Watoto Wazania NPC

Our main goal is to improve equitable access to quality education for the African child.

Our objectives are

a. to improve appetite and aptitude in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics. 

b. to provide innovative, simple and alternative solutions to be used by educators for teaching and assessments and equally by learners to learn. 

c. to bridge the digital divide

d. to reduce plastic waste material contributing negatively to the environment (e.g. plastic soup)

We serve our market in three ways, we

1. provide a toolkit which we claim is a "low-cost, high-quality educational toolkit used to accelerate learning at the Foundation Phase of education.."

2. provide online and offline support to educators at the Foundation Phase of education through STEAM related skills development (short learning programs)

3. conduct scientific exhibitions at local schools to provide learners and educators access and first hand experience to the Toolkit on a short term trial basis.

4. provide online and offline support to parents at home to can be able to help their children in a supportive environment, and informed approach.

5. are developing a unique curriculum to bridge the gap between our local CAPS (Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement) curriculum  and the international Cambridge curriculum.

Why do we focus the children at the Foundation Phase?

The Foundation Phase comprises of children between ages 0 and 10. Typically, children between the ages of 0 and 5 would be in a kindergarten or pre-school, whereas children between 6 and 10 would be in grades R, 1,2,3 and 4.

Results, such as our South African Annual Assessment Tests, and other international tests such as the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) show that learners exit primary schools with less than desired competency levels in literacy, numeracy and digital skills of the future.

We sell directly our products to schools who do have a limited buying power. However, we also try to involve other stakeholders such as corporate CSI and municipalities.  Last year we attracted the attention of the City of Johannesburg and other strategic partners such as the University of South Africa, Moses Kotane Institute, QLM (Quality Life Montessori) and the Switzerland government. These organisations have become strategic partners who share our vision and they have individually provided various forms of support, and would continue to do so in the future, to our organisation to deliver on its objectives.

The Team Lead  comprises of 2 individuals

1. Mbuso Ngcongo, Founder and Director (EdTech Systems Specialist)

2. Nokuthula Dladla / Mzizi, Educator

Their combined role is to oversee projects, give direction to the organisation in general, innovate, test and provide relevant reports. 

Mbuso is a seasoned computer systems analyst and developer. He is responsible for conceptual design of games and writing training manuals. He has represented the organisation in many presentations locally and internationally and has become a mouthpiece of the organisation.

Mbuso is the founder and Director of Watoto Wazania, and has been applying the concepts over the years teaching children. He is qualified in Early Childhood Development and carries various soft skills including National Assessor and Research Ethics from the University of Hong Kong.

Nokuthula is responsible for curriculum alignment of programs,products and training of educators, volunteers, caregivers and practitioners. She is a qualified and experienced Foundation Phase educator and is registered with SACE (South African Council of Educators)

As part of organisational development it is obligatory for Team Lead to allocate time towards organisational development goals. The organisation provides necessary resources and support for this to happen. The Team Lead is expected to report back to the restof the

The Lead Team has sufficient time based on the organisational priorities to provide necessary support.

The Lead Team are both executive officials who are empowered to make binding decisions on the part of the organisation. They both have the interest of he organisation at heart, and they share the long term vision equally.

The Lead Team report directly to the Advisory Board Committee who serve as the caretakers of the business objectives, vision and mission.

The Lead Team are thus well positioned to apply their mind with respect to recommendations by the Fellows during the ninety day sprint.

In summary, the Lead Team will be able to attend the virtual  LEAPathon. Mbuso Ngcongo will remain the main point of contact for Fellows through the duration of the 12-week  LEAP Project sprint.

The time Lead Team would commit to 2-4 hours/week during the project sprint.
It can be confirmed herein that they have the authority and capacity to serve in this role.

Watoto-Wazania  developed innovative low-cost-toolkit aimed at accelerating learning through gamification, making learning fun, enjoyable and easy for children at Foundation-Phase.

Three Quarters of a billion adults can not read, write or count. Furthermore, two thirds of a billion children can not read write or count even though they are in school

We are very concerned that the problem will become progressively worse as we move into the digital economy. It will result in many children growing up to a world in which are unable to make a meaningful positive contribution to the society.

