The Partnerships for Tech in Education (P4T-Ed) initiative, established by Innovations for Poverty Action and the Jacobs Foundation, aims to unlock the potential of technology to enhance learning outcomes globally, by fostering a long-term, evidence-based approach in EdTech. P4T-Ed will support EdTech providers to use data and evidence to improve their solutions and have more impact. Advancing these goals could involve addressing the following challenges:
How can we better understand our user base and design our solutions to meet their needs?
How should we prioritize among product improvement opportunities to enhance take-up, user experience, and efficiency?
How can my organization create an analytics and monitoring system that tracks both impact and growth?
How can we generate credible evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of our solution and strengthen a cohesive impact narrative?
How can we identify the necessary adaptations before scaling the solution to new markets (e.g., populations or geographies)?
The technical assistance could fall under these high-level categories:
- Developing or refinement of Research and Testing strategy
- Providing capacity building support for Research and Testing execution.
*For more information on the types of services offered, funding requirements, and additional application instructions, please visit the
Request for Expressions of Interest.
EligibilityFor applications to be considered, applicants need to comply with the following eligibility criteria:
- EdTech work in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs): P4T-Ed will only consider applications that demonstrate both provision of EdTech services and provision of these services in LMICs.
- Co-funding requirement: P4T-Ed will only consider applicants who can cover 50% of the cost of the partnership (for more information on this requirement, please visit the EOI).
Selection criteria: The applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis based on the following criteria:
- Financial feasibility: Co-funding ensures impactful alignment with partners' needs and their readiness to adopt rigorous R&T practices. P4T-Ed will assess each applicant’s ability to meet this requirement.
- Priority geographies: While P4T-Ed is open to EdTech providers from all low- and middle-income countries, the initiative aims to have half of the partnerships implemented in Colombia, Ghana, and Cote d’Ivoire as priority countries. We encourage EdTech providers from outside these three countries to submit applications.
- Potential for influence: This criterion consists of two sub-criteria:
- Direct influence on EdTech solution, understood as the partnership’s ability to meaningfully influence its results and practices associated with learning within the engagement. P4T-Ed will be evaluating:
Whether the partnership will significantly enhance the applicant's capacity to use data and evidence more effectively to improve their product and demonstrate its results;
The applicant willingness to adopt a data-driven continuous improvement approach;
The organizational capacity to actively engage in the partnership and adopt recommendations; and
The expected impact of the EdTech solution on learning outcomes and the evidence supporting the achievement of that impact.
- Indirect influence on the wider EdTech sector, understood as the partnership’s ability to influence the research and testing practices in the EdTech sector. In doing this, P4T-Ed will also consider how established the applicant organization is.
- Potential for tech-focused rapid-cycle learning: P4T-Ed will be assessing the organization and its EdTech solution’s potential to leverage the unique benefits of EdTech through rapid-cycle iterative learning, by looking at (i) the extent to which tech is part of the solution and (ii) the extent to which the learning activities to be supported are taking advantage of technology or data, which is only possible because of the EdTech nature of the solution.
While the request for expressions of interest will close at the end of day on May 31, 2024 [Eastern Daylight Time], applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Therefore, we encourage interested organizations to send them as early as possible to increase the chances to be selected.
Timeline:
- Deadline for EOI: May 31st, 11:59 pm ET.
- Around the third week of June, shortlisted applicants will get notified and asked for additional information on their applications, such as more details on their R&T practices, ideal start of the engagement if selected, among others.
- All applicants will be notified of the decision by mid-July 2024.
If you have questions about P4T-Ed or the request for expressions of interest, please contact p4t@poverty-action.org. 