🇿🇦 English, 16 October 2026, AI in education
Early trials of educational AI in African countries show encouraging results
Students using AI tools in schools gain the equivalent of months or even years of additional learning.
Early trials of educational AI in African countries show encouraging results, with effects equivalent to months or even years of additional learning. Many of these tools try to give students an approximation of one-on-one teaching. Others are helping teachers plan lessons or mark assignments, and even writing textbooks.
The potential for this kind of tool was demonstrated by a preliminary evaluation, conducted with researchers at the University of Oxford and J-PAL, a research network. About 500 Ghanaian school students were split into two groups – one that used Rori for an hour a week, and one that did not – then tested twice over an eight-month period.
Those who used Rori gained the equivalent of at least a year’s worth of learning, relative to the control group. A larger trial, spanning five districts, is under way.