Out of desperation, they are likely to resolve to drugs, crime, prostitution and contribute to social ills that have become cancerous to our society.

This is the problem we are trying to address.

Upon investigation, we have discovered that there are societal challenges, peculiar to Africa as an underdeveloped and somewhat developing country. These challenges cause serious barriers of entry to equitable access to quality education. 

Against the backdrop of poverty, crime, political instability, factional wars, corruption, covid-19, inequality and lack of resources we asked ourselves "what can we do as learned and responsible citizens to change the fate of millions of children tomorrow?"

We acknowledge the problem is very big, hence we choose to focus on a narrow scope of children at the Foundation Phase of education. These are children between the ages of two and twelve.

Some of these children are given birth by parents who themselves are not ready to be parents since they have not reached levels of maturity and adulthood.  Often they do not have enough stimulation during this critical stage necessary for cognitive development.

Secondly, a significantly large portion of the preschools and primary schools are not adequately equipped to handle high volumes of children nor to provide enough attention to every child. This means the caregivers are not sufficiently skilled, and do not have necessary learning aids to support children.

Children are entering the public schooling system at a rate of one million per year only in South Africa. They become part of almost eighteen million learners in the public schooling. However at the point of exit, only a third of learners reach grade 12, and out of those a significant number does not even attempt mathematics and science at all.

As a result these challenges create a serious shortage of critical skills in the country. Furthermore, investors choose to migrate their operations elsewhere where the climate is conducive, which is not good for the economy.

We believe that providing a solid foundation will contribute positively towards making the future society a better one than we have today.

Our solution is multi-pronged.

1. Umbalabala Educational Toolkit

2. Support Programmes

+ Educators

+ Caregivers

+ Parents

+ Learners

+ Communities

+ Government Involvement

+ Investor Participation

Details

1. Umbalabala Educational Toolkit is a multi-award winning innovation that is packed with patented and open-sourced members including games and automation tools.

Our toolkit comprises of five members

a. Tokens

b. Board Games

- has a digital twin

c. Visualiser

d. Smart Learners Device

e. Digital  Workbook

- also has a printed hard copy version

The solution works by gamifying learning and using repetitive methods that re-enforce learning, hence improve memorability and learnability of concepts. Using a single board computer we are able to incorporate computer vision and concrete abstraction and reduce costs of access to computing power.

The Toolkit has been recognised by various Institutions of higher learning for novelty including the following: 

2023: FRANCE - BLUE OCEAN CORNERS

2022: THENSA - (Technology for Higher Education of South Africa)

2021+2022 - UNISA (University of South Africa)

2022: Rwanda: University of Rwanda

2022: Switzerland: SASBI (Swiss African Science, Business Innovators)

2021: MKI -  Moses Kotane Institute - Education Award

2021: OpenCV Competition - Finalist

2021: National Geographic Society - Finalist

2. Support Programmes

+ Educators

The support system provided to educators include providing systems that make their workload lighter.  We conduct focused workshops capacitating educators with novel methods of teaching and solving problems.

+ Caregivers

Caregivers are provided with training.

+ Parents

We run a program called parent's education to help parents deal with complexities of children and homework.

+ Learners

We do have a small group of learners where we intervene directly. However, our model is to work with educators and caregivers.

+ Communities

Periodically we engage with community leaders including school governing bodies to keep ourselves abreast of challenges and community initiatives.

+ Government Involvement

We engage government at various levels, nationally, and locally to solicit their support and recognition of our efforts.

+ Investor Participation

We are constantly on the lookout for funding that could assist us propelling our vision and to add value to our offering.

Learning Variability

Our systems and methods support learning variability in various ways.

a. The smart learners device adapts level of complexity of lessons according to learners individual performance by tracking past performance. In essence in a classroom full of children learners can be grouped by performance as advocated by the TaRL (Teaching at the Right Level) method (https://www.flnhub.org). Each group can receive individualised instructions and assessments according to their recorded levels of past performance.

b. The variability is also application with respect to learners physical abilities. Learners may vary speeds with which instructions are issued to them or the medium (i.e. audio, text or both).

Stateless children

We have conducted 6 studies iteratively since 2020

FOUNDATIONAL STUDY 1:  2021 Desktop Study

We used literature reviews and desktop studies to investigate the impact of the societal challenges on the South African public education sector over the past decade starting from 2011.

