Learnkit
We make learning easy by offering a mobile based LMS that is accessible offline and that seeks: (1) to ensure learning continuity in the event of education disruptions e.g. due to lack of fees or sanitary wear, or due to pandemics such as COVID-19. Through our offline solution learners can access learning material anywhere and at anytime, (2) to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education. An education system is inclusive if it includes all students and supports them to learn, irrespective of pupil diversity and individual differences. By providing an offline learning app, our solution ensures equality and equity in access to education, (3) to ensure digital literacy thereby breaking the digital divide. As, digital literacy has become as important as traditional literacy, our solution seeks to prepare all learners for a digital future, and (4) to ensure access to quality education that is curriculum centered and technology based.
In subSaharan Africa 1/5 of children aged between 6 and 11, and 1/3 aged between 12 and 14 are out of school. In addition, 60% of learners aged between 15 and 17 are absent from school. Also, 9 million girls aged between 6 and 11 will never go to school at all, compared to 6 million boys.
General hindrances to education access include, inability to pay fees due to pervasive poverty, remoteness to learning facility and child labor. For girls additional obstacles include, forced early marriages and sanitation factors e.g. 1 in 10 girls in Africa miss class or drop out of school because of their periods.
Our solution notes that African girls and boys are affected in their learning in ways that differ qualitatively and quantitatively, and provides a solution that is gender-inclusive and gender-responsive, being cognizant of 4A’s, namely, (un)Affordability of internet access and (in)Accessibility to the internet which we address through providing offline preprogrammed lessons, as well as the (lack of) Applicable knowledge and skills to use digital technology and Awareness of the value and quality of learning offered through digital technology, which we address through insisting on digital literacy and the richness of digital learning.
Our solution is accessible offline and has free features which include:
1.Learning material comprised of preprogrammed curriculum based lessons in text, audio and video format.
2. New Curriculum textbooks.
3. Student assessment facility that encourages student engagement. Initially, the Learnkit only supports multiple choice questions.
4. Instant results for multiple choice questions.
5. Although lessons are pre-recorded allowing them to be viewed by single learners in a self-paced manner, the Learnkit has an inbuilt timer for student assessments.
6. The Learnkit uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to change the resource difficulty based on a students ability from the app. For example, if a learner is strong with aspects like algebra, the app provides harder questions to challenge them, then lowers the difficulty until it finds a solid groundwork for their ability.
7. The Learnkit has an audio dictation function to cater for visually impaired learners, as well as a subtitle function to cater for learners with hearing impairments. Subtitles are accessible in the major local dialects spoken in Zimbabwe, that is Shona and Ndebele.
8. The Learnkit has a night mode user interface (UI) to help learners view mobile computing device screens at night without suffering from eye strain.
Our solution was designed with the African child in mind. Thus the initiative provides curriculum content that’s aligned with or directed by national curriculum frameworks. The need for digital learning materials relevant to local curricula is becoming more urgent as ICT becomes integrated into the teaching process, yet there aren’t any learning apps that are curriculum based and accessible offline that target the African child.
Using Zimbabwe as an example, the number of learners affected by disruptions to education due to the COVID-19 virus amount to 4,130,348, yet over 75% haven’t been able to access learning material since the lockdown began in March. Current efforts to ensure learning continuity have been uncoordinated, disjointed and narrowly focused on online learning as the only means to deliver learning material, resulting in inequitable education. Why? because a lot of learners have no access to internet connectivity or money to pay for internet access. Whereas, a survey we conducted showed that while a majority of learners do not have access to internet or money, they at least have access to a basic smartphone belonging to either themselves, a parent, older sibling, or other relative they live with, meaning offline learning is a viable option.
- Promote gender-inclusive and gender-responsive education for everyone, including gender non-binary and transgender learners
The Learnkit provides an alternative to traditional learning methods learning that are failing to ensure learning continuity and inclusivity, as well as digital literacy and quality education. For Africa to capitalize on its demographic dividend, the future workforce must first of all be educated, and our solution avails itself, for instance, to making sure that every boy who can’t go to school because it is too far or every girl who can’t go to school because they don’t have sanitary wear can access learning content offline via mobile phones at home.
- Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business model
