Supporting teachers with mobile technology: lessons drawn from UNESCO projects in Mexico, Nigeria, Senegal and Pakistan

Solving the twin challenges of teacher supply and teacher quality will require time and investment. It will also require innovation and a willingness to experiment and confront problems with new tools and approaches. When considering different ‘outside the box’ strategies to bring teacher development to scale at minimal cost, especially in poor countries, UNESCO kept returning to a simple but increasingly prevalent technology: mobile phones.

UNESCO felt that mobile technology might offer a means to support teachers working or preparing to work in challenging environments. It further believed that services developed specifically for mobile devices could be brought to scale quickly and at reasonable cost, as exemplified by the broad uptake of existing mobile banking and mobile health services. Yet despite this considerable potential, there was very little evidence that teacher development via mobile phones was possible, desirable or effective.

This publication concerns UNESCO’s attempt to fill this gap and pilot projects to help in-service teachers who are not often reached by standard capacity development initiatives. While the UNESCO projects did not target pre-service teachers, they shine light on practices that would benefit teachers preparing to enter classrooms as well as those who are already working. The projects were coordinated by UNESCO from 2012 to 2014 in Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan and Senegal and then handed off to local partners after approximately two years.