When Birqe Kassaye finished teaching her class in Ethiopia, she was eager to see what feedback her coach would give. But the coach was not sitting at the back of the classroom. It was on her phone.
Kassaye, an English teacher at Fitawrari Abayneh Secondary School, uses AI-Coach, an AI tool that gives teachers timely, targeted feedback on their classroom practice.
Teachers record their lessons and receive feedback on student engagement, questioning techniques, and instructional quality. Grounded in the principles of the science of learning, the feedback helps teachers identify practical changes for future lessons.
Ethiopia: a coach in every teacher’s pocket
AI-Coach is an example of small AI: practical, affordable technology designed to address a specific local challenge where infrastructure and technical capacity may be limited. Using inputs such as classroom observations, teacher reflections, and teaching evaluations, it delivers coaching through a simple app on phones teachers already have and can accommodate intermittent internet connectivity.
Helping teachers strengthen classroom learning is one part of a larger challenge: preparing the 1.2 billion young people projected to enter the workforce in developing countries in the next decade.
In Ethiopia, the World Bank Group and the government piloted AI-Coach with close to 350 English and mathematics teachers. Early experiences suggested that teachers valued the feedback as timely, tailored to their lessons, and practical for application in the classroom.
Niguse Tarekegn, an English teacher at Entoto Amba Secondary School, says the support is already changing his classroom. “Since I started using AI-Coach, I have noticed positive changes in the teaching and learning process,” he says. “Students are now able to reason more effectively and think more critically.”
In places where regular one-on-one coaching can be difficult to provide at scale, this AI tool can give more teachers practical guidance to improve one lesson at a time.
read more: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2026/10/02/small-ai-big-learning-possibilities
