Learning Coin for Equitable Education

Building reading skills for underprivileged children and helping their families thrive economically through mobile learning and conditional cash transfers

Towards a Solution

In response to these challenges, since 2018, UNESCO in Thailand, through the Learning Coin pilot project, has been building the reading skills of underprivileged children and helping their families to thrive economically through mobile learning and conditional cash transfers. With support from diverse partners, including the Equitable Education Fund of the Government of Thailand, POSCO 1% Foundation of the Republic of Korea, True Corporation, Lenovo Foundation and Lenovo Thailand, the Learning Coin project provides out-of-school and marginalized children and youth in Thailand with tablet devices with the digital library “LearnBig” pre-installed, through which learners can access more than 1,700 books and multilingual learning resources.

The LearningCoin project has successfully helped disadvantaged children and youth in Thailand to cultivate reading habits while supporting their families financially with monthly scholarships based on their reading achievements, which in turn enables learners to continue their basic education. That contributes to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, on Quality Education, and specifically to SDG target 4.1.

Learners' daily reading data, including number of hours, reading consistency and answers submitted, are logged and analysed with algorithms of the LearnBig data and monitoring system, which calculates monthly scholarships for each learner or their parents. Learners earn monthly scholarships between 800 and 1,200 baht (approximately $25- 38), accounting for 10 percent of average family income.

To motivate learners to continuously improve their reading skills, learners who obtain higher scores than in previous months earn additional bonuses, resulting in increased scholarships.

The LearnBig application not only allows learners to reflect on their comprehension of the stories they have read by answering reading comprehension multiple choice questions through the app, but answers can be submitted and reviewed by teachers through the LearnBig online monitoring system as well.

In 2020, during the first phase of the pilot, the project assisted almost 500 out-of-school and marginalized children and youth including migrants, ethnic minorities and stateless children. Learners who earned the largest incentives read up to 23 hours per month, and those who spent more than 10 reading hours per month were likely to earn more incentives. UNESCO is currently exploring various opportunities to further expand the project to other countries in the region, including through the use of blockchain technology.

Analysing the impact of the LearningCoin project in the Mae Hong Son province of Thailand, 85.57 per cent of participating learners improved their reading skills and 79.38 per cent obtained higher academic achievements. In the Yala province, results of the Non-Formal National Education Test (N-Net) improved from rank 75 to rank 49. A study by Chulalongkorn University shows that the more frequently scholarships are paid to learners, the more likely they are to read. In support of SDG 17, the project has brought together public and private partnerships and South-South cooperation to promote innovations for equitable access to education across Thailand and in the region.

UNESCO is currently working to scale up the LearningCoin project and replicate it in other countries and contexts. UNESCO is currently identifying crowdsourcing and innovative financing approaches and modalities to expand the LearningCoin project and model to other countries in the region. Knowledge-sharing through South-South and triangular cooperation of the LearningCoin project and model has taken place with countries including Myanmar, Indonesia, Korea and Qatar, among others, at various international conferences and networks: 2021 Bridge Conference, International Conference on ‘Literacy for a human-centred recovery: narrowing the digital divide’, the International Conference on Equitable Education 2020, WISE 2019 Conference, etc.