PubCoder and UNICEF: Supporting Accessible Digital Textbooks Worldwide

Millions of children worldwide — particularly those with disabilities — lack access to learning materials in formats they can use and engage with. UNICEF’s Accessible Digital Textbooks (ADT) initiative addresses this challenge by working with education authorities and institutions to produce curriculum-aligned digital textbooks based on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. These textbooks can include features such as synchronized narration, sign language video, interactive activities, audio descriptions, and adaptable reading supports — helping ensure all learners can access curriculum content, at the same time, in the same classroom – fostering engagement, peer collaboration and true inclusion.

PubCoder’s Role in the Initiative

Producing accessible digital textbooks at scale requires a combination of authoring tools, inclusive education and accessibility expertise, and institutional ownership. The ADT initiative supports multiple workflows and production approaches that ministries and curriculum institutions can adopt.

PubCoder is one of the tools that has contributed to this work. Since 2018, it has been used in several countries as part of training workshops, facilitating book production, and pilot implementations of accessible digital textbooks — particularly for creating synchronized audio narration and interactive reading experiences using its media overlay features.

“In the context of accessibility, PubCoder provides easy-to-use tools to create accessible educational material and allows it to be published in many formats to aid in the adoption of these materials by the students who need them.”

Elias Constantopedos, UNICEF

The “Learn My Way” Prototype

As part of the initiative, UNICEF developed the “Learn My Way” reader — a proof-of-concept application built on the Readium project and EPUB technology. The prototype features UDL principles through synchronized voice-over and sign language video, interactive accessible activities, and customizable reading experiences. During its development, PubCoder was used as a WYSIWYG editor to lay out content and storyboard pages before the code was edited for accessibility.

Learn more about the Learn My Way reader at accessibletextbooksforall.org

Country Implementations

🇷🇼 Rwanda

The Rwanda Education Board (REB) explored the use of PubCoder as part of broader efforts to produce accessible digital textbooks aligned with the national curriculum. Rwanda successfully produced 55 accessible digital textbooks, which are now available through the national education cloud — a notable achievement in inclusive education. PubCoder was one of the tools used during experimentation and content production.

🇧🇹 Bhutan

In Bhutan, UNICEF coordinated with the Ministry of Education and Skills Development to hold training workshops for national curriculum experts, teachers and special education specialists. They were capacitated with skills and tools to produce accessible digital textbooks using tools including PubCoder. The resulting storybooks were piloted in 19 schools with children with disabilities.

🇳🇵 Nepal

In Nepal, the ADT initiative focused on building national capacity in accessible book production. Training workshops introduced educators and technical teams to accessible publishing principles and demonstrated how tools such as PubCoder can be used to produce curriculum-aligned digital textbooks with accessibility features.

Across different countries, languages, curricula and age groups – ADT demonstrates how accessible learning materials transform learning experience for all children – motivation and engagement increase, literacy skills improve, and peer collaboration strengthens.

Improving Accessibility Through Collaboration

The experience of producing accessible digital textbooks across multiple countries has provided valuable feedback to technology providers, including PubCoder. Collaboration with UNICEF teams, education authorities, and accessibility specialists helped inform improvements in digital publishing tools.

These insights contributed to accessibility enhancements in PubCoder 5.1, which achieved zero validation issues with the Ace by DAISY accessibility checker — down from 516 in previous versions. Other improvements include enhanced accessibility metadata, improved reading order and document semantics, full keyboard navigation for interactive elements, better screen reader support including VoiceOver and TalkBack, and the ability to mark decorative images appropriately.

Read the full breakdown in our PubCoder 5.1 Accessibility post.

Looking Ahead

From pilot classrooms in Bhutan to curriculum materials in Rwanda and training initiatives in Nepal, the ADT initiative continues to support countries in expanding access to inclusive learning materials. Tools such as PubCoder play a role within this broader ecosystem by helping educators and curriculum developers create accessible digital publications.

Accessible digital textbooks represent an important step toward ensuring that all learners — regardless of ability and learning preference — can access the curriculum and participate fully in education.

Interested in our accessibility services or large-scale accessible publishing projects? Contact our team — we’d love to help.