Book-It Tutor

The African education system is a broken system that is characterised by a lot of challenges that have seen general low literacy attainment on the continent. Several factors such as war, corruption and poverty have been some of the main reasons for these challenges. The main challenges we have identified and are focusing on are the following:

Learning outcomes

Zambia’s secondary school sector has seen a poor academic performance from exam classes arising from the disruption of the learning cycle due to public health measures to curb the further spread of COVID-19. Before COVID-19, many students did not meet minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. Globally, 58% of primary and secondary age learners did not meet minimum proficiency in reading, while 56% do not meet minimum levels in mathematics. The majority (more than 8 out of 10 students) did not meet minimum proficiency levels in reading (88%) and mathematics (84%) in sub-Saharan Africa. Primary and secondary students reaching reading proficiency decreased by 13% to 16% respectively in 2020. (Gustafsson, 2021).

Teacher pupil ratio.

Over 200 million children and adolescents who were in school in 2018 were not achieving minimum proficiency levels according to the UIS (UNESCO, 2018). This is not surprising, considering that sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the lowest proportion of teachers with minimum required qualifications to teach. In 2019, Just 65% of primary and 51% of secondary teachers were trained to the required level. These issues need particular attention given the crucial role teachers play in the provision of quality of education. Overall, in sub-Saharan Africa, 70% of countries face acute shortages of primary teachers, rising to 90% at the secondary level (UNESCO-UIS, 2016). This had led to a poor teacher to pupil ratio which currently stands at 42:1 in Zambia and most southern African countries.

Access to education

In addition to learning outcomes, a major challenge in the continent is access to education services. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 32 million primary-school-aged children were deemed out of school in Sub-Saharan Africa. This represents more than half the global number (59 million) of children who are deprived of the right to education (UIS, 2019). 20% of primary-school-age girls are not in school, and the percentage grows dramatically at the upper secondary level where it reaches 60%. This is almost twice as high as the world average (35%). With the Covid pandemic, this challenge was aggravated. Lockdown measures and school closures resulted in large educational disruptions. School closures risk reversing the trend toward higher school participation and better learning outcomes observed over the past two decades in the continent, and they can exacerbate already significant challenges, like the disengagement of children and youth from education. Dropout rates due to COVID-19 threaten to increase already high levels of out-of-school children across the region. Learners may not return to classrooms upon reopening, as they may need to enter the labour market due to family needs, and because of early pregnancy, care and domestic responsibilities, among other causes. UNESCO’s preliminary estimates show that, in 2021, 4.3 million learners, from pre-primary to tertiary education, will face the risk of dropping out or not enrolling at all due to economic shocks brought by COVID-19. The number is lower than the 2020 estimate of 6.3 million, yet still significant and would require concerted efforts to ensure the re-enrolment of those dropping out and the continued enrolment of learners as they come of age. School closures lasted for nearly a full year in some countries in this sub-region between March 2020 and March 2021.1 This is followed by Central and Northern Africa where about two in three countries closed for 21-30 weeks. School closures were shortest in Western Africa where more than half of countries (57%) closed for 11-20 weeks

Our solution is the provision of digital supplementary tools and devices remodelling access to education and resources. Our system is a web-based application that enables students to access on-demand online learning and exam preparation courses and resources for improved learning and performance outcomes. The system provides multiple delivery channels for students to access learning and manage content remotely.

The system enables users to access courses in all subjects such as mathematics, science, English, technology and entrepreneurship. The system is structured as follows

Course & course outlines: Each subject will have a detailed introduction to the subject, the topics covered and the learning objectives. Each specific topic will be presented with a general introduction pre-learning.  Each topic will be presented in chapters. The chapter will consist of videos, notes, explanations, examples and worksheets. Students enrol on courses they choose ranging from math, science, technology etc. and begin to learn remotely at their own pace 

Quizzes/Tests: Mandatory assignments and quizzes will be attempted after each chapter before students progress to the next topic. These assessments will be objective, true or false and fill in the blank format. Students will attempt tests at the end of each topic to highlight if the student has assimilated the information before they proceed.

