最后一英里的学习：来自菲律宾偏远学校计算机辅助教学随机对照试验的证据

ADB Economics Working Paper Series Learning at the Last Mile: Evidence from a RandomizedControlled Trial of Computer-Assisted Instruction Paul Glewwe, David A. Raitzer, Uttam Sharma,Kenn Chua, and Milan Thomas Paul Glewwe (pglewwe@umn.edu) is a professorand Kenn Chua (kenngarychua@gmail.com) is aPhD student at the University of Minnesota. DavidA. Raitzer (draitzer@adb.org) is a senior economistat the Economic Research and Development ImpactDepartment and Milan Thomas (mthomas@adb.org) No. 829 | December 2025 TheADB Economics Working Paper Seriespresents research in progress to elicit commentsand encourage debate on development issuesin Asia and the Pacific. The views expressedare those of the authors and do not necessarily Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO) © 2025 Asian Development Bank6 ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City, 1550 Metro Manila, Philippines Some rights reserved. Published in 2025. ISSN 2313-6537 (print), 2313-6545 (PDF)Publication Stock No. WPS250488-2DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22617/WPS250488-2 The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views and policiesof the Asian Development Bank (ADB) or its Board of Governors or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this publication and accepts no responsibility for anyconsequence of their use. The mention of specific companies or products of manufacturers does not imply that they By making any designation of or reference to a particular territory or geographic area in this document, ADB does notintend to make any judgments as to the legal or other status of any territory or area. This publication is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 IGO license (CC BY 3.0 IGO)https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/. By using the content of this publication, you agree to be boundby the terms of this license. For attribution, translations, adaptations, and permissions, please read the provisions This CC license does not apply to non-ADB copyright materials in this publication. If the material is attributedto another source, please contact the copyright owner or publisher of that source for permission to reproduce it. Please contact pubsmarketing@adb.org if you have questions or comments with respect to content, or if you wishto obtain copyright permission for your intended use that does not fall within these terms, or for permission to use ABSTRACT Although Asian economies have increased access to education, students’ learning oftentrails grade level expectations. In the Philippines, learning worsened through prolongedclassroom closure during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Together withthe Department of Education, we conducted a 42-school randomized controlled trial ofcomputer-assisted instruction in remote areas of the country. The tested interventionconsisted of digitized learning modules deployed on tablets that connected to school localWi-Fi networks for junior high school students. The tablets were the main source ofinstruction for 2.5 months before schools reopened, after which they served as a Keywords:COVID-19 pandemic, computer-assisted instruction, EdTech, distancelearning, remote schools JEL codes:I21, I24, J13, N35, O14 1.Introduction 1.1.Asia’s Learning Crisis Asia has made considerable progress in terms of access to education. Between 1980and 2020, the secondary school gross enrollment rate in East Asia and the Pacific(excluding high income economies) increased from 40% to 89%.1For Asia as a whole,the average years of formal education in the region nearly doubled from 4.5 to 8.6. This However, this progress has not translated into commensurate increases in learning.Fifteen-year-oldstudents in the Philippines ranked 76th out of 81 economies inmathematics and reading and 79th in science in the 2022 Program for InternationalStudent Assessment (PISA) (OECD, 2023a).At the primary level, Grade 4 students inthe Philippines had the lowest mathematics scores among the 56 economies thatparticipated in the 2019 Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (Mullis et al., 2020). 1.2.COVID-19 Closures and Learning Loss When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, the Philippines was among theearliest Asian economies to close schools, and its period of closure was among thelongest in the world, lasting from March 2020 to November 2022. Final exams for the2019–2020 school year were canceled, and the start of the 2020–2021 school year wasdelayed from June to October 2020, meaning that students had no formal classes for over Forthe school years 2020–2021 and 2021–2022,the government institutedkindergarten–Grade 12curricula streamlining and distance learning through onlinedelivery platforms, printed learning materials, and television or radio-based instruction. Nationwide, only 40% of households in the poorest quintile in the Philippines have internetaccess (World Bank, 2020). Even