REACT

Reducing the Educational Achievement gap through Community-led Technology (REACT)

Enhancing Early Language Development in Under-Resourced Environments

Reducing the Educational Achievement Gap through Community-led Technology (REACT) is a project that seeks to bridge the socio-economic and linguistic divide in South African communities.

Initiated by the Child Language Development Node of the South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR), the REACT project aims to use community collaboration and human language technologies (HLTs) to measure and strengthen early language development.

The REACT approach

REACT brings together a team of experts across different disciplines (linguistics, early childhood development, computer science, and community engagement) to co-design interventions that are scientifically grounded, culturally relevant, and community-driven. The project will commence by focusing on two languages, isiXhosa and isiZulu, as initial pilot communities. By working in collaboration with early childhood development NGOs and community-based organisations, the project aims to co-create language-strengthening systems that can later be adapted for other South African languages.

The project’s goals include:

• Creating and using technology to enhance early language development (ECD), especially in low socio-economic communities.
• Collect and annotate digital language datasets
• Capture and measure language development using custom AI models.
• Raise awareness and uptake exploring the use of the digital sphere to connect researchers, caregivers, parents, and NGOs working in ECD.

By integrating HLTs into the ECD ecosystem, REACT contributes to a sustainable model of language development that supports both education policy reform and technological infrastructure advancement.

Project Progress

Development is planned to begin in January 2026, in partnership with community-based ECD NGO’s in the urban and rural communities of the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal.