ClassPlus - Digital Classroom

Our solution (ClassPlus –Digital Classroom) objective is to promote; quality, equality, access to learning and inclusion of over 400 million children across African continent including the most vulnerable from disadvantaged communities. Lessons in digital class are taught by the best teachers in the continent who are selected from pool of volunteer teachers across African continent. Lessons are interpreted in official languages (English & French) and will be accessed by the students through a tablet device designed specifically for the digital classroom. Digital Classroom will abolish education inequalities along wealth, gender, ethnicity, linguistic, and geographical lines.

The education problem we are solving in Africa is code named QEAI .i.e. Quality, Equality, Access and Inclusion. Among all continents of the world, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest rates of education exclusion. Over one-fifth of children between the ages of about 6 and 11 are out of school, followed by one-third of youth between the ages of about 12 and 14. According to UIS data, almost 60% of youth between the ages of about 15 and 17 are not in school. The exclusion challenge is equally followed by Poor quality environment (e.g., infrastructure, overcrowding, sanitation, and violence), Poor quality content (e.g., outdated curriculum, inadequate materials), Poor quality processes and access (e.g., untrained teachers, poor school management) and National legal framework (e.g., lack of compulsory education requirement). Without urgent action that is technology based such as ClassPlus – Digital Classroom, the situation will likely get worse as the region faces a rising demand for education due to a still-growing school-age population.

Our solution is digitalizing teaching and learning in Africa to solve the problem of quality, equitable, access and education inclusion.

ClassPlus - Digital Classroom is digitally accessed through a tablet device designed specifically for the classes. The solution is built on android operating system and hosted in google cloud with machine learning features. Tutorials in the digital classes are translated in English and French which represents the two basic and formal languages across African continents.

The classroom is divided into Primary & Secondary with applicable lessons and subjects listed in each level. The platform has pre-recorded lesson with video image of the teacher and come along with a detailed guide on how to get the best from each lesson. Each tutorials is accompanied with possible Q & A as well as a feature to upload and ask questions not contained in the Q&A section.

The digital classroom uses academic volunteers in education sector within the continent who has passion to giving back to the society wilfully and without financial consideration. Volunteers are admitted following a seamless process which ensures only the best hands are admitted. They are categorized into; administrators, teachers, translators and guardians.

It is well known that the state and progress of education is most uneven in different parts of Africa and the world. Our solution is targeting children in Africa within primary and secondary school ages and with the sole aim of promoting quality, equality, access and education Inclusion.

The emergence of our digital classroom is to ensure quality education considering the fact that the key players are the best in the continent. ClassPlus admits the best education administrators, the best teachers and guardians who are passionate about solving education challenges. The solution bridges the gap in education between the rich and the poor by delivering and giving access to same education content. The solution is 100% free and accessible to every child in the continent which reduces high cost of education.

In Africa, quality education has been heavily commercialized to the extent that it is only the rich kids can afford quality education while the children of the poor is engraved with half-baked education simply because they cannot afford it. Children from disadvantages communities such as conflict and war zones are left out in education and may become a terror to the countries whose affairs caused their education exclusion. Some poor countries in Africa cannot afford or finance quality education due to the poor DGP infrastructures and other critical factors.

 Also the recent Covid-19 pandemic has equally distorted education process and then justify the need for contactless teaching and learning.

 To make the matters still worse, many children are under teachers whose education amounts to just a little more than that of pupils, that is, the equivalent of less than the completion of the secondary school. Furthermore, there may be not be adequate textbooks, not to mention the facts the material in the textbooks may be ill-adapted to the aptitudes and abilities of the children, or to the needs of the community.

In addition, a large percentage – as large as 80 -90 percent of the pulpils come from homes with illiterate or semi illiterate parents where the application of what is taught in school, becomes frequently nullified because the parents are illiterates.

 ClassPlus – Digital Classroom gives every child the access to the best education in the continent with an assigned guardian who supervises and ensure the student academic progress. The digital

class is designed such that it becomes more valuable and impacting than bricks and mortar schools in Africa.

Problems challenging education in Africa are quality, equality, access and inclusion. The quality is problem is due to unqualified teachers, and poor learning environment, equality is due to different curriculum in use. Violence and Covid-19 pandemic has restricted access to education. Exclusion is due to poverty which exist at national and individual level. ClassPlus uses the best teachers who are volunteers and selected from the continent. It creates zero gap between the rich and the poor and accessible to every child. The solution promotes education inclusion even when the world is  on lockdown.

We are at ideation stage. Our solution is articulated based on the current education problems in Africa. The idea still receives refinement underway but with unchanging and basic concept of establishing digital classroom. 

Virtual or online classes exist in the world today which ranges from personal teachings in YouTube channel and in-house virtual class arrangement by many institutions or schools, however in Africa this approach to education is not prominent. In some developed countries, some school have set-up private and institution based virtual classes using its internal resources but they are not harnessed to improve primary and secondary education on national or global scale.

 Our solution is solving the four critical education problems in Africa (quality, equitable, access and inclusion) with the use of technology which is the first of its kind. Our solution is such that connects education sector/administration of all African countries in the process by harnessing both human and non-human resources to achieve a digital age improved primary and secondary school education in Africa. The curriculum in use are thoroughly reviewed and improved by the best administrators in the continent, the lessons are taught from the pool of best teachers in the continent, and the classes are accessed at no cost and made available without gap between the rich and the poor. Our solution is digitalizing education (teaching and learning) in a harnessed mode which will make Africa one of the first in the world to approach education from that angle if fully implemented. It is projected that our solution will improve education (primary & Secondary) in Africa by 25% by 2026.

Because our solution is on ideation stage, it serves no one currently. Meanwhile in one year, it’s obvious we will still be working on the idea to come live but in five years, it will serve 100 million. 

The impact of our solution in education in Africa will be based on the number of primary and secondary school students admitted to the platform and the usage traffic, secondly the academic success rate of the students who are learning through the platform as compared with those that are not. The ratio of students in the platform against the primary and secondary school population in Africa. We will also measure the ratio of participating countries as against 54 countries that make up Africa. 

Fulltime 4 and Contractors 2, making a total of 6.

Our team is made of 4 full time and 2 contractors working on our solution for the last two months. Among the team members are 2 project management professionals and 2 web developers. The team members has sound track record in entrepreneurship, problem solving and academics. The team is made of critical thinkers and possess a high problem solving skills. 

There is equal and mutual respect to each team member . Each team member is recognized as an integral part of our solution success. We have projected the leadership progression of our team which is rotational among the team members irrespective of gender. We carefully choose our team and it comprises of individual with a unique leadership virtue, hence the rotational leadership. 

To solve education problem in Africa such as quality, equitable, access and education inclusion.

Google

Our solution (ClassPlus –Digital Classroom) s to solve education problems in Africa with the objective of promoting; quality, equality, access to learning and inclusiveness of over 400 million children across African continent including the most vulnerable from disadvantaged communities. Lessons in digital class are taught by the best teachers in the continent who are selected from pool of volunteer teachers across African continent. The funds will be used in mass production of specialized tablet device which will be distributed among primary and secondary school students which will aid access to the digital classroom.

Our solution (ClassPlus –Digital Classroom) s to solve education problems in Africa with the objective of promoting; quality, equality, access to learning and inclusiveness of over 400 million children across African continent including the most vulnerable from disadvantaged communities. Lessons in digital class are taught by the best teachers in the continent who are selected from pool of volunteer teachers across African continent. The funds will be used in mass production of specialized tablet device which will be distributed among primary and secondary school students which will aid access to the digital classroom.