Videos: summary details of each chapter will be available at the end of each chapter including links to extra videos for wider knowledge consumption. These videos will be part of each topic to allow students to grasp content as visual information is assimilated easier.

Automated reporting on student progress for parents: As a way of ensuring parents have a more active role in the child’s education, the system will through analytics generate progress reports on each student's performance for parents. This will enable parents to motivate or reinforce the student’s participation for better outcomes.

Devices and hardware

With key strategic partnerships, Book-it will provide devices ranging from laptops, tablets and phones to registered clients on a contract basis offering them suitable payment plans to enable as many pupils to have digital devices tools to access our services.

Zambia President Hakainde Hichilema on 29th December announced that parents with children attending public schools would not pay fees in January 2022. He added that education is the best equaliser and the Government stands by this, which is why in the 2022 budget, his government allocated K18.1 billion to education which is 10.4% of the total budget.

The Zambian education industry is the primary customer of Book It. Zambia's education industry is mainly categorized in two markets; formal and informal markets. The formal market is the one that provides formal education to students i.e., K-12 and higher education systems. The informal education industry is the one that supports the formal education market. Our general target is secondary and high school pupils which has a population of over 5 million enrolled students each year. Our initial target is the exam grade students ie 7,9 and 12 which is over 2 million students per academic year. Each year the student outcome is low as they lack access to quality resources, teachers’ attention due to the shortage of teachers and the closures due to covid have had a serious impact on enrolment. Our solution will target underserved communities that don’t have adequate access to quality education and resources. The following is how our system will solve their needs

Self-Learning: It’s really difficult for the teachers to focus on only one child in the class. Online tutorials are helping the students to cover the topics which weren’t taught in the classroom.  Without feeling tense students can finish the topics by taking the required time.  These online applications are bringing confidence in the children and making them more focused.

24*7 Accessible: With the help of 24*7 access students can clear their queries and get their study materials from anywhere at any time.  These apps are always available for the students without having any time schedule.  Online learning resources Although there are physical libraries everywhere, smartphones became the main resource for accessing any kind of information with just one click.  These applications became a platform for the students who cannot allow access to full-time education by providing pdfs and e-books.

 Learning is a fun

With the help of “Gamification,” applications are making learning fun and entertaining.  It also increases the student’s engagement.  By giving the badges and rewards to the students these Ed-apps are motivating the learners and creating a positive attitude towards education reducing the dropout rate.

Improving technical skills: educational applications are helping the students to develop technical skills at an early stage.    With the help of some apps even school kids are learning the coding language, and building a foundation for future IT-intensive work industry. 

Our team is based within Lusaka city which is our early adopter community. With this close proximity, our team is part of the affected community and has first-hand experience of the problems they wish to solve. We are continuously engaging our targeted audience to understand their challenges more and this makes it easier for us to deploy and maintain our services. Our team piloted the service for a two-month period with over 150 users to get raw feedback from both users and their parents. After the pilot phase, we collected feedback via questionnaires to get a more detailed understanding of the client's needs and utilised this data in developing our tools.

Our management team comes to the table with product management, sales, research marketing and software development and management. The team consists of the following:

Jackson kositimu is a community liaison officer with experience in engaging local communities and fostering collaboration. With an active presence in these communities, he has positioned himself to access key stakeholders and the targeted audience for a much easier engagement.

Lombe: Is a qualified teacher at one of the local schools within Zambia. With his current position, he provides first-hand experience in delivering services to the target audience.

Chikondi Liwewe: A passionate philanthropist is part of several children and underrepresented groups in the community. Hosting several events and support programs positions her in the middle of the targeted community and easier access to the clients.

Chibuye: Our IT lead has developed several software tools for the education sector working directly with school management and students which gives him great experience in product development for the education sector. 

Mentorship and peer group support: we wish to have access to coaching and mentorship from industry leaders to guide and direct us on the right path. We will share ideas with like-minded peers to have a vast and diverse understanding of the problems and solutions from different environments.

