Evolving role of public-private stakeholders in technology mediated teaching

Abstract

Purpose Post-pandemic sovereign authorities in several economies have nudged primary education institutions to adopt platform-based teaching. The shift to platform technology attempts to ensure continuity in the teaching–learning process. In the context of predominantly digitally mediated teaching process, this shift may exacerbate disparities and social injustice by limiting access to primary education in resource-constrained developing economies. The purpose of this study is to explore the efficacy of such a digital framework provided by government and private partners and the challenges faced by the teachers in absence of proper scaffolding. Design/methodology/approach Using an integrative theoretical framework that is composed of capability theory, technology adoption theories and the scaffolding framework, this paper analyses the challenges faced by primary school teachers when adapting to platform-based teaching. Social media analytics along with text analytics using Natural Language Processing and latent Dirichlet allocation-based topic modelling approach to extract latent topics or themes used by users during their tweets related to e-teaching. Findings The findings of this study highlight that adopting a platform-based and hybrid approach improves access to education and flexibility and highlights the importance of scaffolds in achieving desired learning outcomes. EdTech companies can play a significant role through private-public partnership models to offer technical scaffold. Collaborative efforts between educational institutions and EdTech service providers are essential for ensuring the long-term sustainability of platform-based teaching and learning. Originality/value After the pandemic, there has been no published literature available which examined the role of scaffolds and EdTech companies in ensuring digital ecosystem for better teaching–learning outcome through platforms.