Shule Yako

Vision Statement:

A world where quality education is accessible to everyone.

Mission Statement:

"At Shule Yako, our mission is to empower families with flexible and accessible financial solutions that make education a reality for every child. We are dedicated to breaking down barriers to education, fostering a sense of community, and creating opportunities for a brighter future through innovative and inclusive partnerships."

Core Values:

• Customer Obsessed: We prioritize our customers' needs and strive to exceed their expectations. We aim to provide solutions that make a meaningful difference in their lives.

• Community: We believe in building strong relationships within the communities we serve. Our approach focuses on collaboration and shared success.

• Empowerment: We are committed to creating an inclusive environment that empowers individuals and families from all backgrounds to access quality education.

• Innovation: We embrace creativity and strive to develop innovative solutions to tackle challenges in education and financial accessibility.

The purpose of our organization, Shule Yako, is to create a bridge to quality education by providing families with accessible and flexible financial solutions. Our objective is to eliminate the barriers that prevent children from attending and completing school, thereby contributing to improved educational outcomes and broader socioeconomic opportunities in the communities we serve.

We achieve this by offering interest-free loans to parents to cover school fees, allowing them to make manageable installment payments. This approach helps to reduce the financial stress that often leads to inconsistent school attendance or dropout rates. By forming partnerships with schools, we aim to provide an ecosystem where both educational institutions and families benefit from a stable and sustainable financial framework.

We serve our target population by addressing the critical pain point of upfront school fees. We do this because we believe that every child deserves an opportunity to receive a quality education, and that financial obstacles should not stand in the way. Our focus on flexible, community-driven solutions aligns with our mission to foster a world where education is accessible to everyone.

Benard Serunyigo is our Team Lead, serving as the CEO and the driving visionary behind Shule Yako's concept. His role encompasses setting the strategic direction for the organization and guiding it toward achieving its mission of providing flexible and accessible financial solutions for education. Benard's personal journey growing up in Uganda gives him an intimate understanding of the challenges that many families face when trying to access quality education. His lived experience fuels his passion and commitment to creating meaningful change.

Beyond his personal experiences, Benard has amassed over eight years of expertise working in the non-profit sector. His most notable achievement was founding Uganda For Her, a non-profit organization dedicated to empowering women and girls through education and other support initiatives. 

As the Team Lead, Benard is responsible for coordinating efforts within the team, maintaining communication with stakeholders, and ensuring that Shule Yako stays on track to meet its goals. He is the face of the organization, leading by example, and his leadership style is both inclusive and collaborative. His unique combination of personal connection to the mission, non-profit experience, and visionary leadership makes him the ideal person to guide Shule Yako toward success and increased impact.

Our team at Shule Yako is uniquely positioned to deliver this solution. Our Team Lead, Benard, grew up in Uganda and has personally experienced the barriers to education financing that many families face. Additionally Benard's leadership in Uganda for Her, a non-profit he founded dedicated to empowering women and girls through sexual and reproductive health education, economic and social support. Through this experience, he's gained firsthand understanding of barriers to education and economic opportunities, informing Shule Yako's solutions. Benard's commitment to social impact and ability to mobilize resources are assets to Shule Yako's mission.

Our team's diverse expertise in project management, strategy, finance, and software development equips us to address multifaceted challenges in education financing. We prioritize human-centered design principles, ensuring our solutions are guided by the needs and insights of our target audience. Through stakeholder engagement, gathering input, and iterative prototyping, we continuously refine our approach based on community feedback. This ensures that our solutions are not only effective but also culturally relevant and tailored to the specific needs of the communities we serve.

As a result, our solution is not only informed by community input but is also designed to empower and uplift these communities. By partnering with schools and leveraging technology to provide accessible and flexible financing options, we are working hand-in-hand with communities to address their specific needs and challenges. Our team's deep connection to these communities drives our commitment to creating meaningful and sustainable impact in the education sector across Africa.

Shule Yako is an innovative finance platform providing interest-free loans for parents without access to traditional means of financing.

The issue we are focusing on is the lack of flexibility in upfront school payments for families with school-aged children in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This lack of flexibility can be attributed to multiple factors, such as economic instability, limited access to financial services, and traditional lending requirements that many families in SSA cannot meet due to low or no credit history. These financial barriers significantly impact children's access to education, making it challenging for families to afford the necessary school fees.

