Yiya Engineering Solutions (YES!)

Yiya Engineering Solutions is a project implementing hands-on, project-based learning in East African secondary schools. We make secondary education more engaging, hands-on, and relevant to students’ lives by exposing students to engineering design challenges where they apply math and science skills to solve real and urgent problems in their communities!

In our needfinding, we learned teachers usually dictate notes while students copy from the blackboard. During rare hands-on groupwork, 44% of respondents reported groups of 10+ students. Most students passively observe, with notetaking assigned to females (78%). In these activities, students follow defined steps. Straying from the “right answer” is discouraged. Teachers believed their main purpose was preparing students for exams; students worried school was not relevant to real life. One student explained his teacher instructed him not to repeat the lab outside school. The student asked, “If I can’t repeat it outside school, then why am I learning it?”

Empowering students to apply knowledge to design technologies that solve real community problems gives education relevance and urgency. Engaging in the iterative design process pushes both teachers and students to recognize there is never one right answer or one final solution to a problem. Two months into our pilot we found a 6% increase in the number of students who often participate actively in class. Reported reasons for participating shifted from improving exam performance to building skill sets or sharing ideas. Participating pilot teachers report feeling that they are now qualified to teach students to fix problems as engineers do.

We aim to improve quality of education through student-centered, project-based learning. We train teachers to engage students in engineering challenges that empower them to tackle problems in their local communities. 

When students view themselves as engineers who design and test solutions to real and urgent problems, education becomes relevant and important to life outside school. There is a twofold benefit of motivating students to be actively engaged in their lessons, while at the same time building crucial 21st century skills: critical thinking, data analysis, operating within criteria and constraints, optimization of variables and balancing trade-offs, communication skills, among others.

(1) # of students referencing classroom knowledge topics when describing engineering solutions in survey (given once per term)

(2) Judges' evaluation of technologies showcased and developed during Yiya Inter-School Engineering Competition & Showcase

- Secondary students apply classroom knowledge to solve real-world problems.

(1) Track attendance at Yiya lessons

(2) Self-reporting of lesson participation and engagement on survey (given once per term) - Secondary students actively engage in class

(1) # of teachers who attend engineering trainins

(2) # of teachers who implement at least 1 engineering module in their classroom

(3) Self-reporting on teacher survey (given once per term) - Secondary teachers value and implement hands-on, project-based learning

We teach our curriculum the way we think teachers should teach in classrooms! We don’t expect teachers to flawlessly implement engineering challenges in classrooms immediately. We provide ongoing training and co-teaching, then gradually release responsibility as teachers learn the technical content and learner-centered methodology. In Yiya workshops, teachers role-play as students to fully experience content. Our team initially leads classroom teaching while teachers observe, ask questions, and step in when comfortable. Next, we share facilitation. Next, teachers lead lessons while Yiya observes and provides support. Finally, we train Yiya teachers to train other teachers, to make our high-touch model sustainable.

Before our pilot, we conducted needfinding with local educational stakeholders: head teachers, teachers, parents, students, out-of-school youth, and government officials such as the District Education Officer and Regional District Commissioner.  We then developed modules based on their thoughts and major concerns. Throughout our pilot, we have held teacher workshops soliciting teacher feedback and suggestions on our units. In addition, all pilot teachers and students complete surveys once per term. All survey responses are compared to surveys completed simultaneously by non-Yiya students and teachers. This continuous feedback helps us modify the current Yiya engineering units and inform design of new units!

We partner with secondary schools after mutually consenting to our MoU terms, and then implement our program in school. People access our innovation from school. In each school, we recruit five teachers who benefit from our engineering trainings. We also select 40 students at lower secondary level from each school, whom we directly teach our curriculum to twice per week. Currently, USAID funds our pilot, so our program is very affordable for schools (free!). In future, we will have schools pay according to financial ability. In addition, our units use inexpensive and locally available materials, often reused rubbish!

We are currently funded by a USAID grant called RIC4CONF and incubated by the ResilientAfrica Network (RAN) based in Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda. In the short term, we are pursuing multiple grant opportunities to fund our project. We intend to continue offering open source services to schools in poor communities, but in the near future we will charge more established schools in urban areas for our engineering modules and resources. We want to build stronger partnerships with these schools so they pay for our teaching manuals, student engineering journals, materials kits, and training services for their teachers. In the long term, we will partner with government teacher training organizations for government to facilitate our teacher trainings and materials.

The current teaching and examining structure is based on theory rather than skills. Today in Uganda, schools and parents care more about exam performance than skill application. It is likely that schools will give priority to teaching students to cram theory and pass exams, rather than programs that focus on equipping students with 21st century skills, because according to them, anything that is not examined by the national examining body is not a priority. We however believe and have seen that when students are exposed to a project-based learning pedagogy, they are more likely to understand even the theory better.

https://yiyasolutions.org/news/

Yiya is very new ; we hope to learn all we can from Solve partnerships and networking. For example, we have been told that it’s not possible to have a sustainable business model in the education sector. Our organization is in the business of totally changing the education sector, so we need to investigate and problem-solve with people who can help us develop a sustainable revenue model. We want to learn more about M&E and rigorously measuring our success. We want to be part of a community that is passionate about designing solutions to big problems and improving them tirelessly!

USAID

ResilientAfrica Network (RAN)

Makerere University

Fundibots

Lida Africa

Glocal

Oysters & Pearls Uganda

Young Engineers - https://www.westkampala.youngengineers.ug/