Imani Academy

Appalled by the state of the affordable education options in available in Uganda and committed to finding a solution, Ivan Agaba founded Imani Academies in January 2017.  He believes that an innovative low cost approach can disrupt the crisis in the Ugandan education industry. It is for this reason that he has dedicated himself to creating a new model that will provide access to high quality affordable education for all.

Agaba’s mission is making quality education accessible to pupils from disadvantaged communities in Africa in order to empower them to become leaders of positive influence. He works in partnership with communities, teachers and parents to deliver quality education for primary and pre-primary school children.

He believes that, through his model, all children will be able to go to good affordable schools that will give them the same learning advantages enjoyed by their more privileged peers.

Problem:

• Limited availability of teachers • Disparate implementation of national curriculum • Traditional modes of learning 

Solution:

• Trains and supports teachers to deliver student centric learning • Develops teacher and learner resources, including teacher guides 

Problem:

•Ensure consistent quality at all locations • Efficient communication with staff • Manage geographically dispersed locations • Need to scale quickly and cost effectively

Solution:

• Delivers and adapts lesson plans from the cloud • Decentralizes academy management with strong central support • Standardizes expansion process for new schools

Problem:

• Families have limited money to spend on school • Need for schools to be a part of the community

Solution:

Engages with parents and community to raise awareness • Hires teachers from the community • Sets price point on par with public school costs

Problem:

We have seen our project elevate humanity by providing access to quality education

According to UNESCO, there are currently 263 million children and youth that are not in school and 330 million are in school but not learning. The biggest reason being the inability of their parents / guardians to afford school fees and dues attached to them being in school. In Uganda about two million children of primary school going age ( 5-14 years) live in urban centers. Majority of these live in slums and cannot afford expensive private education so they are left with the option of chronically underfunded government schools with poor management, dilapidated facilities and outdated education systems and because of this they end up undereducated and trapped in the poverty cycle.

50% of Africa’s population is less than 25 years. Effectively educating this huge population requires, huge numbers of quality teachers, sound infrastructure & facilities, modern materials and conducive academic environment. It is estimated by the Global Partnership for Education that low-income countries require a huge amount of USD 26 billion annual external funding to achieve universal basic education. Due to the prevailing inadequacy of public resources to provide educational needs, private actors have established Low Cost Private Schools to fill the access gap in formal classroom education.

Imani is setting up a network of nursery and primary school to leverage on scale and technology to be able to deliver quality and affordability to communities.

Everywhere that Imani operates, the system of teaching and learning is the same. Imani has developed a school model that is transplanted and replicated from one context to another. Representing the ‘proprietary heart’ of the company, the "school in a cloud" model is a ‘vertically-integrated system’ in which the entire supply-chain is streamlined by Imani — from academy construction to advertising materials to curricula content to teacher training to pedagogy—it is a pre-fabricated model designed for replication and rapid scalability. Within this academy-in-a-box model all instructional (e.g. curriculum, pedagogy) and non-instructional activities (e.g. admissions, accountancy, administration) are standardized.

Typical parent at the bottom of the informal sector who stays in a (slum) peri urban area around Kampala. Majority are illiterate, The have an average combined house hold income of 100$ per month. They are young parents between 19 -35 years. single parents with extended families.They tend not to have regular incomes.

 Our impact will be the measurable quality of education that our students receive relative to the other education options that may be available to them (this may be other low cost private schools, but our biggest comparison will be the local government schools).

We have noted through observation the ease with which students who had previously dropped out of school re-join because of our low-cost option. We provide less financially able students with a better level of education than they could receive elsewhere, giving them a better chance of employment in the future. We have also trained parents on how to start small businesses during parent-teacher engagements, generating saving a scheme to help them send their kids to our school and also providing Jobs and an income.

Imani Academies was established to change the quality of education available to children in underserved, low-income communities in Uganda. 

It is one of the first educational organizations in east africa to address the problem of quality at scale, allowing it to invest heavily in research and technology and to focus relentlessly on learning. 

These communities have been traditionally been left behind in this area.

I was fortunate enough to volunteer as a teaching assistant at a local secondary school, and it was there that it became apparent to me the inability that older students had in expressing themselves, despite the years of learning they had undergone while in bad primary government schools, coupled with unintended regular absenteeism resulting from inability to pay the high tuition fees. This inspired me to think of an affordable, high quality education model that would deal with this predicament.

The “pay as you learn” concept was then conceived in late 2016 and the school opened for the first term of the academic year in January 2017. Improving the quality and delivery of education in Uganda is key. Children are the future, and education is a milestone towards development. 

When I was younger my parents were unable to send me to a good private school so I attended a local government school, I experienced the ins and outs of a poor quality primary school. I then went on to join a good secondary school only because my mother was a teacher there and as a result our fees were reduced. The difference between the two education systems was astounding. Unfortunately all my primary school mates were still stuck in a ‘poverty cycle’, which exempted them from good education and subsequent good jobs. I am less interested in a technical solution to this problem, and more in a people solution. I am passionate about working for and with the community that Imani is a part of; in order to change this narrative. I believe that real change can only come from within, the community and through the education of its students and parents. 

