Institute of Basic Technology

AI Should Not Kill Critical Thinking - It Should Force Us to Finally Teach It A Kuhnian Reading of the Crisis Now in Every Liberian Classroom. Our last article argued that unfettered AI produces what Nataliya Kosmyna and her colleagues at MIT's Media Lab call cognitive debt (Kosmyna et al.

Don't Hand Students the AI. Hand Them the Question. Why Socratic, Project-Based AI, Grounded in Local Context, Is the Pedagogy Early-Adopter Teachers Must Write. And Why Teacher Pehpeh Was Built for It.

The Hidden Crisis Has Been Named. We Are Here.

April 24, 2026
This week in the Liberian Observer, Jacob Kermue reported Minister Jarso Maley Jallah's remarks at the National Week of the Young Child — remarks that named what many in Liberian education have long felt but rarely said out loud. A hidden crisis. A learning gap that does not show up in enrollment data. Children in classrooms who are not learning to read what they are copying from the board.
The Minister's candor is not a small thing. In a sector where ministries are usually pressed to celebrate attendance figures and infrastructure counts, standing up at a national event and saying the quiet part loudly takes political nerve. We read her remarks with respect, and we agree with every line of the diagnosis.
The question the op-ed then raised was the right one. Who is suited and situated to help address this?
The Institute of Basic Technology has been in Monrovia for eight years, working in Liberian classrooms, watching the same crisis the Minister has now named. We want to say plainly: we are here. We stand with the Ministry on this agenda, and we have been building for it.
The Foundational Gap the Minister Described
Minister Jallah pointed to a student who could neatly copy text from a blackboard but could not read what she had written. Any teacher who has spent an afternoon in a Liberian primary classroom knows that student. There is one in every row.
What the Ministry is now calling the hidden crisis is what education researchers call learning poverty, and it compounds fast. A child who finishes Grade 3 without fluent reading does not recover in Grade 4. By Grade 6, the mastery gap the Minister mentioned has become a dropout risk. By WAEC year, it is a failed exam and a closed door.
This is the gap Teacher Pehpeh's Early Learners track was built to close. Not with phonics translated from a US kindergarten app. With literacy and numeracy content structured for children whose first language is not standard English, and for the Liberian reality of multi-grade classrooms under one teacher. The goal is simple and matches the Ministry's own: a child who finishes Grade 3 reading what she wrote, not copying what she cannot read.
Where Teacher Pehpeh Meets the Ministry's Own Priorities
The Minister and the op-ed named a series of pressure points. Each one already has a corresponding layer inside Teacher Pehpeh, built from Liberian classroom evidence rather than theory.
Teacher preparedness for diverse learners. The Minister said plainly that a child who learns differently is not a child to be written off. Teacher Pehpeh's lesson planner generates Liberian-curriculum-aligned plans that teachers can adapt for children at different levels in the same room. Student Mode uses Socratic prompting rather than instant answers, which is exactly the approach that supports learners who need to build understanding step by step rather than be handed conclusions.
The home environment. The Minister observed that in many Liberian homes, learning begins without books, without structure, and sometimes without time. Student Mode is designed for exactly that home. It runs on a phone. It does not require a parent to know the material. It asks the child the questions a good tutor would ask, which means the household does not need to provide the tutor.
The offline rural classroom. The Ministry has stated that its national e-learning platform must be accessible offline in rural communities. We believe that condition. Teacher Pehpeh was architected offline-first from day one, because a tool that only works when the signal is up is a tool that fails the teacher on the day she needed it most. The content stores locally and syncs when connectivity returns — whether that connectivity comes from a cell tower, a community Wi-Fi point, or the LEO satellite dishes now arriving on rural school roofs.
Nutrition, equity, and reach. The Ministry's expansion of school feeding and its push to reach 239,000 learners across 1,473 schools are not things any edtech product can substitute for. What a tool like Teacher Pehpeh can do is make sure the learning that happens once a fed child is in her seat is actually aligned with the curriculum she will be assessed on. Nutrition opens the door. Relevant content furnishes the room.
Alignment with EXCEL. The EXCEL Project's three stated priorities — improving teaching quality, strengthening curriculum delivery, and expanding access to learning materials — are the three priorities Teacher Pehpeh was built against. We are not proposing a parallel agenda. We are proposing to serve the one the Ministry has already set.
What We Are Asking the Ministry to Consider
The op-ed closed by observing that recognition of the crisis is a significant step, but not a sufficient one — that the real test is whether policy ambition can translate into measurable improvements in learning outcomes. We agree. And we believe the translation happens at the classroom layer, in the hands of teachers, with tools that were actually designed for the Liberian child.
The Institute of Basic Technology is asking the Ministry of Education for three things.
First, to consider Teacher Pehpeh as part of the national e-learning platform the Ministry has already committed to. An offline-first, Liberian-curriculum-aligned tool built inside the country by Liberians exists. It should not have to be rebuilt from scratch by a vendor abroad.
Second, to include local builders in the procurement conversations that will follow EXCEL. Too often the funding mobilized for African foundational learning ends up commissioning content from consultancies that have never set foot in a Liberian classroom. The Minister has named the problem precisely; the answer should not be outsourced to people who have not seen it.
Third, to run a pilot together. Pick ten schools. Give us a semester. Measure the foundational literacy outcomes the Minister herself identified as the standard. Compare. Decide on evidence.
The Line That Should Stay With All of Us
The Minister closed her remarks with a sentence the op-ed quoted directly, and it is the sentence this response is written to echo. Her warning, paraphrased lightly: if this is not fixed, the country will have been failed.
That is not a warning only governments receive. It is a warning every Liberian institution in this sector receives. The Institute of Basic Technology heard it. We are answering it with the work already in our hands.
The crisis has been named. Teacher Pehpeh is live, deployed, and ready to serve the reform agenda the Ministry is leading.
We are here.
Teacher Pehpeh is live at tp.institutebasictechnology.org.

