PLUS English

A low-cost, non-internet dependent English language education solution for children in under-served, under-resourced environments.

PLUS English is an innovative English language education program designed to address access barriers and deficiencies in English language education for children in resource-constrained contexts. The program works to accelerate children’s English learning outcomes and language acquisition, thereby helping to increase their future employability, earning potential and cultural capital. This is key to overcoming conditions of poverty and social inequality.

PLUS English is both a learning app and pedagogical framework. It brings together world-class digital learning content, multi-layered assessments and data-driven interventions - all delivered and accessed via non-internet dependent technology at an affordable cost for families at the base of the economic pyramid ($US1 per month). Digital lessons are complemented by traditional place-based learning experiences and peer group activities, creating a vibrant learning environment and providing multiple learning pathways for children. 

PLUS English is facilitated by local teachers in rural and remote classrooms, and potentially in village learning spaces. Irrespective of their own English language proficiency, teachers are empowered with the skills, strategies and confidence to effectively identify and support children’s English language learning needs using our technology. This helps to remedy deficiencies in teaching quality, while also strengthening teacher capacity.

At scale across Indonesia – a country with among the largest child populations and lowest internet penetration rates in Asia – PLUS English could extend the social and economic benefits of quality English language education to millions of children who, because of poverty and low connectivity, are excluded from existing alternative solutions.

PLUS English addresses the problem of inequitable access to quality English language education for rural and remote children in South Maluku and, eventually, across the Indonesian periphery (outer provinces). This problem affects >200,000 school-aged children in South Maluku and >14 million school-aged children in peripheral Indonesia.

Internationalization of Indonesia’s economy and tertiary sector, and participation in international communities such as ASEAN, has intensified demand for English language education across the archipelago. However, significant barriers remain for children in rural and remote communities in the peripheral provinces, increasing pre-existing inequalities in wealth and opportunity.

Indeed, the benefits of Indonesia’s strong economic growth and expanded internet penetration over past decades have not been distributed evenly. Rural and remote communities in the outer provinces remain characterized by higher rates of poverty and near-poverty, lower levels of development, and lower connectivity. Local children are therefore excluded from commercial and online English language solutions due to affordability and connectivity limitations. Instead, their best hope is to learn English in school.

However, schools in the peripheral provinces are under-funded and under-resourced, and teacher salaries are low. Attracting and retaining suitably qualified and experienced teachers therefore remains a challenge, particularly in rural and remote schools. As such, up to 60% of teachers in schools are guru honorer (non-government casual teachers) who are less likely to be qualified and experienced, and whose poor employment conditions and pay reduces motivation, reflected in high teacher absenteeism. This inevitably impacts the quality of teaching and English language education in schools.

PLUS English serves children who are either enrolled in participating elementary (SD) and lower secondary schools (SMP) or who are resident to villages where the program is delivered in community-based learning centers. These children come from families in the lowest income quadrants (with household incomes of approximately $2-4 a day) and/or in villages with zero to low internet connectivity. Owing to poverty, low connectivity and deficiencies in current teaching practice, these children are under-served in English language education, impeding their English language learning and acquisition. This, in turn, limits their future employment prospects and income levels, and their access to higher learning opportunities and global information.

PLUS English is implemented in communities by an established local NGO partner with an entrenched understanding of the grass-roots needs of those communities and, in particular, the needs of children. In South Maluku, the program is being implemented by esteemed local education and youth development charity, Heka Leka. While the PLUS English curriculum is based on the Global Scale of English (GSE), content can be readily customized to local cultural and learning contexts. This ensures the program is adaptive to the specific needs of communities as identified by the implementing partner. At the same time, learning data extracted from the app provides detailed insights into individual student and whole-class progress. This allows teachers to better understand the specific learning needs of students and classrooms, and to respond with appropriate interventions to address these needs, supported by the implementing partner and 40K.  

