There are many organizations and companies that are investing in developing countries to better the lives of people that live in them and to also decrease the global rates of poverty and hunger. With all of the focus on helping developing countries, new advancements in these nations often slip under the radar.

One such achievement is the way developing countries are changing education. Experts are now looking at developing countries’ new initiatives and technology and investigating how these advancements can be applied to schools in developed countries.

There are several ways schools in developing countries are changing education. One way is the use of technology in classrooms. With tech companies such as Dell, which has recently created the initiative Youth Learning that gives students access to laptops for their studies, students in developing countries are learning and using more technology.

William Altman, who is a tech industry analyst at CB insights, says that schools in developing countries are more likely to use online tools in order to stay up to date. Schools in developed countries tend to continue to use traditional techniques because they have enough funding to do so.

For students in developing countries, technology is creating new ways to learn while also providing more opportunities. Jamil Salmi, an education economist and coordinator of higher education professionals at World Bank, discusses the importance of technology for developing countries in an interview for Voices.

He says, “Today, technological innovations are revolutionizing again the capacity to store, transmit, access and use information.” Salmi goes on to say that low cost for technology access is another reason why using technology is beneficial for students.

Another difference in schools from developing countries compared to those in developed countries is the teaching techniques themselves. Since there are such large student populations, some schools in developing countries had to develop ways to teach larger class sizes.

In 2015, the United Nations’ World Population Prospects reported that African countries such as Niger, Uganda and Chad account for all top 10 positions in world’s youngest populations. The result of a large number of students is to find solutions by trying new things and thus finding new ways to teach students.

Educators are now looking at how developing countries are changing education to see what is next for schools. Schools in developed countries are seeing what ways technology can be used in schools and what techniques work to teach the most students. It seems that the more new techniques that schools in developing countries try, the more advanced school systems get.

– Deanna Wetmore

Photo: Flickr