Alokito Teachers-Building, Supporting & Empowering Teachers

Poor teacher quality, limited appreciation of teaching as profession and lack of training opportunities for teachers, eventually, result in students who are ill-prepared to face the challenges of today’s evolving job market. And with the imminent 4th Industrial Revolution, it is about time teachers introduce innovative teaching methods in their classrooms, e.g. inquiry-based learning, game-based learning to enhance the cognitive capabilities of their students,

Alokito Teachers is a platform that ‘teaches the teacher’, gives them access to 21st century teaching resources and co-creates a community of schools, colleges and teachers to facilitate teachers career growth; thus, enabling them to be the perfect guides for tomorrow’s leaders.

With Bangladesh’s 27.76% of the population falling in the 0-14 years age group, it is necessary that we first equip the teachers to provide quality education for approximately 75.7 million learners and then connect them to suitable job opportunities with greater negotiation power.

Alokito Teachers strives to solve the unavailability of experiential, effective and relevant training opportunities for the Bangladeshi teachers.  

Poor teacher quality along with limited number of training is one of the main factors behind our crumbling educational system. The percentage of trained teachers reached an all-time high of 58.408 % in 2009 and a record low of 47.579 % in 2015 (reported by World Bank). A study on primary school in Bangladesh showed more than 50% of teachers still do not have a clear idea about the creative teaching methods. 

As a result, these untrained or poorly trained teachers often fail to nurture adept students. According to Annual Primary School Census 2016 and BMIC Survey 2012-13, only 25% of the students completing grade 5 are able to read, write or do basic math. In the long run, though the pass rates in public examinations are getting higher a huge number of students are failing to master the desired competencies due to failed teaching system.

Alokito Teacher’s vision is to reinvent the education system of Bangladesh, giving teachers access to 21st century skills and teaching methods, who will then go on to create a classroom full of skilled, future-ready learners. 

We primarily serve the teachers; and the students via our trained teachers. We have identified lack of teacher training opportunities by conducting trainings and focus group discussions with teachers across multiple cities of Bangladesh. The identified insights were then utilized to curate courses by our team; comprising of veteran educators, child psychologists and design-thinking specialists.With our approaches we are dedicated to alleviate the training gaps of potentially 123million teachers in Bangladesh.

Our online courses transcend the geographic and economic barriers for aspiring teachers. Interactive quizzes enable them to get assessed and attain certifications, which can be used for professional growth. When teachers book for workshop through our portal, we train them in their classroom setting. As a follow-up mechanism, we monitor the effectiveness of the training after a certain interval by evaluating teacher performance and quantitatively surveying their pupils progress and feedback. This ensures improved teaching quality.

For teachers recognition and professional growth, our online-platform enables schools to post job offers and teachers with higher points have a higher chance of attaining. Furthermore, the teachers, upon getting our certification, are allowed to upload their own teaching content on the platform and earn revenue.  

Personalized teacher training coupled with class mentoring and monitoring, is our core revenue-generating service.  We also provide different kinds of teaching resources such as courses and teaching toolkit, blogs and info-graphic contents on our online portal, which allows teachers to access these resources from anywhere at minimum cost. The teachers can complete these online courses and get assessed. Upon review, the teachers can also create course content and earn revenue from it.

In order to strengthen our collaboration with schools, our online portal has a separate notice board, where schools can put up teacher recruitment ads in exchange for a certain fee. If a teacher gets recruited through our portal, we charge commission on his/her first monthly salary.

Our website focuses on User Experience and implements components of Machine Learning to be able to guide a teacher to a more effective professional and financial growth through the platform.

We have a library of training contents and resources for teachers, we also have 3 categories of assessments that increases teachers credibility.
Firstly, a teacher can gain achievements such as golden, silver or bronze badge by completing courses.
Secondly, teacher ratings, on a scale of 5 will be based on the average of points received for completing courses and points received on courses and toolkits that they designed and uploaded.
Thirdly, there will be leader-board to show a comparative ranking of the teachers and their contents. 

To create both the content for our in-person and online training programs, our team of academicians, content creators, child psychologists and design thinking specialists try to identify training gaps and address them accordingly. The course content is designed based on Harvard’s Design Thinking model and Gamification processes and then contextualized. For monitoring the effectiveness of our course content, we reach out to the students and conduct surveys. Based on these surveys we fine-tune and re-design our courses.

 

What makes Alokito Teachers stand out is that the platform itself challenges the traditional norm of training teachers. We no longer believe in ‘time’ to be the only credential of being an ‘experienced teacher’. Rather, we want to establish a norm of getting teaching certification to become a teacher. Plus, our online courses are accessible by any teacher from any location – giving them a unique opportunity to assess their teaching skills and to become teachers. The leader-board has embraced concepts of gamification, i.e. your scores can allow you to highlight yourself better in job recruitment. Plus, certain performance incentives (gold,silver and bronze medals) for completing courses spark healthy competition within the community of teachers to opt for learning as a teacher.   

Besides, the online community of teachers is also being used to financially empower them. Previously, recruitment ads were solely put up in the newspapers or individuals were referred via personal networks. But we enable schools to put up recruitment ads and source trained teacher as per their needs while giving our trained teachers access to more job prospects.  