The problem is compounded by the fact that schools in SSA depend heavily on upfront payments from parents to cover their operational expenses, such as teacher salaries, school maintenance, and educational resources. When families cannot make these payments on time, schools are forced to send children home, which disrupts their learning process and undermines their educational outcomes. This is a systemic issue that contributes to low enrollment rates and high dropout rates across the region.

The scale of this problem is significant, with an estimated 30 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa not receiving any form of education. Households in SSA also tend to be larger, with an average of 6.9 members per household, compared to the global average of 3.5. This larger household size places additional financial strain on families, making it even harder to meet the upfront school fees required by many educational institutions.

Furthermore, traditional loan providers in SSA often impose strict requirements and charge high interest rates, making it nearly impossible for low-income families to secure financial assistance. This exacerbates the risk of financial hardship, leading to cycles of poverty and inequality, as families struggle to invest in their children's education.

Given the projected population growth in SSA, with the number of primary and secondary-aged children expected to reach 1 billion by 2050, the problem is poised to escalate further. This demographic trend indicates that the demand for education will continue to rise, creating additional pressure on families and schools to find innovative solutions that can ensure access to quality education.

Our innovative interest-free loan model aims to address this problem by providing families with a flexible and accessible option for financing school fees. By easing the burden of upfront payments and reducing the barriers to education, we hope to improve learning outcomes for children in SSA, ensuring they have the opportunity to pursue a better future.

Our solution is an innovative financing platform designed to offer families a flexible alternative for their children's school fees. Unlike traditional loans, our platform provides interest-free financing without the need for collateral, guarantors, or a credit score. To assess eligibility for a loan, we consider a parent's history of school fee payments and their children's academic performance. In the future, we aim to use this payment history as a way to establish credit for future borrowing.

Here's an overview of how it works: Through partnerships with schools, we secure discounts on tuition fees ranging from 10-15%. We then directly pay the schools on behalf of approved applicants. Parents repay the loan in monthly installments at the regular school fee rate, without any interest charges.

This approach benefits both families and schools. Families can better manage their finances while ensuring their children's education continues uninterrupted. Schools benefit from improved cash flow and reduced administrative burden, allowing them to focus on delivering quality education.

Currently, we are in the pilot phase to validate the feasibility of our model. Our next steps involve developing technology to streamline loan applications, management, and payment collection. We also plan to collaborate with financial partners to administer the loans, which will enable us to expand rapidly across communities and countries in Africa.

Our organization has conducted a range of research activities to demonstrate the effectiveness of our solution and to lay a solid foundation for our program. Here is an overview of the key research and studies we've undertaken:

Foundational Research

To build a comprehensive understanding of the education and financial landscapes in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), we undertook several foundational research activities:

• Literature Reviews: We reviewed various reports to better understand the current state of education in SSA. This included analyzing data on school enrollment, dropout rates, and the challenges that families and schools face in ensuring consistent education.

• Desktop Research: We conducted extensive online research to assess the broader education ecosystem. This helped us gain insights into the competition, identify existing solutions, and understand the regulatory frameworks surrounding school financing in SSA.

• Market Research: We analyzed the competitive landscape to identify gaps in the market and evaluate other financial models used to support education. This research highlighted a significant opportunity for a solution like Shule Yako that bridges the gap between families seeking flexible payment options and schools that need stable funding.

Formative Research

After building a solid understanding of the context, we conducted more targeted research to validate our solution's feasibility and effectiveness:

• Pilot Program: We launched a pilot program with Gideon High School in Uganda to test the feasibility of our interest-free loan solution for school fees. This pilot provided valuable insights into how families and schools would respond to our offering, and allowed us to collect initial data on enrollment rates, dropout rates, and academic performance.

• User Interviews: To refine our approach, we engaged directly with stakeholders through interviews and focus groups. We spoke with parents, school administrators, and financial institutions to understand their needs, pain points, and expectations. This qualitative data helped us tailor our solution to better meet the requirements of our target population.

• Implementation Studies: During our pilot program, we conducted process evaluations to understand the implementation challenges and opportunities. This included examining how schools could integrate our solution into their existing operations and identifying any potential roadblocks.

