Anywhere Science (OpenSTEM Africa)

Africa is the one region in the world where the population is estimated to double by 2050 and to quadruple by 2100 (https://population.un.org/wpp/) and today over 50% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa is under 20 years of age. With a young and ever-growing population there will be increasing pressure on the formal school system. And with the population still predominantly rural, there continue to be difficulties, due to the distances involved, in accessing quality education face to face. 

Across Africa, via the African Union 2063 agenda, there is a drive to provide “well educated citizens and a skills revolution underpinned by science, technology and innovation” https://au.int/agenda2063/goals.  However, pressure on that agenda is already visible because of the complex infrastructure needed to study science, with shortages of qualified science teachers and limited provision of laboratories, equipment, chemicals and reagents. The scarcity of science infrastructure limits experience, experimenting and exploring, at a time when learners are desperately trying to catch up on missed learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 has also highlighted the inaccessibility and unaffordability of computer hardware, software and internet connectivity, but many in Africa have already shown the way in sidestepping cumbersome fixed-line phone and PC technology and embraced the myriad opportunities offered by the mobile phone. From phone-based micro-finance for mobile banking and bill payments to the use of WhatsApp for submitting learning assignments, the World Bank and the African Development Bank estimate there are over 820 million mobile users in sub-Saharan Africa (74% of the population). Mobile phones are nearly ubiquitous in African society (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.CEL.SETS?locations=ZG).

With school closures, many young learners have experienced the use of  mobile phone technology to access educational materials as schools transitioned to models of distance learning delivery. Materials published by Ministries of Education were, however, insufficiently informed by effective distance learning design and often lacked viable, structured and engaging individualised solutions to help students recognise where they were up to in their learning, and areas they needed support to catch-up on the education they missed while schools were closed. (Where catch-up strategies exist, many national education plans focus on literacy and numeracy skills - there are only very limited science-specific strategies designed and implemented to re-engage learners, further exacerbating learning losses and inequalities.) (World Bank, Mission: Recovering Education in 2021)

This is where our Solve solution comes in: we propose using accessible mobile phone technology to support anytime, anywhere, (re-)engaging science for young learners across sub-Saharan Africa. We want to increase the number of students, especially girls and marginalised learners, going on to pursue STEM subjects, and to cultivate the next generation of African scientists.

Putting 1,000 microscopes in 1,000 schools would potentially be transformative for the learners in that school, and perhaps for the learners after that. Now consider the power of limitless microscopes and other scientific instruments available to any learner or teacher with access to a mobile phone - imagine the countless experiments that could be conducted, studied and explored.

The Open University, through OpenSTEM Africa in Ghana (https://www.open.edu/openlearncreate/course/view.php?id=5612), has pioneered the use of virtual onscreen interactive experiments to teach practical science without the need for expensive laboratory infrastructure.

Our Solve solution will build on this initiative, further developing our existing OpenSTEM Africa Virtual Laboratory that consists of virtual science equipment and apparatus set up to conduct hundreds of experiments online. 

‘Anywhere Science’ will use technology-enhanced learning to improve science teaching for secondary school aged learners, regardless of the lack of access to science labs and equipment. With Solve funding, we will expand OpenSTEM Africa’s proof-of-concept initiative from PC-use in school classrooms, pivoting into a progressive web-application (the Anywhere Science web-app) for delivery using any smart mobile phone platform, providing a scalable and affordable solution in low-resourced secondary schools and at home for underserved or disengaged learners across sub-Saharan Africa. 

The advantages of using a progressive web-application is that it is available through all standard browsers (e.g. Chrome, Edge, Safari) and optimised for use on any device (e.g. it will run on PC, Mac, laptop, tablet, smartphone Android and iOS devices). Anywhere Science will be fully functional both online and offline - i.e. for use at school, at home and on the move, only requiring internet connectivity for initial installation and occasional updating.

In secondary schools, the initial focus will be on the teacher to use Anywhere Science to provide skills and ideas to use for demonstrations to the whole class. Use of Anywhere Science will then also be extended to the learners. Outside of school, the key focus will directly be on learners who will experience a personalised journey, with the user interface encouraging independent science learning alongside the delivery of high-quality, relevant supported instructional ‘lessons’ and ‘teaching’. Community educators/facilitators in out of school/informal education settings will also benefit from our innovation, with Anywhere Science offering remote learning strategies suited to the context, offering support from and to educators and facilitators to ensure marginalised learners are not left behind or excluded.