Moreover, Alokito Teachers (AT) helps teachers to diversify their income as well. Teachers’ only source of substitute income so far was private tuition. But AT enables teachers to identify learning gaps in the classroom, design their own self-help teaching resources and sell it via our platform; thus, creating a self-sustaining ecosystem.

Short term: Teachers will get motivated to take courses and toolkits, to improve their ranking and land good job opportunities. This in turn will improve their 21st century skills. There will be an overall awareness of much needed 21st century skills like creativity, problem-solving, social and emotional intelligence. Teachers will be able to identify and cater to students with different learning styles and needs. 

 Medium term: Improved teaching quality will result in schools valuing teachers with relevant teaching qualifications and give them better job opportunities with better salaries. Students will gradually start to develop the initial qualities such as being motivated, curious and confident that are essential to achieving 21st century skills. This will be assessed by students’ class participation, whether they are contributing fresh ideas with eagerness to learn. Teachers will take part in online courses and also make an effort to create their own online content.

Long term: We will develop a future-ready generation. Teaching will be the most aspired job attracting the best minds of the nation. Alokito teachers platform will facilitate the creation of a community of such teachers on large scale. Through the digital platform’s gamified, professional and financial development opportunities it will inspire teachers to be life-long learners. 

Until Q3 of 2019, we have served approximately 150 teachers via our in-person training. 200 teachers have received teaching resources via our online platform https://alokitoteachers.com/ and our contents on

http://www.muktopaath.gov.bd/course-details/97  

This consolidated number of 350 teachers has gone on to impact more than 10,000 students in classrooms all across Bangladesh.  

As for our future forecasts:

2020 – We plan on training 525 teachers (both online and in-person), thus ensuring 1.5x growth.

2024 – Within 5 years we aspire to train 6924 teachers (approximately) keeping 1.5 as a steady growth constant. In terms, of indirect reach, this pool of 6924 teachers will ensure quality, future-ready education in the lives of 0.21 million students approximately.  

Our goal is to ensure training 10,000 teachers within 2024, which can be attainable if our service distribution gets traction. Imagine the impact this will have on the country’s education system as these 10,000 teachers plan to redesign education practices for the 0.3 million pupils that they are likely to serve! Moreover, with the exponential increase of internet and 4G penetration across the country, the online platform is likely to gain more meaningful reach within 2020.

Our strategic objectives for the 5-year plan are –

2020 (STRATEGIC PHASE 1 - GROW) - On board top-tier 20 schools (and their teachers) of Dhaka on to our platform.  

2021 – Start expanding our services to schools outside Dhaka. Start onboarding 15 high schools of Dhaka.

2022 (STRATEGIC PHASE 2 - THRIVE) - Introduce several short courses, executive programs, diploma and degree programs to develop future ready educators. Form partnerships with 2 Multi National Corporations, 15 local companies and 10 NGOs for Executive Programs

2023 – Ensure our presence across at least 50 schools, 20 high schools across every district of Bangladesh.

 2024 –(STRATEGIC PHASE 2 - EVOLVE)

Allow machine learning to predict employability of a registered user and also guide them to take relevant courses to improve it.

Use AI and machine learning to create content based on the needs of the teachers and schools.

1. Financial Barrier

a. Funding to escalate our services across multiple cities in Bangladesh

b. Funding to enrich content library by creating new courses, toolkit  

2. Technical Barrier

a. Requirement of latest content creation tools

b.Need to collaborate with Machine Learning experts for enhancing platform services.

3. Cultural Barrier

a. Teachers’ training is a dormant concept in Bangladesh (mostly in semi-urban areas).

b. Companies should be better convinced to sign up for Executive courses.

4. Market Barrier

a. JAAGO, Teach for Bangladesh can be mapped to be possible market entrants, thus increasing market competition.

b.British Council might enhance their existing teachers’ training services.

 
1. Financial Barrier:

a. Funding to escalate our services across multiple cities in Bangladesh 

b. Funding to enrich content library by creating new courses, toolkit

How it will be addressed:
a. Maintain steady growth. Re-inject revenue earned from existing training courses to market growth
 b. Crowdsource content from teachers and curate accordingly

2. Technical Barrier

a. Requirement of latest content creation tools  

b. Need to collaborate with Machine Learning experts for enhancing platform services

c. Need to collaborate with prestigious education institute for joint certification

How it will be addressed:

a. Use existing tools to create content and save streams of revenue for acquisition of content creating devices in future

b. Hire a pro bono consultant for the purpose.

3.Cultural Barrier

a. Teachers’ training is a dormant concept in Bangladesh (mostly in semi-urban areas). 

How it will be addressed:

a. Undertake awareness sessions in schools to enlighten teachers about their training needs. 

b. Use PR in local newspapers/magazines

4. Market Barrier

a. JAAGO, Teach for Bangladesh can be mapped to be possible market entrants, thus increasing market competition.

b. British Council might enhance their existing teachers’ training service.How it will be addressed:

a. Establish Alokito Teachers as market leader in the following category. b.Offer our in-person training across multiple cities. Rapid expansion will beat existing competitor

Including the Director, Alokito Teacher currently has 4 full-time staff (Curriculum Developer & Trainer, Communications and Marketing Manager, Operations & Project Lead). Being a small team, each of us undertake multiple roles and help out the organization accordingly. The organization has been unable to recruit part-time staff and contractors due to financial constraints.  