Collectively, these research activities have provided strong evidence supporting the effectiveness of our solution. The insights gathered from foundational research, formative studies, and direct stakeholder feedback have guided our program's design and allowed us to make data-driven decisions as we scale. We continue to gather data and feedback to refine our approach and demonstrate the broader impact of our solution on school enrollment and educational outcomes in SSA.

Key Insights from Research

• Digital Adoption is Growing but Still Nascent: While there is rapid growth in the use of digital technologies in Uganda and across Africa, traditional methods like Mobile Money and USSD payments remain prevalent. Our technology solutions must be designed to work within this context while also being scalable as digital adoption continues to increase.
• Need for Financial Partnerships: Our research shows that while interest-free loans for school fees are in high demand, scaling requires substantial loan capital. This underscores the importance of forming partnerships with financial institutions that align with our mission. Such partnerships would allow us to focus on product development and partnership with schools.
• Importance of Customer-Centric Approach: The data indicate that personalized engagement and customer service are crucial in the early stages. By "doing things that don't scale," we can create strong relationships with our stakeholders and better understand their needs. This approach helps us gather valuable insights to improve the customer experience and increase user adoption.

Next Steps

• Develop the Technology Platform: Given the growing but still limited digital adoption in Uganda and across Africa, our goal is to build a robust technology platform that integrates existing systems like Mobile Money while also incorporating more advanced features such as credit card payments. This will ensure a smooth transition as the digital landscape matures.
• Secure Financial Partnerships: To sustain our growth, we need to form strategic partnerships with financial institutions that share our vision for education financing. This will provide us with the loan capital required to expand our operations and create a scalable business model. Such partnerships will also offer validation to potential investors and stakeholders, demonstrating that our solution has long-term viability.
• Reinforce Our Customer-Centric Approach: To strengthen our customer-centric approach, we'll focus on a few key areas. First, we'll deepen our relationships with early adopters in our pilot program, using their feedback to shape our product and service offerings. We'll also invest in customer service training to ensure a responsive and positive customer experience. Additionally, we'll implement a systematic feedback loop to continuously gather and analyze insights from both schools and parents, guiding our improvements. By embedding this approach in our operations, we aim to ensure that our solutions align with our mission of making quality education accessible to all.

Strengthening the evidence base for our solution is crucial as we transition from our initial pilot phase to a broader operational scale. This is particularly important because our innovative approach of providing interest-free loans for school fees depends on various stakeholders, each with its own set of expectations and requirements. To ensure the ongoing success of our model, we need a robust evidence base that validates our solution's effectiveness and impact. 

In our current pilot phase, we have seen promising results. However, to engage with larger financial partners and expand our program to more schools, we need to establish concrete evidence demonstrating the positive outcomes of our solution. This involves gathering comprehensive data that showcases the measurable impact on both school enrollment and academic performance. Additionally, a strong evidence base will help us understand the long-term socioeconomic effects of our model, especially in terms of increased access to credit and the overall economic empowerment of the families we serve.

Engaging in a LEAP Project is a strategic step for us at this juncture. It allows us to systematically evaluate our solution, identify areas for improvement, and create a compelling case for potential partners, investors, and stakeholders. The structured approach of a LEAP Project helps ensure that our solution is evaluated using rigorous methodologies, lending credibility to our findings.

Now is the right time to engage in a LEAP Project because we are at a critical point of garnering traction and proving the feasibility of our business model. As such, having a robust evidence base will not only guide our operational decisions but also increase our appeal to financial institutions, which are key to our growth strategy. The insights gained from the LEAP Project will allow us to optimize our processes, enhance user experiences, and solidify our position as a trusted partner in the education financing landscape.

Moreover, a strong evidence base will aid in tailoring our technology development to address real needs, allowing us to focus on features that deliver the most significant impact. This, in turn, will enable us to create a more user-centric platform, which is essential for long-term success and sustainability.

The below question aligns with our theory of change by exploring whether our solution contributes to consistent school enrollment, improve academic performance, and enhanced socioeconomic opportunities:

1. How does providing interest-free loans for school fees impact student enrollment and dropout rates over time?

2. Does our model of school fee financing lead to improved academic performance among students? 

3. Can our loan repayment history be used to create a new form of credit, and does this lead to increased socioeconomic opportunities for families?

