Method: We conduct a large scale randomised field experiment in 1823 rural government schools in India that uses technology-aided-teaching to replace one-third of traditional classroom teaching. Lectures delivered by experienced teachers with high use of multimedia content were transmitted from a central studio to targeted schools using satellite transmission. Use of satellite transmission enabled us to overcome absence of reliable broadband connectivity in rural areas. Schools were also provided with adequate power back-up. We use one computer per school which works out to an average student-to-computer ratio of 135:1 for the whole intervention.
Data: The intervention was targeted at students from grades 5 to 10 and covered standard school syllabi in English grammar, math, and science. We use student-scores from tests conducted before intervention and after one year of intervention to analyse the impact. We also use publicly available data on schools to control for school characteristics.
Results: Even with high student-to-computer ratios and minimal teacher training requirements, we identified a positive impact of up to 0.18σ on student learning outcomes. The impact on learning outcomes was higher in science, followed by math, and English. Also, the impact was higher among students from higher grades and in schools where there were no trained teachers, especially in case of science.
Our experiment is the first randomized field experiment to obtain positive results when implemented on a large scale. As the intervention covers schools spread across 18 districts, we believe that our results have a high level of generalizability unlike other similar studies conducted so far. Our estimates suggest that the cost of implementing such a program works out to 5% of the total per student per year expenditure incurred by the Government of Karnataka while it can lead to an improvement in learning outcomes of up to 68%.