In our pilot school we recreated the same environment as in any government school to understand, feel and solve the problems that over 450,000 children face in over 63,000 government primary schools. We saw that inability to memorize lessons earned students corporal punishment and; the teachers are neither encouraged nor expected to be learners or innovators making them vulnerable to a dictatorial classroom environment. We had a painful realization, that our education system is failing us. Relentlessly, we came up with one solution after another. Our teacher-training module aimed to instill empathy, creativity and problem solving skills acted as a catalyst to change the status quo in our school. Both our students and teachers lit up as we tested these approaches on the ground.

 

We then took our training programs partnered with the government and provided training to several government teachers, local education officers and head masters. We also offered our programs to the private schools located in the same vicinity of our school in Tangail. Through this approach we have been able to train over 150 teachers who are developing 5000 students.

We have in our team researchers, teachers, trainers, academic experts and curriculum developers with over five to ten years of teaching and training experience. 

We are currently partnered with 4 organizations 

• a2i and ICT Ministry to design courses and contents to develop 21st century skills. The content that we have designed in partnership can be viewed on ‘Muktopath’ 
• EMK to develop skilled 21st century teachers in Tangail (40km away from the capital city)
• Directorate of Primary Education to pilot our teaching approaches in government schools. The project is currently run in Holidrachala Government Primary School
• Code Club UK to run coding programs in Tangail at Alokito Hridoy School
• Yellow Brick Road jointly developing contents on child rights, sexual reproductive health.

1. Beneficiaries Segments 

Teachers all over the country are the primary beneficiaries, the students will be in the second tier of beneficiaries.  

2. Social and Customer Value Proposition
Country’s first teachers’ training platform that implements design-thinking, inquiry-based learning models and ensures followup by routine classroom assessments. 

3. Impact Measures
We track the progress as per the IRIS Model plus we also have criterion based assessment tools to assess the 21st century skills in both teachers and students. So far we have been carrying out the evaluations independently.

4. Surplus  
The surplus is reinvested to develop courses and other teaching resources based on the needs of the schools and teachers. We will develop master trainers and certify them, who will then become eligible to deliver workshops on their own. 

5. Key activities 

a. Training the teachers for better performance

b. Giving teachers access to MOOCs for increasing their credibility and expertise

c. Assisting schools in getting well-qualified teachers

6. Key resources

a. In-person and online training contents.

b. Content and curriculum development team 

7.Type of intervention

We have two categories of services:

a. In-person trainings in schools and periodic follow-ups to track progress.

b. Online courses to give free access to teachers’ training contents.

Our revenue model is threefold. We generate revenue from three avenues:

1. Proceeds from training sessions: The schools are charged for the in-person training sessions. Likewise, schools also get to personalize their training modules for certain fees.

2. Recruitment Ads: Schools are allowed to post recruitment ads on our online platform. Revenue is generated on the ad-postings. Likewise, teachers, once recruited via our platform pay a one-time fee to the platform for being the recruitment middleman.

3. Commission from toolkits: Teachers upon receiving training from our platform are given access to create their own courses and sell it via our platform. A percentage of their earned revenue is charged by the platform.

Funding is needed to develop courses and contents, master trainers and to develop the web platform.

Partnership opportunity for joint certification with relevant education institute will make the certificate valuable to the teachers and the school. This in turn will make it easier to establish the norm of teacher training and teacher certification. Joint certification will also improve the chances of employ-ability.

Partnership opportunity with relevant tech partner will help enrich the system to make it smarter and more fit for the future needs of the education industry.

Partnership opportunity for joint certification with relevant education institute will make the certificate valuable to the teachers and the school. This in turn will make it easier to establish the norm of teacher training and teacher certification. Joint certification will also improve the chances of employ-ability for the new teachers. In the current scenario, when the unemployment among youth is rising this will be a good opportunity to train and employ these young teachers through our platform.

At our core, we are working to create a significant impact in alignment with SDG 4 - Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Hence, all our probable partnerships should have a component that aligns with any SDG, particularly the 4th.  

1. Education Institutes

MIT - for joint certification and quality assessment of our courses. To make each of our programs compatible with the international market. This will automatically improve the quality of our programs and ensure that each teacher is developed as an asset of the country 

2. Corporate Entities -   

Unilever - Since the global conglomerate has been one of the core advocates of sustainable business practices. Besides, we can also collaborate in terms of curating executive education for them.  

3. Telenor - One of the leading telecommunications companies who can assist us with future technologies and make our platform much more scalable in the long run.   

4. Government Entities -   

Bangladesh Ministry of Education to help us increase our credibility across all the districts of Bangladesh.   

5. Development Organizations -   

UNICEF - to collaborate and design better teaching methods for the young learners.  

World Bank - to help scale up our portfolio of services in the years to come in multiple countries across Asia.