How to boost reading and numeracy skills — without teachers

I have come to the unhappy conclusion that in the short-term, the best way to boost reading and numeracy skills in the foundation years is to bypass teachers.

McKinsey’s famous dictum that the quality of a school cannot exceed the quality of its teachers was made before the advent of revolutionary technologies in education; it can.

Unhappy, because I believe in the power of teachers to change young lives.

Short-term, because what I am about to propose cannot be a long-term solution if only because of the terror of mass unemployment among 450,000 teachers while we find other solutions.

The foundation years, because this is where we are not only stagnant, the reading results are going in reverse as we saw from international literacy studies.

Recall that the 2016 PIRLS (Progress in Reading Literacy Study) showed that 78% of our grade 4 pupils  cannot read for meaning but that the 2021 PIRLS results (released in 2023) were worse — 81% of pupils in that same grade recite words they do not understand.

Now you can stare at that data reality till you’re blue in the face, but nothing is going to change if you simply continue to do what you’ve done for 30 years and hope that by some miracle, reading scores spike upwards. It is not going to happen.

In the past few months, I have been exposed to revolutionary reading technologies deployed in township schools and the results are nothing short of astounding.

From Click Learning to an affinity program, AMIRA, I have witnessed small miracles in front of my eyes.

A hardened sceptic towards tech evangelists, I am subjected to regular visits from entrepreneurs marching through my Stellenbosch office with the latest shining objects but within five minutes, I ask them to leave.

These two programs are different in that they offer something that makes a real difference.

First, learning is individualised, while pupils progress at their own pace, the technology setting the terms and timing of engagement. In crowded classrooms, another problem is now solved.

Second, the feedback from an AI tutor is immediate and corrective; you don’t have to wait for days or weeks for the results of marking which may or more often may not come to you in the form of individualised feedback.

Three, the AI tutor does not have sick days or funeral days or lazy days off but engages the pupil every day with the same focus and intensity on demand.

There are endless side benefits. The children learn how to use advanced technologies in the process of learning how to read; there is also a numeracy program, by the way.

Facilitators are employed, young people with technological skills that can step in whenever they are needed.

You do not need teachers actually but if they must be deployed, they too can and should go through the training and development courses which cast them in a very different role — not as the director of teaching but as a guide on the side.

In other words, the kind of vision that Curriculum 2005 had for teachers when we were all (well, most of us) giddy about the new philosophy of education where children would unleash their creative imaginations through self-learning activities.

What a load of nonsense that turned out to be, but I digress.

Another reality check. Most of our older foundation phase teachers are not going to be able to master these new technologies and so they might well reveal their own redundancy; they should be given a soft landing and exit the system.

Or we can employ teachers for the sake of employment and continue to see the PIRLS results slide even further at great cost to the children.

It would be a mistake to see these technological breakthroughs in learning as mere technology.

The AMIRA program, for example, benefits from the latest research in neuroscience and reading.

As pupils read out loud, the computer uses advanced speech recognition and natural language processing to assess levels of reading mastery.

Simply phenomenal. What you have here is the science of reading powered by artificial intelligence.

Of course, there would be a steep upfront investment in technologies and security so that every school is fitted out with the kinds of spaces that are fully equipped with devices and data to advance learning.

The training costs are built into program design as are support materials.

Even as I write, an architect is coming to one of the schools I work in to design a classroom plan for optimal utility by children eager to learn to read at and above the grade level.

But once that investment is made, the ROF (return on investment) in terms of sustained learning gains will quickly outstrip initial financial commitments.

Teachers have two options. Get with the programme and retool themselves for a completely different role in 21st century education. Or take early retirement.

Full disclosure, I receive absolutely no personal benefits from either of these new ventures.