Over the years I have run various start-ups from entertainment to technology to advertising, and have groomed several colleagues and employees into influential people, who are now successful leaders in their own right. I can spot potential and have always prided myself in being a good mentor and sharing my knowledge and experiences with young upcoming entrepreneurs. I have a cheerful disposition and make an effort to get to know each employee on a somewhat personal level. This not only helps them feel important but also vested in the business thus giving it their all. I am passionate about my work and don’t let the risks that come with entrepreneurship impede my attitude. Finally, I am able to run an operation smoothly by ensuring the intimate connection of all parties involved, from staff-boss relationships, to the project and community. 

On the first day of school when we opened the doors at Imani Academy for the first time, none of the teachers I had freshly recruited showed up and I was required to teach the few new students. I managed to get one teacher back and called in friends from the community for help. Because I am so well integrated in the community, however, this was quickly resolved. My network of friends helped me with getting the necessary amount of qualified teachers.

One shortcoming I have experienced was when I started my own money lending business that ultimately failed because the community in which I was operating had little money-saving notions. However, I managed to turn this failure around, by learning the necessary skills that helped create Imani’s pay as you learn model and the saving schemes we have set up for our parents, integrating a contact from the money lending business to as a fee collection partner/consultant.

My passion and experience in the education industry is well suited to my entrepreneurial past, having run three different businesses and start-ups successfully despite the harsh climate of the Ugandan economy for startups. Notable at Imani, is the toilet facility we have built using favourable credit payment terms which I personally negotiated. This demonstrates my strong personal relationships with the community at large. While a student at the university, I won a “young achiever’s award” for starting a successful infotainment magazine. I have also recently started blogging (agabaivan.wordpress.com) in order to become a person of influence in my space. I know that I can sell my vision to society. People become invested in my vision because it is important, and my social and networking skills show that this vision can indeed become a true success. 

In the local low-cost, private school market, Imani is unique due to our approach to fee payment model (pay as you learn) This is the first of its kind in Uganda. Daily school fees payment fits into parents’ income structure and enables them to deposit on the child’s education as they go along; considering that most of them may not have regular incomes that provide a regular salary.

Also deep experience and understanding of the Ugandan education system gives us leverage as well. Imani academy has been built in a cost-effective way (basic building structures that still provide students with a quality learning environment) with an innovative curriculum and classroom arrangements that are more in line with international private schools. Our focus on quality at subsidised prices is so that students from the local community receive an affordable yet first-rate delivery and quality of education.

Imani prioritizes quality of education by supplementing on the national curriculum through quality of content delivery. Our teachers are trained regularly and we plan for our content to be centralised when more locations have been established.

Imani Academies is focused on nurturing happy, confident children by raising their academic and co-curricular achievement levels. We want to help underprivileged children to get a good education affordable education and we want to give them good materials with good information.

To do this, we will use technology, great teachers and great infrastructure in communities. With these inputs, we are develop activities to achieve our goals. Our Activities include recruiting volunteers, identifying children in need and requiting them, figuring out how to store data and redistribute and scale to as many locations and gathering feedback from the community.

Our outputs will be more children retained in school and children will have access to quality school. Grades of these children will much better and their potential will be fully unleashed and they will compete favorably for better opportunities later on in life.  This will enable them have a future success of their careers, and a better quality of life.

The current number of people we serve:

Year 2020: Number of Pupils 321

The number of pupils we will be serving in one year:

Year 2021: Number of pupils 500

The number of pupils we will be serving in five years:

Year 2025: Number of pupils 7,500 

(Each school has 750 pupils at maximum capacity and we will have ten schools in five years)

Over the next two years, Imani Academies expects to grow our current location by adding more classrooms, a library and resource centre. We also plan on having three more locations by the end of 2022 so that we reach and impact on more communities. Plans are already in place for the purchase of land neighboring our current location for the expansion of the school to add more learning spaces. The construction of new buildings (whether it be on the new location or future locations) can (and have been) built with favorable payment terms (i.e. credit) due to our executive director’s good relationship with local suppliers. The opening of new locations will either be financed by a grant or fundraising rounds, or by leveraging the current property owned by Imani Academy (our current locations) as collateral to receive a large enough bank loan.

Our main barrier is lack of funding. 

Imani has so far been bootstrapping and access to investment in these markets is hard to come by. 

Our second barrier is technology

For funding we are working with Shona (our business accelerator) for map out fundraising rounds based on our financial model to raise funds for expansion

For Technology we are actively experimenting on different solution during this COVID 19 lock down on schools world wide

Edify -(https://www.edify.org/) - They have provided to us funding of USD 20,000

Ondernemers voor Ondernemers vzw -  (www.ondernemersvoorondernemers.be) - They have provided to us funding of USD 20,000

National Social Security Fund - (https://nssfug.org/) - They have provided to us funding of USD 15,000

SHONA - (https://shona.co/) - Business Acceleration and incubation services.

biz model

check revenue models

grants

150k

estimate

My dream is to scale this wonderful school so that may

underprivileged children and parents form different communities can

benefit from it. So I hope to learn new skills on how to influence

others to follow my big dream with both their skills and resources so

we ca make it a reality and in so doing achieve most of the SDGs.

I hope to also share my personal experience with the elevate prize network.

 You never know how far these could go. I hope to grow my networks and

gain world stage exposure and funding.