NEWS
10 September 2026
USING MOBILE PHONES TO BUILD RESILIENT EDUCATION SYSTEMS DURING EMERGENCIES
It is some of the world's fastest, multi-country evidence ever generated in education, showing that rigorous evidence need not be slow or small – it can be widespread and inform real-time policy and practice.
CSAE researcher Noam Angrist, alongside co-authors, presents evidence on how education systems can continue to deliver learning during emergencies in a new article published in Nature. The study brings together results from five randomised controlled trials in India, Kenya, Nepal, the Philippines and Uganda, testing whether low-cost phone-based education can work across different settings.
More than 2 billion people live in countries affected by emergencies that disrupt education such as: conflict, disease, natural disasters, and climate events. School closures during these shocks can leave children without access to learning, making alternative approaches to education delivery essential. Yet rigorous evidence o what works in these settings remains limited, particularly across different countries and contexts.
Building on Youth Impact's work on distance education during the Covid-19 pandemic in Botswana, the researchers asked whether phone-based approaches could be adapted and scaled to new settings, including through government systems and in other emergency contexts.
Across the five countries, researchers used mobile phones to provide teaching through different combinations of phone calls and SMS messages to primary school children. These approaches have the potential to reach households at relatively low cost and at scale, making them particularly relevant to low-resource settings where schools may be unable to operate.
Despite the different contexts and delivery models, the results show that phone call tutorials can be effective and scale across countries. The findings provide evidence that this approach can be adapted and scaled to help maintain children's learning when schools are disrupted.
The study also demonstrates that rigorous evaluation of education programmes in humanitarian and emergency settings is possible. By testing approaches across multiple countries and contexts, the research identifies practical and cost-effective models that could help education systems become more resilient to future shocks.