Bridging achievement gaps amongst school students through a technology-based blended learning model

Through international and national assessments, it has been found that there are huge learning gaps among elementary school students in India. Technology-led initiatives can provide scalable channels of delivery of high quality educational inputs. So far the research on technology in education has mostly focused on digitizing content, hardware (such as electronic "Smart boards"), tablets, etc and has concluded mixed results. This paper evaluates the impact of using an intelligent tutoring system in remedial centres of education for children living in the slums of India. This solution focuses on how technology can bring change while centralizing quality and yet disseminating at scale at affordable costs with high utilization - an approximate cost of US$10 per month per child with 80% utilization of capacity. This can also be replicated in other parts of the world, once program is converted into the mother tongue language. This has huge implications from a policy perspective. With the positive evidence emerging on the impact of technology-based adaptive learning systems, the government can complement their efforts to support schools with computers and Internet with the provision of proven adaptive learning systems to have a real impact on the learning of the children.