Sekolah Enuma Malaysia

Sekolah Enuma is a digital learning application that uses gamification to teach foundational literacy and numeracy skills to all children.

The effects of poor literacy and numeracy amongst students carry forward to young adulthood as both in the primary and secondary school level, Malaysian students consistently perform below the international average in Reading, Mathematics and Science. Additionally, the school closures during the pandemic led to significant learning losses that only further pushed students back. In order to close the gap, Sekolah Enuma Malaysia seeks to create an equitable, effective and highly scalable solution to build the basic literacy and numeracy skills for kindergarten and primary school students between the ages of 5 to 8.

Sekolah Enuma Malaysia is a tablet-based interactive learning app with a curriculum that covers pre-primary to grade 2 levels for children to learn foundational English and BM literacy, math and digital skills needed to improve learning outcomes at an older age. It uses gamification that encourages self-directed, continuous learning so students naturally develop into independent and engaged learners.. Sekolah Enuma is a highly inclusive and accessible app which does not require internet connection to use, and provides lessons on basic digital motor skills for students who have little to no experience using tablets.

Our vision for this project is for Sekolah Enuma to be readily available to be used in Malaysian schools as a core component in an in-school literacy and numeracy strategy.. We have already engaged various stakeholders to develop a strategy to distribute Sekolah Enuma in a way that is affordable and accessible, with a priority for rural schools.

As of 2018, 1.2 million Malaysians, aged 15 and older, demonstrated poor literacy skills. In the TIMSS and PISA international assessments, the Malaysian education system's performance has dropped below the international average in literacy, mathematics and science skills. While scoring above the global average in 1999, by 2011, the Malaysian ranking has dropped in the TIMSS assessment of Form 2 students as the percentage of students who failed to meet the minimum proficiency levels in mathematics and science increased from 7% and 13% to 35% and 38% respectively. Similarly, Malaysian students scored below the OECD average in the PISA assessment in both reading literacy and mathematics.

The root cause is two-fold. Firstly, Malaysian students are not given the infrastructure - namely, an effective literacy/numeracy school curriculum, educational resources to be used at home, and a parent-led culture of continuous practice in verbal and reading literacy - to consistently develop their literacy and numeracy at school and at home at an early age. Without these foundational skills, students struggle academically upon reaching upper primary and lower secondary school, and face an increased risk of dropping out. Secondly, socio-economic status influences a child's literacy and numeracy. The PISA performance gap between socio-economically advantaged students and disadvantaged students have increased since Malaysia's first reported score, with 17% of the variation in mathematics and science performance being attributed to socio-economic status (this is 4% higher than OECD average percentage).

Our pilot stage of Sekolah Enuma Malaysia consists of a field test (Phase 1) of 500 children from marginalized communities and larger pilot test (Phase 2) of 3000 students. Currently, our participants include students from two government housing program in Kuala Lumpur, three primary schools from Sarawak, and four Etania schools who provides education for undocumented and stateless children in Sabah. 

While the goal is to be available for all schools to adopt, Sekolah Enuma primarily caters to students from underserved communities. Within the communities, the barrier to develop basic literacy and numeracy skills are higher as these households often struggle with poor internet connectivity, report high drop-out rates, do not have parents/guardians who are equipped to support their children's progress at home, and do not have access to the same level of educational quality. Sekolah Enuma addresses the literacy problem while catering to the nuanced needs of marginalized students in three ways. Firstly, Sekolah Enuma operates offline so it can be used in communities with zero Internet access. Secondly, Sekolah Enuma is designed for independent play in which children can learn to use the app without constant instruction from a parent or teacher; this app can encourage students to continue to develop at home or outside of the classroom setting. Thirdly, through the use of tools such as placement tests and check-in quizzes, Sekolah Enuma can provide individualized learning paths  to meet each child's unique needs regardless of background. All users progress at their own pace.

Sekolah Enuma (SE) is closely aligned with the first two dimensions of the Challenge. It seeks to address low literacy and numeracy rates amongst students by ensuring that children develop foundational literacy and numeracy skills before they enter upper primary school. We believe that early age literacy/numeracy proficiency is a milestone in a student’s learning development as several studies show that the effects of poor early age literacy significantly hinders a student’s academic and professional career (as well as their social life) in the future.

