Personalised EdTech for English Literacy: Evidence from South African primary schools

This study investigates the relationship between learner engagement with a personalised adaptive learning (PAL) EdTech platform and English literacy outcomes in South African primary schools. Drawing on data from over 20,000 learners across 226 poorly resourced public schools, we examine whether cumulative time spent on the curriculum-aligned PAL programme (delivered during regular classroom hours) is associated with improved literacy performance. Using cross-sectional regression models, we find a positive and statistically significant association between platform usage and English literacy scores. The association holds across grades, with only modest variation by gender and no evidence of differential effects by language of instruction or school quality. Our findings suggest that PAL technologies can support foundational literacy even in low-resource, multilingual classrooms, and may offer a scalable complement to traditional instruction in contexts facing teacher shortages and large class sizes.

I20, I21, I24

Literacy; educational technology; early grade reading; South Africa

This version (November 2025) updates and replaces the September 2024 working paper previously titled “Click to read more? EdTech and foundational English Literacy in South Africa”.