When we talk about educational technology, the focus is often on the product and its quality. We are living in an era of rapid technological development, with increasingly sophisticated solutions. However, this is only one factor that determines the success of a technology in education.

Implementing edtech solutions in the public sector is often a much greater challenge than developing good products. Based on personal experiences and discussions with various stakeholders involved in the implementation and maintenance of these solutions, I have come to organize this challenge into three dimensions that must work together for a technology to have an impact. I call this model “Three Maturities: Product, Implementation, and Adoption.”

The first of these is product maturity. Many solutions are designed with the realities of private education in mind and are subsequently merely adapted. However, an edtech solution must address the specific challenges and conditions of the public school system.

Data from the 2025 School Census show significant progress, with internet connectivity reaching 94.5% of Brazilian public schools. But this figure masks a more complex reality: according to the Ministry of Education (MEC), only 74% have adequate internet connectivity for educational purposes.

The Census also indicates that less than half of public schools— 46%—have a sufficient number of computers, according to the Ministry of Education’s (MEC) guidelines. For this reason, a good product needs to work in a variety of contexts, including offline and on different devices.

This maturity involves, at a minimum, two dimensions: responding to the actual conditions of the network and delivering educational value, generating tangible benefits for students and teachers in their day-to-day school lives. Assessing whether this happens, however, is far from simple. Unlike a commercial app, whose success can be measured by engagement and conversion metrics, an edtech solution must demonstrate an impact on learning—a result that emerges slowly, depends on multiple factors, and can hardly be attributed solely to technology.

The second stage of maturity is implementation. Even an excellent product can fail if the conditions aren’t right for putting it into practice. Successful implementation means understanding the characteristics of the region, training the professionals who will use the tool, ensuring a minimally stable internet connection, and, when possible, relying on stakeholders who can bridge the gap between the technology and the education system.

A recurring challenge is the disconnect between the educational and technology teams within state departments of education. When these two worlds fail to communicate with one another, a tool may be rolled out to schools without a clear educational purpose. There are also challenges in the procurement of innovative solutions itself. The Legal Framework for Startups has paved the way for more agile procurement by government agencies, focused on the desired outcome, but these tools are still underutilized given the existing potential for innovation.

Finally, there is absorption maturity, which occurs after the implementation phase. In the public school system, this stage is supported by the government itself; in the private school system, it is supported by the school. It refers to the ability to keep a technology functioning and generating value without continually relying on the supplier. This is often the most neglected stage of maturity because it requires something that no technology can provide on its own: time, ongoing training, and trust built among those who use the tool in their daily school lives.

See also:

• What 16 Voices Reveal About Transforming Education in Brazil
• What We Can Learn from Edtech Companies in the Global South

I often observe that the greater the educational relevance of a product, the longer it tends to take for its implementation to take hold. This changes the way we evaluate the success—or failure—of an edtech company. Without understanding this context, we run the risk of setting expectations that are incompatible with what the technology can deliver and with the time required to produce results.

I experienced this firsthand while participating in the implementation of a school attendance management solution in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Although the product was technically simple, that did not mean the attendance problem would be solved in a few months. The first step was to collect data, use it to develop action plans, and only then observe the results. Technology helped create the conditions to tackle the problem, but it did not eliminate the steps necessary to achieve the expected result. Without prior alignment of expectations, frustration arises among administrators, who may not fully appreciate the complexity of day-to-day school operations.

How, then, can we resolve this disconnect between what is promised and what is delivered? The solution lies in generating more evidence, expanding research in different contexts, and understanding which solutions work best in each region of the country. It also involves dispelling misconceptions about what a particular technology is capable of and always asking whether the evidence supporting a product is truly solid.

As a sector, we need to develop more public goods on this topic—such as guidelines, criteria, and evidence—that can support decisions made by governments and educational networks. There are already international examples that deserve our attention.

In India, the EdTech platform Tulna—developed by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) Bombay and IIT Delhi—has created an independent framework for assessing the maturity of educational products. Today, this model guides public procurement in states such as Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh, contributing to $118 million in educational technology acquisitions. More than the volume of resources, what stands out is the existence of a public and comparable assessment, which makes purchasing decisions more objective and less dependent on individual perceptions. It is this type of public good that Brazil still lacks.

Looking at Brazil, an interesting example is Ness-Ufal, which this year launched the IA.Edu institute and the first Brazilian UNESCO Chair dedicated to offline artificial intelligence—that is, solutions designed to function even in schools with poor or nonexistent connectivity. What sets it apart is its operational model. Before developing any solution, the institute assesses the network’s current state and, based on that assessment, creates a prototype within 90 days to address the identified challenge. The tool continues to be monitored and refined until it reaches sufficient maturity for larger-scale implementation.

This approach differs from the one adopted by many edtech companies: rather than developing a product and then trying to figure out where it fits, the process begins with the specific context to build a solution that aligns with the network’s needs. This increases the likelihood that the product, implementation, and adoption will progress in an integrated manner.

None of the “Three Maturities” evolves in isolation, and it is rare—especially at the beginning of a project—for all of them to progress at the same pace. Even when this does happen, there is still a learning curve that governments, schools, teachers, and vendors must navigate.

We start by looking at the product, but experience shows that it is just one part of the equation. The real challenge lies in ensuring that the product, its implementation, and its adoption evolve in a coordinated manner. In a country as diverse as Brazil, it is not enough to ask whether a technology works. We need to understand under what conditions it works, how it reaches schools, and whether the school system is able to incorporate it into daily life.

It is this integration—rather than technology alone—that determines whether an innovation will be merely a good idea or an effective transformation for public education.

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