Edge Tutor by Edukasyon.ph

Every second child in the Philippines needs special help to fill the knowledge gaps evident in reading and math achievement decline and recover learning loss caused by school closures and lack of access to engaging lessons. The interruption to the school year further exacerbates the pre-existing inequities in learning outcomes prevalent in the Philippine educational system, particularly in public schools. Prevalent issues involve low socio-economic status students and marginalized groups having less access to distance learning opportunities; low-income students experiencing greater learning losses while out of school than their high-income counterparts due to lacking access to tools and devices required for remote learning; and compounding problems experienced by disadvantaged and minority children, including girls who are typically the most adversely affected by school closures manifested in increased dropouts.

Problems we are solving:

1. Reading skills have regressed by two years.

2. Math foundational skills have not been formed.

3. Material is not being understood. Interest in learning has been decreasing. 

4. Risk of drop out and absenteeism has increased.

In 2020, more than 3 million students were left behind by the shift to remote learning due to the lack of access to devices and stable internet connection. While those who were able to participate in distance learning struggled with keeping up with the lessons given the lack of teacher support and inability of parents to provide equal amounts of teaching and tutoring assistance to their children resulting in more than 5 million drop outs in 2021. Yet, while we see these pandemic-induced challenges very clearly, we importantly recognize that the learning loss of Filipino students has been in existence for years now. Evidenced in the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the Philippines ranked last in reading comprehension at 79 and 78th in science and math. This data demonstrates the lacking foundational skills among Filipino students missed due to overall education inequality in the Philippines, inaccessibility to alternative learning, and remote learning opportunities.

Today, the Philippines’ Department of Education (DepEd) is still undergoing pilot testing of face-to-face classes for public school students – 2 years since remote learning began. Only 5,000 students have been allowed to take classes in person, while 27 million public students continue learning from home. With no definitive plans from DepEd on schools’ full face-to-face classes implementation, we are making the new norm of remote learning and eventual hybrid learning as accessible and seamless as possible for underserved Filipino children. We are removing the barrier of only relying on traditional, brick and mortar learning institutions by offering quality learning online experiences to students that are not conditional to their ability to connect to fast internet or access to expensive learning gadgets, tools and resources.

Edge Tutor is a localized online tutoring marketplace in the Philippines. The curriculum covers Math and English, which is in line with the K-12 Program and designed for effective teaching online. Parents are able to choose the class size, either one-on-one or group tutoring, according to their child’s needs and have the freedom to select the class schedule, making this a stress-free and convenient program for on-the-go parents juggling many tasks at once. 

The tutor team is composed of licensed professionals who undergo a rigorous selection process to ensure the utmost quality of teaching. They also go through regular and thorough training so that their skills are continuously enhanced. Lessons are conducted in an engaging manner, incorporating a variety of multimedia, from videos to presentations, and also injecting a theatrical aspect to teaching and learning with singing, dancing, and movement. We believe all these elements create an environment that is conducive to learning, even in the comfort of one’s home. 

Since Edge Tutor operates on a tech platform, we are able to analyze the behavior of students so tutors can easily improve the learning experience and outcomes. Blending technology with learning allows young people to develop future-ready skills which are essential for the 4th industrial revolution. 

For the expansion of Edge Tutor, we aim to provide all students with access to our quality teachers and an effective curriculum, which is why the entire online tutoring experience will be made available in a mobile app. For this solution, we are currently completing the prototype-stage / beta phase set to be launched in Q3 2022. 

The mobile app will be a freemium subscription service wherein downloadable bite-sized lessons, quizzes, and educational videos can be easily accessed and stored offline. Additional content can be purchased at an affordable rate in addition to live tutoring sessions that are part of the paid subscription. It will also allow low data and bandwidth usage to ensure that we reach more learners, especially those in rural areas and with limited access to the internet. Our sustainable business model via the growth of paid subscription will allow us to fund development of more free quality content especially targeting underserved Filipino learners. 