The Institute of Basic Technology is a nonprofit EdTech organization based in Monrovia, Liberia, serving Liberian teachers, students, and schools for eight years. This article responds to "The Hidden Crisis in Education Sector," by Jacob Kermue, Liberian Observer, April 23, 2026.

The “Hidden Crisis” in Education Sector Liberia's education system faces a hidden crisis in foundational learning, prompting urgent calls for systemic reforms to address learning poverty, teacher capacity, early childhood education, and digital constraints.

The Fiber Is Only as Useful as What Flows Through It Two weeks ago we argued that LEO satellites are about to solve Africa's school-connectivity problem, and that bandwidth without classroom-ready content is only half a bridge. The half nobody wanted to sit with was the second one.

Shout out to my newest followers! Excited to have you onboard! Edward Lambin, Tarus TK Fayiah, Amos J Ebar

Teacher Pehpeh just got even BETTER - New LAB Features!!!

Quick question for every science teacher in Liberia:

When you teach the human heart — what do your students actually SEE?

A diagram in a textbook? A sketch on the board?

What if tomorrow they could rotate a real 3D heart, zoom inside the chambers, click on each valve and watch it move?

That's what's launching TOMORROW in Teacher Pehpeh. 👇

🫀 Human Anatomy Virtual Lab
— Beating heart, nervous system, 12 cranial nerves, human skull, hip joint, GI tract, plant & animal cells
— Every model verified by University of Dundee medical school
— English labels. Fully interactive. Works on any device.

🌍 Earth Science Virtual Lab
— Watch tectonic plates move in real time
— Fly inside the Earth's layers from crust to inner core
— 3D geological cross-sections from University of Newcastle

🎓 And after every model? Ask Teacher Pehpeh — your AI tutor that connects every concept to things your students already know from daily life here in West Africa.

Two weeks. Completely free. Your whole school.

📩 Comment "YES" below or DM us and we'll get you set up before tomorrow's launch.

Rodney Bollie Introducing Interactive Virtual Labs in Teacher Pehpeh - Part 1

🇱🇷 Transforming the Classroom Bishop Carroll High School in Yekepa — and We're Just Getting Started!

