The Potential of Digital Game-Based Learning for Improving Education in the Global South

The highly skewed distribution of wealth and power in many Global South countries causes huge challenges in educational quality and equity for the poor, in both rural and urban regions. This, in turn, leads to major issues in educational efficiency.

This white paper articulates the role digital games might play as part of learning technologies that enhance educational quality, equity, and efficiency for nations in the Global South. Games usually have explicit goals and rules, and well-defined outcomes; games provide feedback to measure players’ progress towards outcomes, and players can influence progress by their actions and overall strategies of play. Digital game-based learning (DGBL) is a proven educational innovation effective in the Global North, and is showing early promise in the Global South.