The Edge Tutor mobile app is targeted at public school students in low-income communities and youth not in Education, Employment, or Training via the provision of freemium quality learning content that are accessible, downloadable and storable offline. There were about 27 million public school enrollees for the SY 2021-2022, however, since November 2021, the Department of Education only allowed 100 public schools and 5,000 students to take part in the pilot run of face-to-face classes– only making up 0.0001% of the total enrolled population. This leaves millions of students to fend for themselves, as the continuous problem of inconsistent learning materials coupled with the shortage of teachers grows. As for youth NEET, two-thirds come from families on the bottom of the economic ladder. Majority of youth NEET in the Philippines are found in conflict-affected and regional areas (e.g. BARMM, Northern Mindanao) while 20-24-year-old female NEETs make up more than one-third of the NEET population. 

These public schools students and youth NEET have little to no access to quality educational materials that are free of use. The Edge Tutor app will provide free downloadable learning resources to public school students and youth NEET which are in line with the K-12 curriculum and developed in consideration of its effectiveness online. As it is aligned with the national K-12 curriculum, our entire mobile app and its learning tools are able to serve the broader student/learner population as a general alternative online learning opportunity that can complement the hybrid modality of teaching and learning in the new norm.

In 2021, about 74.1% of the Philippine population has access to or owns a smartphone. This number is expected to grow by 3% come 2025. Our mobile app will be accessible to our learners as most if not all have a smartphone given the shift to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given that our solution allows low data and bandwidth usage, we are also able to ease their burdens of having to spend large amounts on mobile data – addressing digital exclusion experienced by underserved learners without access to internet connection and learning devices.

The team at Edge Tutor has the necessary experience to go above and beyond when delivering this solution. The Team Lead, Cecilia Calvo, has over 18 years of experience in the education industry having worked as a director in various educational brands and startups offering online courses and tutorial sessions both locally and in the Asia-Pacific. Her knowledge in managing academic operations both online and offline coupled with a mastery of the Education Technology space will greatly propel our solution in the right direction. 

Apart from the team lead, the management team of Edge Tutor brings years' worth of experience in academic operations and curriculum development. Our teachers are well aware of the challenges faced by students when it comes to online learning, let alone those heightened by the pandemic. The entire team of teachers hold relevant teaching degrees and certification, and go through a strict screening process prior to employment. Our commitment to continuous learning prioritizes ongoing structured training and observation that our teachers undergo ensuring that their knowledge and skills are up-to-date with the industry’s best practices. They are also well-versed in proper content modalities needed when it comes to translating in-person modules to the online set-up, not sacrificing active engagement between teacher and learner and simulating a classroom-like experience. Our teachers are able to meet students where they are with each child given special importance. This is a quality that enables our Edge teachers to conduct excellent work all while reaching their student’s respective learning outcomes. Having experienced teachers leading and working in the team grounds every decision with the learner in mind.

Free tutorial trial sessions were given throughout the month of March in order for the team to observe and analyze the needs of learners and how we can better craft a curriculum that is engaging and learner-centered. Findings from the delivered trial sessions are taken into consideration as we are in the testing stage for the Edge Tutor mobile app using our online platform prototype to best develop on-demand learning materials suited for public school students and youth NEET. 

Anchored by Edukasyon’s fundamental discipline in understanding our users and incorporating user insights in our tech and design, Edge Tutor is currently working with public school students as active users, and the team is regularly speaking with mothers and students for continuous improvement of our features and offerings. Further, we access rich education insights via our B2B projects allowing us to have direct engagement with public school students, and youth NEET.