Literature Reviews and Desktop Research

Comprehensive reviews of existing studies and reports on the impacts of interest-free or low-interest microloans for education, particularly in an African context. This should cover the effect of financial barriers on school enrollment, academic performance, and socioeconomic outcomes. Additionally, this research would delve into the financial feasibility and sustainability of such a model, helping us understand the broader implications and any challenges that could arise. This output aims to provide a contextual understanding of our solution's potential impact and validate the practicality of our approach.

Feasibility Studies and User Interviews

Studies examining the feasibility of scaling our current pilot program, including an analysis of the challenges and success factors. This would involve detailed interviews with key stakeholders such as parents, school administrators, and potential financial partners to gather feedback on our existing model, understand any pain points, and gauge interest in our expansion plans. The outcome would be a set of recommendations to improve our current approach and adapt it for broader application.

Implementation Studies and Process Evaluations

An examination of our current processes, from loan disbursement to repayment collection, focusing on identifying bottlenecks or inefficiencies. This could involve process mapping and stakeholder feedback to uncover areas for improvement. The output would be a set of strategies or frameworks to enhance our operational efficiency and scalability.

Upon completing the LEAP Project sprint, we plan to put the outputs into action through a structured approach that guides our operations and expansion strategies. The insights from the project will inform our next steps in several key areas, ensuring that our solution aligns with best practices and meets the needs of our target audience.

To start, the foundational research, which includes literature reviews and desktop research, will validate our business model and ensure alignment with proven approaches to microloans for education. This research will also offer insights into the impact of financial barriers on school enrollment and academic performance. We will use these insights to shape our strategic direction, sharing key findings with potential partners and stakeholders to build trust and demonstrate our commitment to data-driven solutions. Additionally, this research will help us refine our financial models to ensure sustainability and adaptability to various scenarios.

Implementing feasibility studies and user interviews will be crucial in understanding the challenges and opportunities in scaling our pilot program. The direct feedback from stakeholders will guide the refinement of our operational processes, enhancing both efficiency and effectiveness. This feedback will also help us improve our customer interface and service delivery, making sure it aligns with the needs of our target audience. Moreover, the feasibility studies will help us identify and engage with new schools and financial institutions, thereby expanding our network and reaching more beneficiaries.

The implementation studies and process evaluations will provide insights into bottlenecks and inefficiencies in our workflow. Using this information, we will streamline our processes, optimizing loan disbursement and collection to reduce delays and enhance customer satisfaction. We will also work on improving our data collection methods to ensure accurate monitoring of key performance indicators, which will enable better tracking of outcomes and impact. This improved operational efficiency will better position us to scale our solution to additional schools and regions, increasing our reach and impact.

The desired long-term outcomes of the 12-week LEAP Project sprint for our organization and solution focus on driving transformative and sustainable impact on education accessibility in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through this project, we aim to create a robust business model that supports the scalability and longevity of our solution. By evaluating our existing revenue streams, operational structures, and partnerships, we will gain insights to solidify our approach and ensure financial sustainability. This foundation will not only increase our credibility within the education and microfinance sectors but also open doors to diversified funding sources, enabling us to broaden our reach.

An essential outcome of the LEAP Project is the geographic expansion of our solution. As we demonstrate success through robust data and evidence, we plan to partner with more schools and extend our services to other regions and countries. Collaborations with financial institutions that share our vision will be crucial in providing the necessary funding to support our microloan program, allowing us to serve a broader audience. This scalability aims to lead to a notable increase in school enrollment and a significant reduction in dropout rates among students in underserved communities, reflecting our commitment to reducing financial barriers to education.

The impact of our solution goes beyond education itself; it is expected to create broader socioeconomic opportunities for families in Sub-Saharan Africa. As more children stay in school and excel academically, they are likely to pursue higher education or enter the workforce with better job prospects. This shift can contribute to community development and drive a culture of lifelong learning, fostering a positive feedback loop that encourages families to prioritize education. Ultimately, the desired long-term outcomes of the LEAP Project will guide our organization toward achieving our vision of a world where quality education is accessible to everyone, leading to meaningful societal change.