PLUS English aligns with Challenge in the following ways:

1. As a low-cost, non-internet dependent English language education solution for children, PLUS English is both accessible and affordable for under-served school-aged learners in contexts of poverty and low connectivity, increasing access to quality English language education.
2. PLUS English utilizes evidence-based English language learning content curated by 40K’s subject matter experts in accordance with GSE standards and objectives. It also utilizes a pedagogical framework that is informed by blended learning theories and Kolb’s learning cycle. Outcomes are aligned to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and can be readily adapted to the state curriculum. 
3. PLUS English is currently operating in Indonesia.
4. PLUS English provides multiple learning pathways for students through its blended pedagogical approach to English language education. This ensures that diverse learning preferences and styles are catered to. At the same time, the progressively structured PLUS English learning app allows students to achieve English language proficiency milestones (to CEFR A2 level) at their own pace through a series of scaffolded modules. Local teachers and community volunteers are trained and supported to effectively facilitate PLUS English in mixed-ability, low-resource classrooms, as well as to interpret and respond to learning data extracted from the learning management system. This increases their capacity and confidence to support children’s learning with technology and to implement data-driven interventions to personalize instruction.

Bharathy Venkat, Head of Programs

PLUS English takes an innovative approach to English language education by leveraging low-cost, non-internet dependent technology to deliver world-class digital learning content to children in under-served, under-served contexts using a scalable, in-school delivery model. The program also increases the capacity of local teachers to support children’s English language learning with technology and to implement data-driven interventions to personalize instruction. Underpinned by an evidence-based blended learning approach, the program supplements and improves the existing approach to English language education in schools without overriding local education systems and without diluting the teacher-student relationship.

By improving equitable access to quality English language education for children in rural and remote communities across the Indonesian periphery, the program has the potential to close the evident gap in English language proficiency between rural and urban Indonesians, and between children in Java and the peripheral provinces. This, in turn, will help to address inequalities in wealth and opportunity, given that English language proficiency provides pathways to better employment and education opportunities in Indonesia (Nambiar et. al 2019; Rido 2020). At the same time, the success of the program could also affect a paradigm shift within the rural/remote school systems towards similar blended learning models, thereby address deficiencies in teaching across multiple key learning areas and improving student engagement and learning outcomes in all subjects. This is critical to driving systemic change and to bridging the rural-urban education divide.

We developed PLUS English in 2013, fine-tuning the program in learning “pods” and schools in India over seven years. In 2018, we partnered with iNGO Room to Read to pilot the solution in three lower secondary schools in Cambodia, reaching 225 students and 25 teachers. Baseline test results from the pilot showed a 26% acceleration in learning outcomes among participants relative to a control group, after just seven months’ participation. According to teacher and family feedback, students also demonstrated increased confidence, increased motivation to learn and greater enjoyment of English. In 2019, we signed an MoU with the Cambodian Ministry of Education, allowing us to expand the program to 250 schools (approx. 75,000 students) to further validate the solution. We are currently piloting the solution in South Maluku to gain key insights into the local context which will inform any necessary program customizations and the final delivery model in Indonesia.

The PLUS English language program that leverages technology to supplement and improve the teaching-learning experience. The technology platform consists of three parts:

1. The PLUS English app, which is the primary driver of learning, consisting of curriculum-aligned lessons, practice and assessments. The PLUS English app can be accessed on any android device. Students log in with their user IDs to access their learning pathway and lessons relevant to their curriculum.
2. A raspberry pi and wi-fi router that creates a WLAN within the classroom, to allow for a seamless and uninterrupted learning experience for the student. The two-way sync between the student android devices connect and the Raspberry pi allow for seamless movement of both content and data. 
3. Our cloud LMS, which acts as the control center. It consists of a content management system (CMS) to manage and deliver learning content; a user management system to create and manage student login details; and a data management system that captures and delivers data in the form of reports. The reports from the LMS are critical in helping us, our stakeholders and teachers in decision-making. Teachers have an admin login that allows them to sync data from the raspberry pi to the cloud LMS on a pre-agreed frequency.

PLUS English is a scalable, non-internet dependent English language learning solution which can effectively reach children in rural areas who, because of the circumstances into which they were born, are excluded from alternative English language learning solutions. The program is grounded in a two-pronged theory of change that will ultimately help to bridge the rural-urban divide.

First, PLUS English will accelerate the English learning outcomes of rural and remote children by >26% annually (based on student baseline tests results in Cambodia and India). This will ensure that by the time the participating children leave school they will have developed competency in everyday English language skills – skills which are sought by employers in a range of industries and professions, including for instance public sector occupations and in the growing tourism and resource industries in peripheral Indonesia. This will, in turn, improve their socioeconomic status through increased employability, higher earning probability, improved job security, and increased cultural capital.