We are applying to Solve to enhance our current operations in expanding our Edge Tutor platform to a low-bandwidth mobile app that makes quality e-learning materials accessible to underserved and/or low-income students in the Philippines. First, we need to raise funds to further support the uninterrupted and timely development of our technology. Second, as this is one of our first main ventures into the B2C market in edtech after years of strengthening our B2B model and strategy, we require technical and market support to refine our edtech product offering to Filipino families, children and parents. We pride ourselves for being able to build a sustainable B2B model that has been able to fundraise more than USD 2 million. With our Edge solution being our pioneer B2C edtech product which has less than USD 500k total institutional capital, we require mentorship in developing an effective, well-tested, user-responsive B2C tech product that is anchored on human-centered design and is leveraged on a sustainable business model. Third, for a country that heavily relies on traditional methods of teaching and learning, we need to better understand our market, their needs and what they want and need to receive in terms of learning to fully be able to inspire and encourage them to utilize education technology as a viable means of education, while in consideration of the socio-economic issues that Filipino children and parents face. 

Our solution provides a new and innovative approach to the learning crisis in the Philippines because it veers away from the legacy brick and mortar centers, individual tutoring, and matchmaking tutoring platforms that dominate the educational landscape locally. These traditional learning centers do not provide consistent quality education as it depends on franchise operations, are limited to geographical location, and are not experts in online learning. For independent tutoring, quality is also inconsistent as well as the tutoring rates which vary from USD 1.40-70. Most often parents exert unnecessary effort to find the right tutor for their children, with these independent tutoring services that do not follow and provide regular monitoring and training to their tutors. Similar issues are found in matchmaking tutoring platforms that do not implement strict screening of tutors, provide appropriate support for and training of teachers and lack standardized content. 

Edge Tutor recognizes these gaps in the existing supplementary and alternative education services available to Filipino students, hence, our solution is powered by an education technology that carefully selects and trains quality teachers, changes attitudes with motivating lessons, helps students succeed in school and the future while providing convenience through an easy online booking system with accessible schedules favorable to students and parents’ schedules.

Our solution makes it easy for Filipino families to access quality education at an affordable price, within the comfort of their homes and through a low-bandwidth digitally-enabled online platform. Our solution is designed with parents and children in mind and utilizes an online platform and mobile app that are parent- and child-tech friendly. We also recognize building digital competencies of parents and children as an indirect impact of our solution considering that ed-tech learning and its tools lag in the Philippines. 

In the first year, we aim to bring up to speed the literacy and numeracy skills delays of 5,000 learners in the Philippines. By year 2027, 30,000 underserved learners will have their learning gaps filled with foundational skills – creating a well-equipped generation of young people ready for the future world of work. 

We plan to achieve this large group of learners by scaling our tutoring sessions month on month. Our intended B2C expansion of our current platform to a mobile application in Q3 2022, that will allow access from both desktop computer and smartphone users, will also pave the way to our ability to reach a largely untapped market who are usually digitally excluded from remote learning schemes due to connectivity issues. We recognize the power of public-private partnerships, hence, to supplement our B2C efforts, we will leverage our expertise in B2B modeling and strategic partnerships to maximize our relationships with government agencies like the Department of Education and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA), non-profit organization and multilateral agencies (e.g. USAID, ABD, ILO), and corporations. We are eyeing these organizations to pool in funds and support for low-income learners significantly needing additional learning support on top of the freemium content available on the mobile app. Specifically, our partnership with DepEd and TESDA will provide us access to at-risk learners and be able to intervene early by connecting them to quality and affordable learning resources and support through the downloadable, offline-enable content from the app and the live tutoring sessions on the online platform.

The Edge Tutor curriculum utilizes an assessment method to measure learning outcomes of every student that accesses our tutoring service. Every learner completes a post-task in the platform after every lesson to check key concepts, knowledge and retention. The technology of our platform records and collates data on their engagement, participation and attention during the lesson, which are all evaluated for progress opportunities. Learners are assessed on the 7th, 15th and 29th lesson through a 50-minute assessment task with the teacher. 

Our indicators will be the change of knowledge and progress in participation and engagement exhibited by learners, retention and completion rate of grade levels, and change in learner’s confidence level towards practicing essential skills – all of which will be identified through our baseline and endline data gathering.