We also reviewed three theories that we found interesting, namely:

• Dr Maria Montessori, Montessori Schooling
• Sugatra Mitra: The Hole in the Wall, and
• Prantham's Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL)

FORMATIVE STUDY 2: Open Schooling

This was conducted in the form of usability study in 2021 over a period of three months commencing in March involving children between ages 3 and 14. It is important to point out this study happened organically. Neighbouring parents started sending their children to our space after they could see results based on our own children, a boy and girl aged 3 at the time. This was during the lockdown in 2021, and so, to comply with Covid19 regulations we used the open space at the Botanic Gardens to provide space for children to engage with our initial  prototype.

During the 90 day period we also engaged with street kids and their homeless guardians in Durban's Argyle Road and exposed our prototypes to them.

By the end of the 90 days we had engaged with 526 children, 243 parents and had recruited 44 volunteers who are mainly parents and caregivers.

FORMATIVE STUDY 3:  2022 Stakeholder engagement 1

This study was made possible by our participation in the Blue Ocean Corners / Blue Ocean Awards (BOC) which began in 2021 and ran until the closing ceremony held in France in April 2023.

The BOC connected us with the City of Johannesburg who arranged for us to meet with ECD practitioners under their care in all the seven regions of Johannesburg (A-G).

In each region we met groups of almost thirty caregivers, forum leaders and local community leaders. We also met with officials from the City of Johannesburg and Department of Social Development. In total we met over 200 individuals.

The format of this engagement was to precede by interviews to establish key challenges faced by this sector. The interviews were group interviews, participants were documented. Questionnaires were also distributed to participants who completed and returned them. Information asked was not sensitive and did not require identity to be hidden, but participants could choose to be anonymous.

It was then followed by exposure of our toolkit members to the participants and allowing them to interact with it over a period of an hour. This was followed by further discussion to evaluate whether they thought the toolkit would solve some of the challenges they were facing in classrooms.

FORMATIVE STUDY 4: Montessori Schools

Our offering appealed to an association responsible for Montessori schools in Cape Town who invited us to their schools. During this study we interviewed over 45 caregivers and administrators in seven pre-schools. We visited these pre-schools daily over a five day period in Cape Town and engaged with personnel and observed learners. using Montessori kits.

FORMATIVE STUDY 5: 2021 - 2023 Primary Schools

Since 2021 we have visited 12 primary schools surround our area, and engaged with well over 80 educators, principals and school governing body members (parents).

FOUNDATIONAL STUDY 1:  2021 Desktop Study

This desktop study highlighted the complexity of the problem and suggested the problems such as digital divide can not just be solved by simply providing laptops or tablets to learners.

We also found the method of Dr Maria Montessori's concrete  abstraction quite appealing for various reasons, and it then underpins our offering. The Hole in the Wall was also very insightful with respect to learner centered learning. We learned that children, given the right tools,which Dr Montessori refers to as "self correcting mechanism" are very effective and require less supervision. The Pratham's TaRL is also very interesting and is well supported and documented. It also places huge emphasis on language and mathematics at the foundation phase of education, which resonates with our target market. These studies have influenced our prototypes.

STUDY 2: Open Schooling

Formative Research: This study paved way for refining our boardgames, which have since been patented fully.

In addition, we had clearly defined SMART KPI's which we used to evaluate the impact at the end of the study.

On shapes

By the end of the study a control group remained knowing only 3 basic shapes whilst the participating group understood up to 9 different shapes.

On colours

Participants could count with understanding (rational counting) beyond 100 where the control group could only count up to 30. This counting included both activities of addition and subtraction.

On alphabets

The participating group could easily identify all alphabets A to Z. We had introduced a unique test we called Z to A, which was reciting and arranging alphabets in a reversed order, and found that they could learn that in a space of one week.

The control group could not perform this activity at all.

This study highlighted the importance of play, the abundance of waste materials and highlighted to us the positive environmental impact of our intervention.

STUDY 3:  2022 Stakeholder engagement 1

This study highlighted a need to train caregivers. We adapted our model to allow caregivers who have never been to school or who had failed dismally in the STEAM subjects to support learners in such a way that they do not negatively impact their future skills.

