MIT Solve

Solution Overview

Solution Name

NINYOWE PROGRESSIVE SCHOOLS

One-line solution summary.

Our Idea is STEAM Education as an approach to learning that uses Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics as access points for guiding student inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking.

What is your solution?

We want to provide reliable educational services and simpler payment solutions to the community through;
1. Daily, Weekly or Bi Weekly payment schemes that are affordable for Caretakers and are easy to process through Mobile Money*
2. We want to develop a timetable that allows work and learning simultaneously so as to put the skills learned to a test. This shall mean that not all the time is spent in the classroom.
3. Through the construction of comprehensive learning centers.
4. We also want to employ the use of digital Media to help ease the Tranfer of information from teacher to student through creation of free to acces learning portals and Applications where work and assessment can be shared hence bridging the digital gap.
5. We hope to utilize the ever-growing digital trends and equip the youth with the basic/fundamentals of Creative Digital Design and Art.
6. We want to create employment opportunities for the teachers that lost their jobs and also train younger ones to strengthen the force and provide relevant information to the youth.
7. We also have Education Programs for Special Needs Students hence making our ecosystem inclusive. Alot of schools don’t have special curriculums or facilities that cater for this group of youth.

What specific problem are you trying to solve?

There is a rising number of school drop outs due to covid-19 related issues like lack of finances, closure of former schools, early marriage and child pregnancy, fear of death, neglect from Parents, Death of Caretakers due to the Virus and alot of other reasons. We hope to address this problem through our major objective which is to provide cheap, safe and relevant education (STEAM) that is impactful not only to them and their livelihoods, but to their community and to General Society and Economy.

Who does your solution serve? In what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Data from the ministry of education shows that on average one million learners every year enroll in primary education. However at the end of the seven year cycle, only 600,000 pupils sit for Primary Leaving Examinations. This number reduces to 300,000 at Uganda Certificate of Education and later to 100,000 students at Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education

The Covid-19 Pandemic has left almost 30% of school going children without a means to access relevant education, most of them being Girls, because of various factors like early marriage, early pregnancy, lack of financial support, closure of former schools, death of Caretakers and many more.

What steps have you taken to understand the needs of the population you want to serve?

With the closure of schools in my Country for the last two years due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the learning structure has made leaps as far as digital migration is concerned. The study conducted indicated that even without the traditional learning spaces and resources, we can still use the little that is available paired with hard work and useful digital resources, we can reach an estimate of 20000 Students in our 10 year objectives.

Furthermore the inability to move freely from place to place due to respect of the SOPs limited the scope of our research and therefore we are using projections and estimates.

Which aspects of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Improving learning opportunities and outcomes for learners across their lifetimes, from early childhood on (Learning)

Our solution's stage of development:

Concept: An idea being explored for its feasibility to build a product, service, or business model based on that idea

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution—in other words, what have you accomplished to date?

Data from the ministry of education shows that on average one million learners every year enroll in primary education. However at the end of the seven year cycle, only 600,000 pupils sit for Primary Leaving Examinations. This number reduces to 300,000 at Uganda Certificate of Education and later to 100,000 students at Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education. Most of these coming from rural areas and slums located around the modern centers of Kampala

The need to provide cheap and reliable educational services for these young people is extremely relevant.

Where our solution team is headquartered or located:

Kampala, Uganda

Team Lead:

Mwesigwa Cohen Junior