Our vision is to close the gap of learning loss among Filipino children. Our mission is to make quality education accessible and affordable through thoughtfully-designed edtech learning and delivery to children aged 4-16 in the Philippines. Recognizing the strong demand for improving English literacy and Mathematical foundation in young learners and the lack of effective and affordable solutions, we started with these subjects as a step toward preparing children more effectively for the demands of the 4th and 5th industrial revolution.

To address this unmet need, we have developed proprietary online and mobile education platforms that enable students across the Philippines to take live interactive English lessons with qualified teachers on demand, fostering the development of age-level literacy and numeracy skills.

Our solution is guided by the following outcomes and outputs to be able to achieve our overall goal of recovering learning loss from Filipino learners age 4-16.

Outcomes:

1. Increased literacy and numeracy levels of Filipino children age 4-16

2. Increased evident knowledge and practice of essential 4th industrial revolution skills among learners

3. Increased retention rate in formal schooling among learners

4. Increased completion rate of primary and secondary education among learners

5. Increased in confidence levels in demonstrating creativity, critical thinking and collaboration with peers

Outputs: (1-year execution)

1. Produce a seven-level curriculum for live format classes in Math and English

2. Conduct 840 live sessions on average for each student in a year 

3. Assess attainment against 52 target competencies per subject 

4. Provide 30 progress reports on average for each student in a year

Core Platform

The core platform is built using serverless technologies strategically designed around our daily load shape to maximize scalability and minimize the cost impact. 

On the consumer end, the technology solution is two-fold: The first is to provide a search and AI-enabled personalized recommendation platform for parents and students to engage in rich multimedia learning experiences. The second is a free mobile experience that uses low-bandwidth interactive technologies such as interactive forms, chatbots, and advanced compression techniques to serve audio and video catered for students with limited access to the internet. For Edukasyon.ph, the platform serves as a control center to manage students, tutors, and courses while providing helpful analytics and insights to enable continuous improvement on the material and engagement methodologies used in teaching.

Rich, Interactive Content

We utilize WebRTC to facilitate interaction between students and tutors. The platform allows us to support both video conferencing and real-time collaborative quizzes and visual aids that closely mimic the experience of face-to-face learning. This experience is delivered cross-platform on desktop and mobile.

Mobile, Chatbot, and Low-bandwidth

The low-bandwidth experience was carefully designed to provide high-quality learning materials to students in form of mobile-optimized images, text and interactive activities. The strategy to scale the platform is to combine tutoring expertise and AI-enabled chatbots to facilitate learning to as many underserved students as possible. 

Further research is being done internally on optimal compression technologies to serve multimedia content.

Data, AI & Machine Learning

Data mined through interactions within the platform are cleaned, anonymized and fed into a machine learning model that provides personalized recommendations and informs our matchmaking system. Personal data collected is also used to improve the material to best suit each individual student's learning style. 

Blockchain

One of the visions is to store learning achievements, credentials, and certifications on a blockchain and develop protocols for decentralized zero-knowledge range authentication for students and institutions. 

A primary category for selecting a blockchain is environmental impact and carbon footprint. To further optimize the onboarding experience, we will utilize custodial multi-signature smart wallets that use counterfactual deployment techniques.    

Data Protection and Privacy

A Web Application Firewall protects the platform to mitigate both traditional OWASP Top 10 and OWASP API Security Top 10 attacks. The engineering team has modified the traditional SDLC approach, integrating privacy and security in each step of the process. The practice involves analysis of potential attack vectors as early as the design phase, static code analysis tools in the development phase and a thorough review of compliance to data protection and privacy policies before each deployment.

A CDN mitigates risks of DDoS attacks on the platform, and continuous monitoring and assessment of incoming traffic are done through cloud observability tools.  

Practices within the organization are aligned with those defined in the ISO 27001 Standard and are audited quarterly by external security consulting firms.