SE supports many styles of learning as it utilizes digital assessments and internal evaluations to adapt material to fit the learner’s unique needs. In fact, a large facet of SE’s design is independence - the app is designed to encourage self-directed learning so students take control of their learning with minimal support  from a teacher or a parent. Therefore, SE specifically targets students who find that they learn at a different pace than their peers within a classroom as the app creates a space for challenging yet comfortable learning.

SE is also designed to reach communities with low resources and internet connectivity. As a fully offline app, SE can be used on a mobile device or tablet with over 2 years worth of learning material contextualized for Malaysia available at all times. The previous versions of SE which have been used in rural communities in countries such as Tanzania and Indonesia have demonstrated significant learning gains and positive social-emotional changes in learners.

Loh Ken Ming, Head of Social Business and Special Projects of Teach For Malaysia

The Malaysian version of Sekolah Enuma is derived from its Indonesian version that has been beta tested and is currently used by over 2000 students in 47 Muhammadiyah schools across Java. Sekolah Enuma itself builds on the proven success of Enuma’s Kitkit School that won the 2019 Global Learning XPRIZE and Todo Math, the #1 math app in the Apple App Store. 

SE is a gamified learning app with proven efficacy in several countries that facilitates self-directed and independent learning in literacy and numeracy for students in lower primary school. It has several features that are not found in other ed-tech solutions in Malaysia. Firstly, while Sekolah Enuma is a digital app, it is not online, making it accessible to communities with zero internet connection. Secondly, Sekolah Enuma's material is not a replication of government curriculum - while its curriculum aligns with the learning objectives in the government curriculum, the app does not aim to merely digitalize the contents in textbooks taught in classrooms.Instead, it uses engaging game interactions and animated contents to provide learners the foundational literacy and numeracy skill to better absorb school material, as well as the skill to learn independently. By enabling independent learning, the app is designed to  free up teachers from content delivery to focus on other higher level tasks and allow room for individualized support to children. Lastly, Sekolah Enuma is completely contextualized to Malaysia's culture. The app's learning material incorporates Malaysian stories, setting and voice actors.

In designing Sekolah Enuma Malaysia, we combine our design principles and solution approach that has been tested in the market and has proven data from rigorous field testing.  

The English and math curriculum are based on the curriculum and design approach used in our Todo  English and Todo math products that are successfully serving many parents and children, especially in the highly competitive education app markets in Asia and the US, with over 9 million downloads together globally. 

In 2019, the efficacy of our design approach has been acknowledged by winning the grand-prize of the prestigious $15M Global Learning XPRIZE competition. In the 15-month randomized controlled trial during this competition, Enuma's Kitkit School demonstrated the highest learning gains and the highest user engagement level among the 5 finalist solutions that were compared against each other using the USAID's EGRA/EGMA assessment method.

The innovation in Sekolah Enuma Malaysia is the quality and the combination of various technical elements that enables learning anywhere regardless of challenging learning environments for any children regardless of low previous digital literacy and learning readiness. 

1) The exceptional quality of graphics and gamification created by a team of experts from game design and education provides a greatly engaging and enjoyable learning experience. We combine the universal design for learning principles and best practices in education to make our user interface specially intuitive and inclusive. Rather than focusing on what contents to deliver, the sharp focus on the learner's experience enables self-directed learning for children, regardless of low digital literacy or learning readiness. Self-engagement and ease of use is especially important for children who often live in an environment where adult support is limited.

2) Due to the nature of the tablet-based learning application, it can be a versatile tool that can be used in diverse contexts such as schools, informal community centers, homes, and even more challenging environments like a refugee camp. The ability to function completely offline is a key aspect of providing quality education for children living in remote areas with limited access to the internet. 

3) While the learning can happen completely offline, the users' play data can be collected automatically. The embedded assessment tool allows easier assessments of the learners' progress, and the learning management system provides helpful data for data-based monitoring, decision making, and continuous program/product improvement.

Sekolah Enuma (SE) aims to solve low literacy and numeracy proficiency amongst students at an early age and to prevent its long term effects on academic and social performance as students enter secondary school. As students grow older, learning material becomes increasingly reading based and therefore, low literacy skills hinders one's ability to acquire new knowledge and keep up with the syllabus. Students with poor literacy proficiency report experiencing feelings of literacy, low self-esteem, and loss of confidence in social settings. As they approach adulthood, students with low literacy and numeracy skills face increased dropout rates and unemployment.Early intervention targeting students have proven to be one of the most effective approaches to increasing literacy and numeracy skills in the long run, however, there is a lack of effective literacy/numeracy programs that target year 1 to Year 3 students and is accessible to rural schools. 