Financial funding: In our quest to launch and scale we want access to multiple funding opportunities ranging from grant providers, angel investors and venture capitalists.

Partnerships: we believe that change can only come when different interest groups sharing the same vision come together to achieve that vision and as such, we believe solve will link us with strategic partners that will enable us to achieve our goals.

Technical assistance: With the technical knowledge possessed by MIT and its partners, we are in a position to receive the best assistance in developing and launching not only a great product but a product that will serve its purpose and have a lasting impact on society while improving its user's lives. 

Traditional learning and teaching models have for a long time been the preferred means of delivering education. With the covid 19 exposing the education sector, the model failed to cater for students learning needs. Our system will remodel education in the following ways.

Interactive Audio-Video Learning.

with 24/7 access our system provides a more engaging, flexible and faster model of users accessing learning.

Personalized E-Learning Courses

Personalization of our system gives users the option to select a course and finish it at their own pace and comfort. It is customizable and compatible with the current generation as the traditional techniques do not provide such flexibility.

Automation

Automation holds the key to progressive learning. It saves time and effort, while also providing a better learning experience for users.

• Improved exam outcomes: Users preparing for exams will have the opportunity to revise for their exams by attempting live past exam quizzes. They will receive instant feedback enabling them to understand how to respond to questions increasing their exam outcome.
• Access to quality resources: Book-it will ensure all students in the targeted grades have access to relevant resources such as books, notes and slides. With a fully stocked e-library, users have a vast option for resources to improve their knowledge.
• Affordable education for all: our aim is to provide quality affordable education for all students. Besides our low prices, payment plans will be put in place to enable parents to pay for their children without much strain.
• Provide 1M+ devices: With lack of devices being one of the challenges in accessing e-learning solutions, our team will actively pursue partnerships with device manufacturers and donors to distribute as many devices to students in low-income communities enabling them an equal opportunity to remote education
• Ensure that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes. Our courses are designed with user feedback ensuring that the content is delivery method is suitable and easier to assimilate but also summarising the key concept of the topics without missing out on key information.
• Eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access for the vulnerable, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations. Book-It will provide its services remotely enabling users to access it anywhere and anytime without fear of any form of discrimination. Management will deliberately implement incentives to encourage these underserved groups to enrol.
• Improved numeracy and literacy levels: Key subjects such as mathematics, sciences and English will be prioritized to ensure the national literacy and numeracy levels are improved. These courses will be designed for fun and user-friendly learning environment for all.

In order to achieve our set impact goals, we track our growth metrics under the following indicators:

User Exam outcome: improving exam performance at national level for all book-it users

Divers User growth: improving the growth of all diversity groups based on gender, sexual orientation, race, social class and physical ability.

User engagement: improve user engagement via product improvement and customer service.

Course completion: Provide quality content and incentives to improve course completion

Hardware sells: improve distribution of digital devices to facilitate easier transition and enrolment to digital solutions.   

What are we doing to bring about change?

Providing access to affordable education through on-demand self-paced MOOCs and educational resources for continuous learning and assessments

What will change in the short term?

Students will get educated

Affordable education

Improved average Student Test Score

What will change in the medium term?

Improving student learning outcomes, measured by Average Student Test Score

access to education for more students

What will change in the long term?

Improved Access to Education for Children

Improved learning outcomes

Increase in the educated population

What powers our innovation is the PHP programming language with the mix of cascading style sheets and HTML pages, then leveraging the Drupal CMS framework for user-friendly interactivity, we are hosting our application with third-party providers

to utilize the performance web servers namely Namecheap or Hostgator. The application is responsive on all electronic devices and laptops.

