Rethinking EdTech in Crisis-Affected Communities | Nanje Patrick

I had the privilege of sharing the initial stage of our work on “Designing a Justice-Aware Education Technology (EdTech) Framework for a Marginalised School in a Postcolonial, Crisis-Affected Context” at the European Conference on Critical Educational Technology (EdTech) Studies (ECCES 2026).

Our starting point was the Anglophone Crisis in Cameroon and a deceptively simple question:

“What happens when we introduce technology into an education system that is already experiencing structural marginalisation, conflict and material constraints?”

One observation from the early stages of the crisis particularly shaped our thinking. Despite the disruption to schooling, digitalisation did not initially emerge as a central response for ensuring educational continuity. It was only with the disruption caused by COVID-19 that digital and remote learning became much more prominent in education policy and practice in the country.

This raises some uncomfortable but important questions.

If an education technology framework is developed elsewhere and then transferred into a crisis-affected context, what assumptions travel with it?

When we take AI, Learning Management Systems, connectivity solutions or other forms of “big tech” into communities already facing profound infrastructural and social challenges, are we necessarily addressing the problem or can we sometimes add another layer of dependency?

What if, instead of beginning with “Which technology should we bring?”, we began with:

“What does this community need, who should decide, what knowledge should count, what resources are sustainable, and what technology—if any—fits those conditions?”

And perhaps the most important question:

“When external funding ends, who owns the system, who maintains it, and who remains accountable to the community?”

These questions do not lead us to reject technology. Quite the opposite. They push us to think more carefully about “what kind of technology, designed by whom, for whom, under what conditions, and with what forms of ownership and accountability.”

Our argument is still developing. This is the initial stage of the research, not a finished framework or a set of definitive answers. But I believe these questions are worth asking before solutions are designed, funded and scaled.

Ultimately, the ambition is to contribute evidence that can help policymakers, educators, communities, researchers and technology actors think differently about digital education in marginalised and crisis-affected contexts moving from technology-first approaches towards context-sensitive, locally grounded and justice-aware design.

There are still many questions to investigate.

And that is precisely where the research begins. - Nanje Patrick | CAFTAL