SE provides four inputs: 1) early age intervention, 2) self-directed and independent learning, 3) contextualized and adaptive software design, and 4) fully offline usage. As a result,  learners begin the process of improving their literacy/numeracy proficiency much earlier. Because of the way SE is designed, students also develop the skills to be independent learners which allows them to continue their progress outside of the classroom. By engaging with a contextualized and adaptive syllabus, students will be able to learn at their own pace and style. Lastly, students from marginalized communities receive access to these benefits as they do not need internet connectivity. The immediate outcome of this is that students will develop foundational literacy and numeracy skills before entering upper primary school. In the long run, students will be better equipped to absorb more complex, reading based material as they grow older, and perform better academically. The long term outcome of SE, however, is that the urban-rural divide in literacy and numeracy proficiency will narrow as SE provides equitable access to high quality learning materials. Additionally, national literacy and numeracy amongst will slowly progress to reach the international standard of proficiency. 

We measure our progress towards our impact goals in four main methods:

1. Improvement in literacy/numeracy skills as seen on Sekolah Enuma pre/post digital assessment for participants
2. Number of learning hours are tracked using the software’s data management system
3. Satisfaction from teachers/facilitators as seen in feedback (Sekolah Enuma does not seek to replace the current curriculum but to supplement it and to provide an external resource for students to absorb material taught by teachers. Therefore, it is important to see how Sekolah Enuma influences a teacher’s experience.)
4. Outreach (Scale and diversity of students/schools) - we hope to reach high-need schools in marginalized communities.

By the end of 2022, we plan to complete the Phase 1 pilot and the Phase 2 large scale pilot, where we aim to  achieve an overall positive increase in literacy/numeracy proficiency as seen in our pre and post digital assessments of our users. Also during this period,  we aim to further optimize the curriculum and technical features in the application through multiple iterations based on the user feedback collected. 

In terms of outreach, our goal is to distribute Sekolah Enuma nationwide to approximately 3500 students at the end of our pilot test (initial and large scale). Between 2022 to 2025, we hope Sekolah Enuma will be used by 20,000 students. In line with our priority towards marginalized students, we hope to have a majority of our users to be from B40 or high-need communities. To do this, Teach For Malaysia will utilize its network of corporate and governmental partners to reach a large number of schools and communities, and work with MoE to devise an implementation strategy to ease the process of device procurement, app installation and usage.

Within Malaysia, the Sekolah Enuma app will be one of the first of its kind as there are very few mainstream ed-tech products that either focuses on literacy and numeracy, or targets students at an early age - there is no example of a successful gamified learning app to prove that Sekolah Enuma Malaysia has potential to be huge step forward in the nation's goal to achieve universal literacy and numeracy proficiency. Therefore, possible stakeholders, be it funders, strategic partners or even individual users, would have to take 'a leap of faith' when deciding to support/use our solution. This makes market entry an issue because while Sekolah Enuma may not be competing with other learning apps, it is competing with other literacy interventions that Malaysians are more familiar with such as remedial classes or teacher/classroom-based solutions, which then receives more market demand and external support from organizations. It also hinders the process of getting initial funders for the pilot phase as investors must be willing to be pioneers as opposed to supporters of a fully formed product. Foundations have been slow to support our solution because an endorsement from MoE is often required before they are willing to provide funding - yet, an MoE endorsement often only follows after a successful pilot. Despite this, by leveraging on the positive response in the Indonesian pilot and on TFM's working relationships with governmental and non-governmental bodies, our team is currently in the early stages of creating partnerships that may fund our pilot.

Sekolah Enuma is a collaborative effort between Teach For Malaysia (TFM) and Enuma, Inc.