In both school and at-home settings, users (educators and learners) will access high-quality learning materials both online and offline via their own mobile phones to engage and experiment in practical, relevant science activities and experiments to enhance science learning and bridge learning gaps. This is in turn linked to a suite of guides for the teaching and learning for each experiment (aligned to national science curricula), including ‘how to’ guides to develop skills in using the equipment.

The innovative Anywhere Science web-application will target instruction to a young person’s learning level through a short formative assessment at the outset of use, making tailored suggestions on the route to navigate the resources that will best support a buildable, individualised learning experience that suits their needs to advance their education. The application will learn from and be informed by user engagement with the learning materials, gathering robust, formative data evidence via blockchain technology (when synced) to influence onward user journeys. Data will be used to improve learners' experience and to build and share knowledge to strengthen the resilience of the web-application system. 

Current funding for OpenSTEM Africa is exploring the conditions under which the project can introduce blockchain to tag its materials with the objective of tracking existing patterns of OpenSTEM Africa resource use, to gather quality evidence at highly disaggregated levels, which will then both inform and interrogate the specifics of use and inform potential further innovative development (i.e. the development of Anywhere Science as proposed to Solve.) 

As part of the proposed web-application, Solve investment will catalyse our aspirational plans to support the adaptation of short, engaging science ‘lessons’ (enhanced with audio/video/animation) that focus on repeated practical skills/play/experimentation and real-world application, and can be contextualised for the region/country of the user across sub-Saharan Africa. All the learning resources hosted on the web-application will be designed for smart-phone access, with a low-bandwidth built-in option to make them affordable and low-cost for users.

Since 2018, the OpenSTEM Africa team has been working with the Ministry of Education in Ghana to develop PC-based apps to support the teaching of practical science in schools to encourage more students to pursue science subjects without the need for expensive laboratory equipment or physical laboratory space. This approach has the capacity to reach around 1 million Senior High School students in Ghana, and is supported by ICT equipment and internet connectivity. Computer hardware and access to the internet however can be expensive, and for many students, inaccessible. Post-COVID, new challenges have also emerged, with a need for technology-based solutions to consider the disruption and loss of learning experienced over the pandemic.

Our bold proposal to Solve is to side-step these constraints by making our Anywhere Science web-app freely available online and offline to any young learner and teacher/educator who has access to a mobile phone. It will also help marginalised, out of school learners and those at risk of dropping out to re-engage with practical science to advance life-skills and open up opportunities to further education, training or routes to employment. Anywhere Science will support learning based on the user’s level of understanding. By design, our solution will serve individual learning needs - from foundational comprehension of scientific concepts and curriculum subject catch-up, through to manipulating virtual lab equipment to conduct complex experiments. We are putting innovative, relevant, pedagogically-sound, understandable science directly into the hands of young learners (supported by educators), while using familiar, accessible mobile phone technology which allows them extended practice and play. 

We will partner with universities, vocational institutions, groups of secondary schools and grassroots organisations which work with marginalised, underserved groups and communities. We already have agreements with the University of Ghana and Kyambogo University, Uganda, both of which work with large numbers of of secondary schools, as well as an active OU-led network of educational partners (www.tessafrica.net) across Sub-Saharan Africa that can be further expanded through MIT Solve’s additional contacts. Together, we will make Anywhere Science specific to serving the needs of secondary school aged learners, creating materials that are contextually relevant through co-design with African stakeholders. Our aim is to improve science learning and drive curiosity and engagement in the science subjects beyond school.

The Open University (OU) already works effectively in partnership with governments, academic institutions, charitable organisations and communities (including community leaders, educators, parents, caregivers and children) in Africa to co-create and implement large-scale locally contextualised, relevant education solutions. We are a world-leading pioneer in enhanced distance learning - whilst delivered at scale, our innovative model of anytime, anywhere teaching and learning offers a unique user experience to anyone with the drive, curiosity and determination to succeed. We support marginalised learners as our business-as-usual, easily adapting our educational materials and our method of delivery for students with disabilities, in low-resource contexts, and in hard-to-reach circumstances as part of our core social justice mission to make education open to all. 

