally disrupt the educational ecosystem. These challenges exacerbate existing pressures due to teacher shortages, school disruptions, and the psychosocial impacts of conflicts.

The Teacher Task Force (TTF) thematic group on Digital Education and AI, co-led by Digital Promise and MESHGuides, hosted a webinar showcasing how TTF members are addressing these challenges using innovative, low-tech approaches. The webinar featured insights from the European Training Foundation (ETF), Save the Children, Jokkolabs, and the British Council. The session, which built on a prior webinar in the series, highlighted strategies to ensure teaching and learning continuity in fragile settings, online and offline approaches, chatbot-based training models, and community-based and trauma-informed practices.

Teacher Task Force Member Spotlights

Gaza (ETF)

Saida Affouneh shared strategies for maintaining teaching and learning continuity in Gaza through emergency online learning models tailored for conflict zones. The intervention demonstrated that under extreme conditions, familiar, low-bandwidth tools like WhatsApp audio and text messages act as a vital tool for delivering pedagogical content and mental health and psychosocial support. Ultimately, teachers need agency to make pedagogical adaptations and practical and ethical choices in response to crises. 

Somalia (Save the Children)

Hannah Walker presented the NORAD Teacher Professional Development Programme, which integrated structured WhatsApp groups to provide continuous professional development to teachers. The key takeaway is that low-tech tools cannot succeed in a vacuum; lowering adoption barriers depends on leveraging daily-use platforms alongside active facilitation, mentoring, and dedicated coaching. 

The Gambia (Jokkolabs)

Poncelet Ileleji showcased a delivery model that leverages ChatGPT to generate curriculum-aligned lesson plans distributed via offline channels like print and community radio to rural schools. The program proves that generative AI can serve as a viable low-tech frontier through a "single connected device" model, provided outputs are vetted by humans to mitigate errors and biases. 

Ukraine (British Council)

Neenaz Ichaporia highlighted the 'Teaching English in the New Context' course, a programmatic intervention supporting displaced Ukrainian educators through an online learning environment. The research revealed that while digital networks offer critical psychosocial support, future crisis-responsive models must actively ease structural inequalities—such as the unpaid labor burdens carried by female teachers—by relying on flexible, "flipped" learning models supported by human e-moderators, rather than rigid self-access designs. 

Key Takeaways

These diverse case studies demonstrate that to create meaningful impact in resource-constrained and crisis-affected environments, the goal must be appropriate technology rather than advanced or digitally sophisticated technology. Technology improves learning outcomes only when it is deeply integrated into pedagogy and tailored to local contexts and constraints. When paired with strong human support systems, localized low-tech solutions—such as mobile messaging apps, offline digital kiosks, radio broadcasts, and printed materials—successfully bridge the infrastructure gap. Ultimately, high-impact teacher professional development requires an intentional alignment between accessible tools, effective teaching practices, and supportive institutional and ethical frameworks.

Resources

European Training Foundation (ETF)

• ETF’s work on digital skills and learning
• ETF Digital Education Reform Framework 2.0 
• European Union tools for digital education
• ETF’s approach to boosting teaching innovation through knowledge sharing and collaboration
• Technology-enabled social-emotional learning for University educators: a systematic review
• Guidelines for educators in crisis settings

Save the Children

• WhatsApp-integrated AI: what it can (and cannot) do for teachers, pedagogy and TPD (GPE blog)
• Behind the Screen: Teachers Co-Designing WhatsApp AI Tools (EdTech Hub blog)
• TheTeacher.AI and Teacher AI: Empowering Educators with Artificial Intelligence (Fab Data)

Jokkolabs

• Jokkolabs Banjul

British Council

• Teaching English in the New Context (British Council programme in Ukraine)
• Teaching English to refugees and displaced learners (free open learning course)
• Integrating digital technologies (free open learning course)

Photo: Students listen to their teacher during class at as school run by the Abdi Hawa Center in the Afgoye corridor of Somalia. Photo credit: UN Photo/Tobin Jones.

This is a summary repost of the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti article of which the full version can be consulted here. 

Important new research on teacher absenteeism in sub-Saharan Africa was launched 24 November at a regional online workshop of national and international education stakeholders organized in Nairobi, Kenya. Time to Teach: Teacher attendance and time on task in Eastern and Southern Africa, provides insights into the drivers of primary school teacher absenteeism, a major obstacle in efforts to address the learning crisis among children of low- and middle-income countries around the world.

Produced by UNICEF Innocenti, the report synthesizes findings from eight sub-Saharan countries with a focus on the many complex factors that affect teacher time on task across the region. The study provides robust evidence on the challenges faced by teachers to improve policies on teacher working conditions, accountability and motivation. Reduced teacher time on task is considered one of the greatest challenges toward inclusive and quality education.

Photo credit: screenshot from the UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti video.