TFM is an independent NGO that partners with the public and private sector to create immediate and long-term education transformation. Our flagship programme, the TFM Fellowship, a Leadership Development Programme that trains Fellows allocate them to teach in high-need schools, has reached 308 schools and 164,200 students since 2012 . In 2020, we expanded our work to also coach in-service public school teachers through Program Duta Guru (PDG). PDG is a two-year development programme with the objective to empower teachers to be highly competent and committed; serving as role models to enhance higher order thinking skills (HOTS) through STEM education. TFM have initiated and managed several other educational projects such as the Community Learning Hub project which focuses on setting up learning centres in Orang Asli communities, and Hartalega Learning Box that sends boxes containing educational tools and material to students with zero bandwidth. 

What all our projects have in common is a priority towards equitable and accessible solutions - all our initiatives work towards ending educational inequity and ensuring that all students have access to high quality education. 

Enuma is a mission-driven company that creates exceptional learning apps to enable all children to become independent learners. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Berkeley, California with offices in Seoul, Beijing and Tokyo, Enuma’s learning apps have been downloaded more than 9 million times globally. Enuma has a staff of 100+ engineers, game developers and education content creators.

Our solution team is a consortium between Teach For Malaysia and Enuma, Inc.

Currently, there are 5 full time members in the Sekolah Enuma Malaysia team, which consists of Teach For Malaysia members as the local implementation partner; and Enuma, Inc, members as the technology partner.

Sekolah Enuma Malaysia is a collaborative effort between Teach For Malaysia and Enuma, Inc.

As the technology partner, Enuma, Inc. is a leader in developing digital early-learning solutions designed to help children learn and gain confidence in early literacy and numeracy. Enuma has a proven track record of creating successful education apps such as Todo Math and Todo English that has 9 million downloads worldwide, and Kitkit School, which was named a winner of the 2019 Global Learning XPRIZE competition. Additionally, Enuma, Inc. have conducted large scale pilot tests in Tanzania and Indonesia. In Indonesia, the early results from field tests in Lampung and Medan that ran from January - April 2021 were positive and Enuma has just launched a larger scale program with its partner Muhammadiyah, involving over 2,100 students in 47 schools across Java. In all pilots, the tested product was contextualized to the culture of the country and was distributed to underserved learners from low resourced communities.

As implementation partner, TFM has amassed a diverse portfolio of nationwide projects which addresses educational inequality within Malaysia. Over the years, TFM has built relationships with local corporations, governmental bodies, and organizations which has resulted in a large network from which we form partnerships for resources and funding. TFM has engaged with stakeholders at various levels within the MOE which grants us access to Malaysia’s network of schools, teachers, and educational leaders, as well as, access to valuable insight on the ever-changing  needs of Malaysian students.

When the Covid-19 pandemic first hit Malaysia in March 2020, there was a need to help teachers distribute homework to students so that learning continues for them at home. While homework packs are being distributed to students, I noticed that these students should not only survive the pandemic but thrive, despite the pandemic. 

An idea came to mind to create a box that enables students to learn through play. So a small team of 3 started by coming up with a prototype, outlining the process involved to create and dispatch the boxes, and pilot testing it with a group of teachers and students. Since June 2020, we have sent out close to 4000 boxes to over 10 states in Malaysia.

1. Unicef - Financial

2. Yayasan Telekom Malaysia - Financial and App Contextualization & Supplementary local learning material (330K - Phase 1, a portion of Phase 2 costs, support in app development, network with local educational content providers)

3. Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation - Financial and connection to schools (100K and 3 schools)

1. Provide financial support for our Phase 2 pilot test (6 months, 3000 learners)

The grant of $50,000 will be used for Phase 2 of Sekolah Enuma -  a large-scale pilot test involving a minimum of 3000 learners, as well as the launch of the Learner Management System. The grant will be used to procure 330 tablets ($150 per device) to be used by 1000 students. 

2. Support in project strategy, management, and development in the preparation of a nationwide distribution of Sekolah Enuma.

After the completion of our pilot, our team will begin implementing our nationwide distribution strategy of Sekolah Enuma. In order to achieve a large outreach, our team would need to engage with MoE stakeholders to identify high need schools and schools with a strong interest in utilizing ed-tech, develop a program design for each individual school that details how Sekolah Enuma will best fit the school’s needs, and lastly, to plan and procure the resources needed for marginalized schools to successfully install and use the app. We seek support from MIT Solve and the Octava Foundation to efficiently manage these connections and to ensure that our distribution strategy expands to reach our impact goals and consistently meets the needs of all schools and learners.