Africa’s education systems must address basic school management failures before investing more heavily in classroom technology, education entrepreneur and former Civic Mayor o f Barking and Dagenham, Princess Opeyemi Bright, has warned.

Bright, co-founder of Edatech, said teacher absenteeism, lost instructional time, delayed salaries and poor financial record-keeping were undermining learning outcomes and limiting the impact of investments in education.

Her position comes amid concerns over learning levels in Sub-Saharan Africa, where the World Bank has estimated that nearly nine in 10 children cannot read and understand a simple text by age 10.

According to Bright, the education debate has focused excessively on how technology can improve teaching without first establishing whether schools are functioning effectively.

“Is the school actually running?” she asked, arguing that this should be the first question before discussions about introducing more digital tools into classrooms.

Bright said schools lose valuable teaching time through teacher absenteeism, late starts, prolonged assemblies and other disruptions. She argued that reliable digital attendance and timetable systems could help school administrators identify these problems and intervene promptly.

Even small amounts of lost classroom time can accumulate over an academic year, she said, making accurate records essential for improving teaching and learning.

She also highlighted the financial difficulties facing many low-fee private schools, where tight operating margins make cash-flow management challenging.

According to her, schools that depend on manual fee collection and paper-based records often spend considerable time chasing payments and reconciling accounts. Delayed payments by parents can create cash-flow problems, potentially contributing to delays in teachers’ salaries.

Bright, who has a background in accounting and auditing, said reliable financial records could help schools monitor their finances, reconcile payments efficiently and build credible financial histories to improve their chances of accessing loans.

She maintained that technology investments would deliver better results when supported by sound financial and administrative systems.

Beyond management efficiency, Bright called for stronger safeguards for children’s personal information as schools embrace digital solutions.

She said schools should collect only information they genuinely need and ensure that personal data is securely stored.

“Technology should not be used to track children simply because the capability exists,” she said, stressing that privacy and trust must guide the digital transformation of education.

Bright also identified a potential public-health benefit in securely managed school attendance data, suggesting that anonymised information could help authorities detect unusual attendance patterns that might signal disease outbreaks.

She, however, stressed that such applications must be designed with adequate protections for children’s information.

For governments, donors and education providers, Bright said greater attention should be paid to what happens between education spending and learning outcomes, rather than concentrating mainly on infrastructure, budgets and examination results.

“The question should be: how much are children learning for every hour of teaching that actually takes place?” she said.

Using mathematics as an example, Bright said a struggling pupil might need a better curriculum or additional learning support. However, authorities must first establish whether the child has received the scheduled lessons.

She argued that without dependable information about teacher attendance and classroom activity, it would be difficult to identify the real causes of poor learning outcomes or determine where interventions were most needed.

She compared technology to a train that requires tracks to operate effectively.

“Time, attendance, pay and records are the track,” she said, adding that strengthening these foundations would enable other investments in educational technology to have greater impact.

She urged governments, donors and education companies to treat school management as essential infrastructure, insisting that schools must be open, teachers present, salaries paid and reliable records maintained before more technology is introduced.

“Africa’s children do not need more promises. They need schools that run well, every single day,” Bright said.