We just wrapped up a powerful 3-day intensive workshop at the historic Bishop Carroll High School in Nimba County, and the energy in that room was something else! We weren't just talking about the future of education — we were BUILDING it, side by side with some of the most dedicated educators in Liberia.

A huge, heartfelt THANK YOU to the Bishop Carroll High School Alumni Association for making this training possible. Your love for your alma mater is literally changing lives. 🎓

So what did we do for 3 days?

We introduced the faculty to Teacher Pehpeh — the AI-powered teaching assistant built for Liberian educators — and showed them exactly how to take back their time.

Here's what the teachers walked away with:

✅ Instant Mock Exams — Generate high-quality WASSCE & WAEC practice exams for 9th and 12th graders in SECONDS. No more late nights drafting questions by hand.

✅ Smart Teaching Materials — Access updated, curriculum-aligned resources on demand, so teachers spend less time searching and more time actually teaching.

✅ Zero Admin Burnout — Automate the heavy lifting and get back to what matters most: inspiring the next generation of Liberian leaders.

The Bishop Carroll faculty is now locked, loaded, and fully tech-empowered. Their students? They don't know what's coming.

📣 Is your school next?

If you're tired of watching your teachers burn out on paperwork and exam prep while their passion slowly fades — Teacher Pehpeh is the answer.

👉 Send us a Message RIGHT NOW to book a FREE demo or schedule a 3-day intensive for your institution. Let's bring this energy to your campus!

📢 IBT & VCU Partner to Transform Education in Liberia with AI! 🚀📚
The Institute of Basic Technology (IBT) and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) are excited to announce a groundbreaking partnership to launch an AI-powered pilot project aimed at enhancing classroom learning in Liberia! 🎉

Funded by the VCU Department of Sociology, this initiative will introduce IBT’s proprietary AI tool, Teacher Pehpeh, into schools in Monrovia and Nimba County, equipping educators with cutting-edge technology to support student learning.
🔹 What’s in Store for Teachers?
✅ Free intensive, hands-on training to integrate AI into teaching.
✅ Devices preloaded with Teacher Pehpeh for seamless classroom use.
✅ AI-powered lesson planning & personalized instruction tailored to students’ socio-demographic backgrounds.
✅ Leveraging local knowledge, ensuring AI complements Liberia’s educational context.
✅ Innovative teaching strategies, empowering educators with new ways to engage students.
🔍 Research & Impact
📊 Mixed-method study (qualitative interviews + quantitative surveys).
📊 Evaluating the feasibility and effectiveness of AI in classrooms.
📊 Gathering insights to refine and scale AI-driven learning in Liberia.
🌍 Why This Matters
AI isn’t replacing teachers—it’s empowering them! With Teacher Pehpeh, educators gain access to AI-assisted lesson planning, real-time student support, and culturally relevant teaching tools, bridging gaps and enhancing classroom experiences.
🚀 Thanks to Dr. Jamie Cage and the VCU Department of Sociology’s support, we’re taking a bold step toward reshaping education in Liberia with AI-powered solutions!
🔗 Follow us for updates!
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Social Work - Virginia Commonwealth University At VCU's School of Social Work, we commit to preparing professional social workers who engage our communities, initiate difficult dialogues and confront today's social inequities.

📢 Fulfilling Our Promise: Supporting Education in Rural Liberia 🎉🎓

At the Institute of Basic Technology (IBT), we believe that every young mind deserves the tools to thrive—no matter where they are. Though our operations in Monrovia have come to a close, our commitment to education in rural Liberia remains strong.

This week, our team traveled to Bahn Catawba School in Bahn, Nimba County, to donate essential lab equipment that we previously used in our programs. This donation is a small but meaningful step toward improving science education for students in this underserved region.

We believe in the potential of young people in rural Liberia and will continue to support initiatives that give them the resources they need to succeed. A brighter future begins with quality education, and we are proud to play our part in making that possible.

📷 [Insert photos of the donation and visit]

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