Having come back from this we created a printed version of our digital workbook and titled it: IN THE BEGINNING: Numeracy, Literacy and Coding the World (ISBN:  978-0-6397-7155-7).

FORMATIVE STUDY 4: Montessori Schools

We visited these pre-schools daily over a five day period in Cape Town and engaged with personnel and observed learners. using Montessori kits.

FORMATIVE STUDY 5: 2021 - 2023 Primary Schools

Since 2021 we have visited 12 primary schools surround our area, and engaged with well over 80 educators, principals and school governing body members (parents).

Our innovation is supported very largely by a number of institutions as highlighted before. However it is important for us to align our offerings with theories of education. In a nutshell we do not want to gamble with the future of children, and thus require empirical evidence to convince ourselves and skeptics.

Whilst it has been established that our methods are innovative and measurable, it has not been established whether they would work under less controlled environments. It is also not known whether or not the educators would find our methods and Toolkit appealing, learnable, memorable and effective in solving their challenges.

We have approached several institutions with this concern and asked whether a study could be conducted by either ourselves or by any independent researcher   using empirical data produced through our tools. The discussions are underway. Notwithstanding the institutions have provided financial, academic, infrastructural, and various forms of support.

However when we engaged with the City of Johannesburg the city required that we submit a proposal for their consideration along with the results from a pilot study.

It is important to highlight that previous studies were instrumental in the user-centric iterations of design and development, however, they do not take into account the new prototypes developed following the latest iteration.

We thus prepared ourselves to conduct a pilot study and approached three schools with a question of whether the schools would be willing to participate in the study. The three schools identified have responded affirmatively to the question, in writing.

Our organisation is thus currently at a development stage of pilot ready, and this call for proposal by MIT Solved (LEAP) has given us hope of a possible future.

In addition to the above, this is a pivotal moment particularly for us basedin South Africa. Over the past years the early childhood phase had been under the ambit of the Department of Social Development. However in 2022 this function was transferred to the Department of Education. These regulatory changes present very good opportunities for an innovative solution such as ours.

In addition to the above changes, changes to the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS curriculum)  have been proposed to include introduction of robotics. These changes present further challenges to the already strained education system. We therefore believe our solution is strategically positioned both geographically and in time to become a world class EdTech Solution.

The partnership with MIT Solve will also provide essential credibility should the study findings confirm our premises.

In its current form, to what extent is the proposed Toolkit

1. Usable by educators to accomplish their daily tasks in the
Foundation Phase classroom.

2. Able to support educators in educating and assessing
learners at the Foundation Phase of Education towards accelerated learning?

3. Usable as a sustainable alternative to, or as a complement of
modern technology in a Foundation Phase classroom.

NOTE: It is important to note that the focus of the usability study is
on educators instead of learners. This is to eliminate the complexity
that comes with having to seek permission from every child's parent / guardian.

The Outputs are equivalent to almost 6000 professional hours from the given information. We therefore recognise the value of the outputs.

It is important to also note these are recommendations, we would welcome suggestions from experts with respect to Outputs taking into account our short term and long term goals. We are therefore open to a discussion and would welcome ideas from Fellows.

We have identified the following outputs.

Firstly,

A unique curriculum superior to CAPS, and aligned to Cambridge, that is based on Mathematics as its foundations which incorporates all subjects from a single point. We have conceptualised this curriculum and have some idea how it would look like. We call it Curriculum 360.

The measure of superiority of a curriculum is a function of multiple factors, but would be underpinned by the following questions.

• What are the objectives of the curriculum?
• Are these objectives relevant to the current and future needs of the individual and society?
• Can these objectives be achieved with available resources?
• What are the methods being used to achieve these objectives?
• Are the methods the best alternatives for achieving these objectives?
• Are there adequate resources for implementing a curriculum?

Since the curriculum would be aligned to CAPS there is no question about its adoption by CAPS schools. However, we are of the view that such a curriculum would be strategic in providing accelerated learning across the board, 

Secondly,

We will be inviting informed opinions from Fellows, with respect to our digital workbook. It is our wish to refine this and take it to the global markets. The digital workbook is projected on the Smart Learner's Device, but is also available in print format to facilitate daily learner activities.

