Using GPT-4 to Tutor Technical Subjects in Non-English Languages in Africa

According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, education leads to economic growth and enhanced employment opportunities. In the developing world, however, there are a number of barriers to education including high student-teacher ratio, long distances to schools, and students being forced to study in a second or even a third language (non-home language education). This paper looks at how GPT-4 (the API or application programming interface behind the popular chatGPT website) could be used to tutor technical subjects such as mathematics and Java programming in non-English and non-European language in Africa. Tutoring bots were developed which could be accessed using WhatsApp on students’ cell phones and by using normal web browsers. This paper describes a number of such projects tutoring mathematics and Java programming in Afrikaans, Amharic, Arabic, Kiswahili, and isiZulu.