The system enables users to access courses in all subjects such as mathematics, science, English, technology and entrepreneurship. The system is structured as follows

Course & course outlines: Each subject will have a detailed introduction to the subject, the topics covered and the learning objectives. Each specific topic will be presented with a general introduction pre-learning.  Each topic will be presented in chapters. The chapter will consist of videos, notes, explanations, examples and worksheets. Students enrol into courses they choose ranging from math, science, technology etc. and begin to learn remotely at their own pace 

Quizzes/Tests/: Mandatory assignments and quizzes will be attempted after each chapter before students progress to the next topic. These assessments will be objective, true or false and fill in the blank format. Students will attempt tests at the end of each topic to highlight if the student has assimilated the information before they proceed.

Videos: summary details of each chapter will be available at the end of each chapter including links to extra videos for wider knowledge consumption. These videos will be part of each topic to allow students to grasp content as visual information is assimilated easier.

Automated reporting on student progress for parents: As a way of ensuring parents have a more active role in the child’s education, the system will through analytics generate progress reports on each student's performance for parents. This will enable parents to motivate or reinforce the student’s participation for better outcomes.

Book It Education is made up of different individuals each with a unique set of skills and abilities that when combined form the diverse team that is Book It. One-third of the team is made up of women, of which one identifies as queer while a majority of the team consider themselves both queer and feminist allies. We are not particular about religion or anything to do with individuals’ private lives. Instead, we focus on merit and what each person can bring to the table.

When creating the team and in our plans for expansion we do not fixate on individuals' cultural or social backgrounds. Learning is for all kinds of people and does not segregate, for this reason, we have felt the need to make sure our team is equally made up of all kinds of people with different backgrounds and diverse beliefs.

Our learning platform makes education easily accessible to all, taking into account that circumstances like class, disability, sexual orientation, religion and even race sometimes make it difficult for individuals to learn properly. Book it - being an online platform, aids in providing a fair playing field for individuals who may face various challenges because of certain social constructs. The system is also user friendly and can be quickly grasped by anyone with access to technology.

Language: In an effort to ensure inclusivity, we will strive to offer our services in more local languages besides English to accord people in underprivileged communities.   

Special needs tools: With the assistance from this program Book-it will include digital tools for special needs users such as the deaf.

The business model that will make this solution sustainable is a subscription-based business model that is propelled by a freemium business model. Since our solution runs in the cloud, most of our costs per user are in the form of server resources, data storage and bandwidth that provides access to that stored data.

We have free basic usage of the application with a limited amount of space. Our value proposition of quality on-demand education real-time is targeted at school pupils who are preparing to write their exams. These are 7,9 and 12th grade. Supplementary MOOCs are offered via web and mobile applications. Users pay a premium subscription to access the services.

The value proposition is quality on-demand education from high-end institutions anywhere and anytime for better exam outcomes.

Customer Segments

Learners looking to enhance their knowledge and prepare for their exams

Channels

Web & mobile app & social media

Revenue Streams

Subscription & merchandise selling

Key Partners

• Content providers (K12 school or reputable teachers)
• Venture capitalists
• Data service providers
• Scholarship providers
• NGO’s

Grants: After receiving our first grant from TEF, we have actively continued applying for various grants

Service contracts: We will focus on getting service contracts to government and NGO’s

Selling services: Our main revenue stream will be the direct sale of our services and devices directly to our end users. Our system will be accessed on a subscription-based model. Students will pay a fee each term to access the courses.

Raising investment capital:  The business is currently actively applying for angel and venture capital funding to help

Additional revenue streams aside from current operations: Our educational data mining generates actionable insights which can power decision making by different education stakeholders. We aim to monetize these insights.

Increased strategic partnerships: Build strategic partnerships with development agencies, corporates, donors and the government to power our business development with a goal of expanding our reach in the market

Bootstrapping: The founding members have continued to invest their own money into the business to ensure the business continues to operate.

TEF Grant: As successful applicants of the Tony Elumelu grant program, Book-it received a $5000 grant to assist with business growth and financial training to ensure the grant is suitably utilized.

NTBC: The national technology business council in 2022 selected Book-It as a recipient of a $10,000 grant 

Ministry of science and technology: Beginning of 2022 the ministry of technology and science pledged to assist Book-it with financial and networking assistance.