Schools are among the worst institutional casualties of complex disasters. This has been the obvious case with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Boko Haram insurgency and other violent conflicts in Africa, which have caused the suspension and destruction of schools. Countless schools have been damaged, closed or destroyed. Untold millions of students have been forced to suspend or to abandon their education because of violence or the pandemic. These disruptions have further blighted the already precarious educational foundation of the continent. So what’s the most cost-effective way to address this enormous challenge? In an area confronting the Boko Haram uprising in north eastern Nigeria, we used a combination of radio and computer tablets to improve the literacy and numeracy skills of 22,000 children forced out of school.