Watoto Wazania translates to "The African Child". Our vision is to "awaken the prodigy in every child". Our organisation advocates open schooling policy.

One of our ambitious goals is to introduce a model of open school at the Foundation Phase of education. Openness refers to many things to many people, but we simply mean less barriers to quality education that is equitable to world class education.

The openness incorporates notions of being inclusive, and liberally available to those who need it, regardless of their social standing,  religious ideology, race, class, gender, physical abilities and so forth.

There  is very little doubt Cambridge curriculum has positioned itself as one of the best curriculum for many reasons. The one reason why one may be in favour of Cambridge is international recognition.

We therefore wish to introduce equivalent standards of education which would enable a learner to sit for international benchmark tests with confidence.

The openness refers to inclusivity regardless of a child's background. Orphaned children, displaced children such as refugees, and victims of war and fame, stateless children and children from poverty stricken communities should not have to suffer the fate they have no influence on.

Several models of open schooling are available especially in Europe.  

The Universality of our model is the reason why the curriculum has to be founded on Mathematics as a universal language. We have tested this and we believe it is highly effective.

It is for reasons of this openness that we would make the curriculum 360 opensource or released according to commonwealth license model.

If education hinges around a single pillar, such as Mathematics, it becomes a universal education regardless of the language as a medium of instruction. Mathematics is universal and the same everywhere we look around us, even upwards and downwards. We call this curriculum 360 because it is a revolution in every sense of the word.

In summary, we intend using this Output as a foundation for our pedagogical offering. In addition to this, we intend to use the Outputs as an important part of evidence to document how effective our solution is in the EdTech space.

We are required to describe here our desired
a. short-term and
b. long-term outcomes

of the 12-week LEAP  Project sprint for
c. Watoto Wazania as the organization, and
d. Umbalabala Education Toolkit.

Notably the Outcomes are the changes that occur as a result of outputs produced. We therefore understand in terms of timelines the Outcomes follow sequentially after the Outputs.

Firstly our short term goals include the 90 day sprint period.

During this period our goals are
i. to maximise benefits from the time spent and resources allocated. We will achieve this by setting aside sufficient time to pay attention to literature shared, engage meaningfully with an open heart throughout the period, and

ii. to become receptive to recommendations for tailor-made research that would strengthen the evidence-base of our organisation's organization’s solution.

It follows therefore, that a significant amount of energy, time and concerted effort would have to be allocated towards reviewing and implementing recommendations articulated and documented by the Fellows during the sprint.

Secondly

In the short to medium term we expect to develop internal processes management systems. These would include

• Quality management system (QMS), incorporating
• Human resource procedures,
• Procurement policies and
• Strategic management policies and implementation.

These would be used to seek accreditation with regulating bodies for training providers.

We also expect to raise capital for the Pilot project to the tune of USD50,000. This figure includes budget to build additional 10 prototypes so that the learners may be grouped in groups. It is envisaged that the study would involve up to 600 children in two Foundation Phase schools located in rural areas of KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa. Permission has been obtained from school principals in writing, and ethical clearance would be sought from the Department of Education once the date has been fixed.

Thirdly

The long term vision for the organisation has been articulated elsewhere above within this document, and would thus only be summarised briefly here. To say, the long term vision is to create a new model of a world class open school that is truly open by eliminating barriers to quality education, whilst maintaining world class standards and best practices. Furthermore, one that is sustainable and becomes attractive to investors, to communities and to the highest caliber of university graduates.

Finally

With respect to the Umbalabala Educational Toolkit, our vision is to get this toolkit to the hands of those who need it most, namely the vulnerable children who are likely to be left out for reasons related to the known societal ills.

Our vision is to leverage on our ability to conduct research continuously, monitor impact through key performance indicators, evaluate the validity of the Toolkit members, and adjust accordingly. It is our vision to create and maintain a sustainable production, sales and distribution model that is friendly towards the environmental ecosystem.

In conclusion, Watoto Wazania is squarely focused on the African Child, and Umbalabala Educational Toolkit is designed to accelerate teaching, learning, and assessment regardless of the learners background.

We believe it is possible to awaken the prodigy in every child.