Second, PLUS English will equip teachers in rural and remote schools with the skills, knowledge and resources to facilitate the program in their classrooms. This will build their English teaching capacity and confidence, as well as their capacity and confidence to support learning through a student-centred technology-driven pedagogy, as evidenced in the teacher feedback we previously collected in India and Cambodia. Not only will this lead to improved student engagement and English language learning outcomes (as demonstrated in the results from Cambodia and India and in line with the existing evidence-base; see for example Osguthorpe and Graham 2003; King 2016), but we believe that the success of the program could also affect a paradigm shift within the rural school system towards similar blended learning models. This would address deficiencies in teaching quality across other key learning areas, and lead to improved engagement and learning outcomes of rural students in all subjects. This is critical to driving systemic change across rural school systems, and to bridging the rural-urban education divide.

To measure the success of PLUS English and our progress toward our impact goals, we will evaluate the program in accordance with our existing Monitoring and Evaluation Framework. This entails the following indicators-

1. Student engagement and impact on learning outcomes, measured by:

• Data from our learning app and learning management system (LMS), cross-referenced against variables such as grade and gender
• Login and time spent on the program
• Progress on the learning pathway against expected rate of progress
• Assessment scores
• Teacher self-reported data on student participation and performance, cross-referenced against the data from the LMS.

2. Impact on teaching capacity, measured by:

• Teacher self-reported data on teaching practices, competence and confidence level.

3. Continued interest and affordability, measured by:

• Fee collection against accrued amount
• Continued engagement/renewal beyond year 1

4. Financial sustainability, measured by:

• Variance from budget
• Projected timeline to bring project to self-sustaining state (based on fee collection)

Year One: We aim to reach a total of >1,700 students and >25 teachers across >12 schools in South Maluku. This is in addition to the >10,000 students and >150 teachers we will have reached in Cambodia.

Year Two: We aim to have reached a total of >10,700 students and >170 local teachers across >74 schools in South Maluku, West Nusa Tengarra and Sulawesi. This is in addition to the >25,000 students and >400 teachers we will have reached in Cambodia.

Year Five: We aim to have reached a total of >50,000 students and >800 local teachers across >340 schools in in South Maluku, West Nusa Tengarra, Sulawesi and 1-2 additional provinces. We aim to have completed the hand-over of PLUS English to Heka Leka in South Maluku, and to have commenced the transition in West Nusa Tengarra and Sulawesi. We also aim to have reached >75,000 students and >1,200 teachers in Cambodia, and to have entered a third Southeast Asian market.

Over this time, we aim to achieve the following impact goals:

• >75% of students demonstrate increased engagement in English language learning.
• Students demonstrate an average acceleration of English language learning outcomes of >25% annually relative to control groups.
• >75% of teachers report improvement in teaching practices, competence and confidence.
• >95% of schools renew beyond Year 1 and >75% of schools renew beyond Year 3, reflecting perceived value of the program within schools.
• The collection rate of family contributions exceeds 80%, reflecting perceived value of the program within households.

COVID-related barriers to in-school delivery 

There are two key barriers that we have identified which could impede the delivery and success of the program. 

1. Continued pandemic restrictions could impact the ability of students to engage with the program in schools. To address this, we will work with our in-country implementing partners to identify alternate approaches for learning delivery based on the local context, resource availability and community perception. In the past, these have included options such as open-air learning centres and podcasts. Currently, as part of our pilot in Maluku, we are testing PLUS English in a community library setting as a potential model of delivery during periods of school closures.

2. For any program to scale, the support of local stakeholders, particularly government agencies, is critical. By adopting a partnership approach to growth in Indonesia, we are relying on the relationship building skills and network of the partner organization. While we don’t see this as a major barrier in the initial years of the program, we recognize that for long-term impact, 40K will need to build strong networks within the region by leveraging the connections of partners, donors and other stakeholders. 

The 40K Group was founded with the mission to extend the benefits of quality education to under-served children. In 2010, we opened the Banyan School in an impoverished community on the outskirts of Bangalore, India. The school provided 350 local children, who had hitherto spent their days labouring in a nearby granite quarry, access to an education to improve their life chances. In moving forward, we sought to extend our reach to thousands more children in India and beyond through more cost-effective, scalable means.

Recognising the value of English language education, in particular, as key to building more secure economic futures for children in developing country contexts, the 40K Group developed PLUS English. The program was designed in 2013 as an affordable, digital English language learning program to supplement face-to-face teaching in contexts of teaching skills deficit and low connectivity.