Diversity & Equity 

Edukasyon is committed to implementing and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusivity in the work that we do. As our organization continues its growth in people and in impact, we are continuing to scale on diversity, equity, and inclusivity initiatives and programs. Edukasyon anchors on the diversity of its online communities to create equitable tech solutions that truly support students, educational institutions, and educators of diverse backgrounds. Edukasyon acknowledges that learners in the Philippines have different needs and capabilities. This is why we continue to craft equitable solutions that are tailor-fit for our audience and target beneficiaries.  

Internally, we continue to build a robust, diverse talent pool to support the company’s growth and goal to reach and impact students from all backgrounds. Our organization ensures there is an equal opportunity for all employees. This guarantees that there is parity in benefits, assessing performance reviews, wages, and salaries regardless of background.  

On Inclusivity

At Edukasyon.ph, we recognize that every person is important regardless of their gender, ethnicity, religion, and economic standing. The management team as well as the company’s operations team continue to implement programs that promote a positive workplace culture and invite diversity within the organization. 

These values are translated in our initiatives and programs as we craft core activities and services ranging from school fairs, career awareness, and readiness seminars (CARES), to our education tech solutions (school platform, scholarship platform, tutoring marketplace) allow us to support Filipino youth and empower them to have a better life. We continue to strive to do all we possibly can to promote inclusivity.

In addition, our project management team continues to promote progressive and sensitive communication that is gender-sensitive in all our campaigns and services so that we remain as inclusive as possible. 

On Implementing Inclusivity through our programs 

Edukasyon is equipped with an in-house gender and development specialist who reviews all content materials and project implementations. In our past executions involving gender-sensitive issues, specifically our partnerships with Investing in Women and Filipina CEO Circle, she has served as a consultant in ensuring all communications, publications, and program plans are reviewed using a gender lens. She will continue to remain on board in this proposed project to oversee all gender considerations. We also work with various gender consultants to leverage their different expertise in gender and development work related to the academe, industry employment, and trade education.

In addition, our marketing and tech teams continue to use a tone, messaging, and language that is gender-sensitive for all our campaigns and services to resonate well with our young and diverse audience. Both teams have systems in place to monitor the performance and engagement of our content. They are also equipped to respond to real-time inquiries from students. 

Creating Equitable Solutions with Partners 

We leverage our community and staff’s diverse unique perspectives when implementing an innovative partnership with different organizations locally and internationally. Edukasyon is dedicated to creating innovative solutions to ensure that each student has equal access to opportunities and support that enables them to achieve a brighter future.

Through our public-private partnership collaboration, we are able to craft programs that address and support students from underrepresented communities and backgrounds. We have had a collaboration with DepEd and TESDA to accelerate education-to-employment initiatives to students beyond the organic reach of Edukasyon.ph website. Particularly on TESDA’s most recent support on Yaring Pinay, our Women in TVET project, Edukasyon equipped more than 100 TVET players with gender communication strategies and skills.

In order to provide EdTech solutions to last-mile schools, Edukasyon has partnered with ADB, NIRAS, and PBED to provide technology-enabled blended learning modalities to far-flung communities and last-mile schools in Abra, Kalinga, Bohol, and Zamboanga Sibugay. We are developing interactive, gender-, and Indigenous People-responsive digital versions of self-learning modules (SLMs) for secondary education. 

Similarly, through Edge, Edukasyon aims to empower and support learners through innovative tech solutions by providing them with free learning materials and resources on English and Mathematics. Through the Edge program, Edukasyon is solidifying its commitment to making its programs be more inclusive, diverse, and equitable as it serves more underserved learners. Language inclusivity is one of our priorities recognizing the diverse languages and dialects spoken by Filipino children across the country. Accessibility features is another priority which will be incorporated in the online platform and mobile app to address the different learning needs of our learners. We recognize the importance of providing free learning services and resources to our diverse student community, especially those who have limited access to e-learning. Through Edge, Edukasyon will craft an inclusive and equitable tech application that can be used by all learners while ensuring that its learning features are mobile-friendly and can be used offline – our response to a community of learners experiencing digital exclusion in the Philippines.