OpenSTEM Africa is an initiative in which all the materials have been co-designed and co-created with educators in-country and critically reviewed and iteratively developed once produced. With the current work focused in Ghana, The Open University has worked with experienced secondary school science teachers from across Ghana in collaborative partnership with the national Science Resource Centre, the Centre for National Distance Learning and Open schooling (CENDLOS) in Ghana and Higher Education partners such as the University of Ghana, the Ghana Education Service, and directly with the Ministry of Education who have guided this work to address national policy and educational strategic objectives.

The Open University-led Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa programme (TESSA, 2005 to date,www.tessafrica.net), supported by a network of 22 education stakeholders across 14 countries in Africa (including governments and academia), offers unique scope to propose and deliver Anywhere Science across vast sub-Saharan Africa geographies. 

In Zimbabwe, we’re working within a network of community-based organisations, community educators and community leaders in 11 of the poorest districts to support over 12,000 highly marginalised, out-of-school adolescent girls aged 10-19 to re-engage with foundational literacy and numeracy learning through a network of informal learning centres. The learning materials, co-created by the OU with local educational stakeholders,  have been approved by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to support up to two million out-of-school learners across Zimbabwe. Using a unique digital storytelling approach, marginalised girls themselves are sharing their aspirations, experiences, challenges and impacts from participation in this accelerated learning programme. In Malawi and Sierra Leone, we worked to break the cycle of lost opportunities for young women who had dropped out of secondary schools, allowing them to join a pathway into training for them to become teachers and teaching assistants. The programme was/is being delivered through local organisations, including the Forum for African Women’s Education (FAWE) in Malawi and FAWE and Plan International in Sierra Leone. In Zambia’s Central Province, we’re using tech-enabled learning resources, co-designed with Zambian teachers to improve the quality of primary school teaching. And there are so many more examples we can share. Our presence in communities is driven by partnerships with on the ground organisations. Together, we seek community feedback and co-create solutions that serve our intended audience throughout the life cycle of any given programme. 

We’re the right people to create and implement Anywhere Science to re-engage learners in Africa, as we’ll work to break down barriers for learners. Success will be measured by levels of engagement with the resources created, with short, fun, formative assessments built into the learning design. We’ll design, deliver and enhance our offering by expanding our existing community network of grassroots partners and academic contributors alike. We’re not phased by the scale of the challenge and believe our Solve solution could make a transformational difference to science education for generations of learners in sub-Saharan Africa.

Solve will advance Anywhere Science’s ability to support educators and learners through the development of our web-based user-interface. Technical assistance through Solve partners will ensure a robust, viable offline-accessible application is established that is supportive for young learners without compromising their safety. In conjunction, we hope to advance our research agenda – further researching the intersect of learning and the business/financial sustainability of our model, exploring how the injection of Solve support helps Anywhere Science improve learning outcomes whilst exploring models of future proofing the initiative (e.g. crowd-funding future development via chargeable elements/investment from institutions/governments etc.) The MIT Solve challenge presents a funding opportunity for our solution, but crucially also a dissemination and knowledge exchange forum for partnerships with investors, technology and business stakeholders, academics and other contributors.

We will benefit from Solve support to expand our networks and share learning and expertise to refine the offline method of delivery for Anywhere Science. This development will ensure the web-application is accessible anytime, anywhere, uninterrupted by power shortages/connectivity issues and omits the personal user expense of data. Whilst we have a robust consortium of established partners via our award-winning TESSA network, involving more communities, marginalised users and stakeholders in different countries will expand the reach of the proposed web-application. Solve can help us broker new partnerships to mobilise funds and extend the reach of our solution across sub-Saharan Africa, complementing the Open University’s established networks.

Your support – and the exposure Solve can offer – is unparalleled. We aspirationally believe the OpenSTEM Africa Anywhere Science model can be adapted and replicated for application in other communities to help millions of marginalised learners (re-)engage with science education. The impact of your support for our programme could be truly transformational.

Our solution is digital, it taps into the explosive smartphone expansion in Africa and innovatively enables long-term access to free, high quality, engaging learning resources to address the needs of the learning community Anywhere Science is designed for using familiar, accessible technology.

