The COVID-19 pandemic wiped off decades of educational gains in the developing world and added 24 million more children to 775 million illiterates in the world. To counteract such a huge predicament, human learning agility comes into action. This human characteristic of knowing what to do when one does not know what to do, invokes the Soft System Methodology (SSM) approach to analyze illiteracy as the worst of all pandemics since it infiltrates into generations. After evaluating different effective teaching methods and utilizing the SSM approach, this paper proposes suitable pedagogies to educate deprived students. It examines Massive Online Open Courseware (MOOC) as a viable solution for K-12 students and compares it with a more robust educational technology model of Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS). Using artificial intelligence, the ITS tailors the instructional content framework and teaching strategies after evaluating students' pre-existing knowledge, learning habits, & styles. The ITS engages the student with the lesson with a two-way dialog while providing customized instruction and immediate feedback. An ITS requires no human intervention and could be a suitable replacement for an inadequately qualified teacher or no teacher. Hence it could be a practical tool in tackling the global literacy catastrophe. A comprehensive literature review followed by a meta-analysis reveals the effectiveness of ITS as a feasible intervention. The major purpose of this study is to define the application of educational pedagogy behind AI-based tutoring and cognitive science in this learner-centered approach.