Over a period of seven years, we fine-tuned and validated PLUS English in village-based learning pods in India and, later, in schools across rural Cambodia. Over that time, PLUS English has accelerated the English learning outcomes and language acquisition of over 8,000 children by >26% per annum.

This year, armed with our learnings from India and Cambodia, we moved to pilot PLUS English in the east Indonesian province of South Maluku in partnership with local NGO Heka Leka. This pilot, the results of which will inform the final delivery model and any required customizations, is being conducted in two schools and one community-based learning centre with approx. 250 children 

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PLUS English is delivered in South Maluku by the 40K Group in partnership with Heka Leka.

The 40K Group comprises the 40K Foundation and 40K Plus Education. Our diverse international team spread across India, Cambodia and Australia brings extensive lived experience in Asian developing country contexts, and prior work and research experience in rural education and community settings, including in Indonesia. The team has demonstrable expertise in English language teaching, pedagogical content and curriculum knowledge, technological innovation and project management. Led by a qualified English language trainer with over 20 years’ experience working with first-generation English learners in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Cambodia, the team has successfully delivered PLUS English across India and Cambodia since 2013. 

Heka Leka is a South Maluku-based NGO with 10 years’ experience of successfully implementing education programs in schools and community-based learning centres across the province. Heka Leka’s team of education specialists, social workers, advocates, project managers and youth volunteers (university students) bring deep grassroots understanding of the specific needs of the various communities that PLUS English will serve, nurtured through community consultation. The team also brings on-the-ground knowledge of government legislation, policy and directives, as well as an established network of school directors and education leaders, ensuring access to schools and learning centres across the province.

The 40K Group is well-positioned to expand PLUS English beyond South Maluku, leveraging our network of prospective, mission-aligned partners based across peripheral Indonesia.

When the pandemic forced schools to shutdown, we were presented with the challenge of finding ways to help our students continue learning from the safety of their homes. Our program team, led by our Head of Programs, Bharathy, thought of audio lessons as being an easy way to re-create a classroom setting. From this, stemmed the idea of podcasts. Bharathy spoke to other podcasters to understand the guiding principles of good podcast design, trained her team of educators and within a week, we had our first podcast going out to students. Designed to mimic a typical classroom session with teacher input and time for students to react, the podcast was accompanied by teacher support through a chat group and assessments sent out as Google forms. These low-key, easy to access weekly podcasts were well received by students and recognized by the Ministry of Education, who requested our support in setting up their own podcast channel. For 40K, this has created another pathway for learning delivery, relevant not just in the school programs but also in other areas of our work, like the “Workplace English” program for youth we are currently testing, the design of which stems from the podcast model.

The 40K Group is currently partnering with local NGO Heka Leka to deliver a pilot of PLUS English in two schools and a community-based learning centre in South Maluku. For the purpose of the pilot, 40K Group is responsible for providing leadership and administrative support, pedagogical and technical guidance, facilitator training resources, PLUS English platform maintenance, and program evaluation. Heka Leka is responsible for on-the-ground implementation of the pilot, including coordination of schools and volunteers, facilitator training, hardware distribution and maintenance, direct technical support, monetary collections, as well as project monitoring

A partnership with Octava and MIT Solve will add value primarily through: a) an initial funding injection which will allow us to position PLUS English for scale across South Maluku and to pilot the program in two additional provinces; and b) access to mentors and coaches who can support our team and implementing partners to grow the program’s reach in Indonesia; and c) support with establishing connections with government agencies, potential implementing partners and potential investors/donors to facilitate market entry in additional provinces.

The PLUS English model entails higher set-up costs and lower recurrent costs making it cost-effective over time and at scale. Revenue from school/community and family contributions will ensure that, at scale, the program is self-sustaining and, indeed, profitable. Until the program reaches self-sustainability in each market (at approx. 5,700 students in each province in Indonesia), it depends on external funding. 40K would therefore benefit from assistance with pitching the program to potential investors/donors, as well as from funding through the Challenge itself.

Since the program will become profitable at scale, we would also benefit from access to mentors and coaches who can support our team and our implementing partners to grow the program’s reach in Indonesia, as well as with establishing connections with government agencies and potential implementing partners to facilitate market entry in additional provinces.