After the Edge Tutor mobile app has completed its pilot stage, Edukasyon shall then be able to introduce this to the market. Edukasyon will leverage its partnership network, student community, and existing fee-paying consumers to accelerate the growth and impact of its Edge Tutor mobile app.

Edukasyon takes pride in our steadfast relationships with private and public sector partners in the Philippines that allow us to fully scale Edukasyon projects locally and internationally, reach hundreds and thousands of students per individual project, and carry out sustainability measures. Edukasyon in the last couple of years has crafted and implemented ed-tech learning solutions and programs worth over USD 1,900,000 through partnerships from the private and public sectors. We will leverage this partner network to win B2B contracts that will enable us to provide premium tutoring lessons to our target underserved learners as well as student beneficiaries identified through community partnerships while allocating funding that will sustain the Edge Tutor mobile app.

In the Beta testing completed last March, we have seen a high interest from parents and students to enroll their kids in our engaging and interactive tutoring lesson – Edge Tutor Marketplace. We have successfully converted 31% of the trial enrollees to fee-paying enrolled users — achieving 155% above the set target. Edukasyon will continue this growth and convert more fee-paying users through effective relationship marketing. In addition, Edukasyon will tap into its effective creatives and marketing team to scale up our Edge Tutor Marketplace sales and drive more learners and parents to avail of our premium tutoring services that reflect localized, youth-friendly, quality content. We take pride in our marketing and creatives as they have been successfully driving Edukasyon’s student community and learners from all over the country to Edukasyon’s online ed-tech products. 

The successful acquisition of B2B contracts and the growth of our fee-paying learners will support the implementation and expansion of the Edge Tutor mobile app. More specifically, Edukasyon shall implement a freemium subscription business model to make the Edge Tutor app successful and sustainable. As we successfully onboard partners, parents, and learners to purchase our online tutoring services, we are able to allocate funding to maintain and update the Edge app – a mobile application will be a free service wherein downloadable bite-sized lessons, quizzes, and educational videos can be easily accessed and stored offline in addition to affordable supplementary learning resources and live tutoring sessions that can be availed with the paid subscription. This application utilizes low data bandwidth making it accessible and convenient for learners in rural areas and last mile schools that are usually digitally excluded due to their inaccessibility to stable internet connection. Edukasyon is committed to scaling up our Edge Tutor marketplace as a social enterprise wherein revenue from general sales of our freemium subscription will be funneled to further development of free content and increase access to alternative learning opportunities including live tutoring sessions to underserved learners who are severely affected by learning loss and literacy and numeracy skills delay. We are committed to being able to sustain our work in providing accessible and equitable learning resources to all learners through the Edge Tutor mobile app. 

We will be raising funds from current and potential investors to support the launch of Edge Tutor, through our ongoing bridge round and upcoming Series A Extension. This business unit will also generate revenues from Edge’s freemium paid subscription including paid premium content and live tutoring sessions. We also plan to grow our business via B2B partnerships – offering our Edge content development, tutoring, and marketing services to corporations and educational institutions. We expect this business to grow exponentially over the 2-3 years and will be more financially sustainable when we achieve significant scale. We plan on leveraging our user base, brand, and shared costs to minimize CAC and power our LTV.

Our solution is focused on growing our Edge mobile app freemium paid subscription that provides free quality content in addition to paid premium learning resources and live tutoring sessions included in the subscription plan. This is how we reach financial sustainability – by growing our paid user base, we are able to develop and produce more quality free content that will be designed for and accessible to underserved learners. Given our successful beta testing stage where we've successfully converted free trial users to paid enrolled users and overachieved our target by 155%, we are confident that this revenue-generating product is, indeed, our pathway to sustaining our edtech growth dedicated to recovering the learning loss of Filipino students.