We want to see more high school aged learners - particularly those disengaged, marginalised or at risk of dropping out - demonstrating improved science study skills and confidence.  

We want to see increased capacity of teachers to support learners in science study, helping them to catch-up on missed learning, and using the Anywhere Science web-app to enhance science lesson teaching and learning. We will achieve this goal by asking teachers to feedback and report on use in classrooms, and tracking user engagement.

Our ambition is for this to increase the number of students going on to study science at tertiary level/pursue science-field careers, demonstrating the longer-term impact of Anywhere Science on re-engaging learners.

We will achieve these goals by gathering user data from sources such as formative assessments, baseline and endline tools inbuilt in the web-application user experience, assessing results from study-skills tasks performed by learners, and aggregating app engagement data captured using blockchain technology

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Anywhere Science is a progressive web-application accessible through all standard browsers (e.g. Chrome, Edge, Safari), optimised for use on any device (e.g. it will run on PC, Mac, laptop, tablet, smartphone Android and iOS devices). Blockchain technology will gather rigorous data evidence to influence iterative application development, with the application using virtual reality for users to explore and manipulate science laboratory equipment to conduct their own experiments.

For over fifty years, The Open University’s (OU) mission has been to give anyone, anywhere the power to learn, to break down barriers and to change perspectives. Of the 205,420 students across the four nations of the UK currently studying with us, 24% are from the most deprived areas in England. Yet, the student body is still disproportionately white (88%,) resulting in our student demographic representing a lower proportion of Black and Asian new students than the HE sector average. Our aim is to increase the proportion of Black and Asian new undergraduate students across the UK by 2025. The OU reaffirmed its anti-racism stance by making Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion one of the five pillars of the new University Strategy. An inaugural Dean of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion was appointed in 2020 whose thought leadership work has included pioneering equality projects with Universities UK https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/ and Advance HE https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/. Furthermore, The OU is proud to be one of only six higher education institutions in the inaugural cohort of Higher Education Network’s (WHEN) ground-breaking 12- month career accelerator ‘100 Black Women Professors (BWP) NOW’ programme.  Each Faculty, School and Institute at the OU has an EDI Lead, who coordinates and advises on EDI activity. Closing awarding gaps for disadvantaged groups is a key priority. This includes Black students, students who declare a mental health disability and students from the lowest quintile of the Index of Multiple Deprivation. In addition, the university is actively engaged in work that seeks to diversify its workforce through more equitable recruitment practices, and to support students and staff from minoritised groups, such as LGBTQ+ students and staff. The OU have a strong commitment to gender equality, demonstrated through sector-wide recognition schemes such as Athena Swan and Juno.

Our Solve team is led by Dr Jane Cullen, Academic Director for OpenSTEM Africa, former Academic Director of TESSA. Jane is committed to inclusivity, equality and fairness, and leads the team with this ethos above all else. 

The OU is an exempt charity. We do not envisage profit from Anywhere Science, but, if any is generated by our long term business model, we will seek donor/investor agreement to reinvest in programme development and expansion. We will be developing Anywhere Science materials as Open Education Resources under Creative Commons Licences. These will make them freely accessible and adaptable by anyone, anywhere in the world, in perpetuity. We would like to explore opportunities to collaborate with internet providers to develop and host the project’s envisaged progressive web-application and all learning and support materials as zero-rated data to eliminate financial barriers for users. 

Our plan for Anywhere Science is to follow a combination revenue model: we want to explore this further, should we be successful, with MIT solve partnership guidance. We're interested in small-sum crowd-funding elements of the programme to become financially sustainable, microfinancing options, Government investment in the model of delivery, and longer term, how usability can open up funding pathways.

We received philanthropic grant funding of £600,000 to catalyse the creation of OpenSTEM Africa, 2018-2021, from Opito International. Since, we have received Research and Enterprise Funding to explore the application of blockchain technology, and in partnership with our co-creators in Ghana, have opened discussions to cultivate further financial investment from development banks and grant makers alike. 

This is our first pitch of Anywhere Science to re-engage learners at a pivotal learning juncture post-pandemic. Irrespective of MIT Solve success, we will look to engage prospective grant funders to support the development of our initiative, believing it has the potential to offer a transformational shift in science subject understanding for learners in sub-Saharan Africa.