TUTELAGE

PROBLEM 

According to the World Bank there are 260 million students enrolled in Sub-Saharan Africa across the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education. Most of these learners get a raw deal as teachers are over-worked due to  large  student populations as teachers are very few compared to their counterparts in other parts of the world. Serious engagement between teachers and students is at a bare minimum and comprehensive one on one attention is extremely rare. According to  a publication by UNESCO titled 'The persistent teacher gap in sub-Saharan Africa is jeopardizing education recovery' the current ratio of Teacher to primary school students is 1:58 respectively and 1:43 in trained teacher to secondary school students. While that of Finland which is considered to have the best education system in the world is 1:14 respectively. This is even worse for students with special needs (disabilities). According to a world bank report on Disability-Inclusive Education in Africa program it is estimated that 6.4% of children in the age range of 14 and below have moderate to severe disabilities and only 10% of these children are attending schools. Thus little to no attention is paid to this category. Students with disabilities such as Dyslexia,  are often considered a nuisance, and often mistaken for being academically challenged which is not the case. 

SOLUTION

Our solution is an easy to use online platform which seeks  to connect students of any subject matter in any cadre to tutors of the requested subject matter for one on one engagement whether online or physically and hopefully in the future virtually (metaverse).

The solution requires a student (parent for students under the legal age of 18years) to register/sign up stating a couple of details such as Name, current level of education email address and phone number. Once the student registers and creates his/her own password he/she will have an account and from the account he/she is able to view tutors that can be of interest. The platform can also recommend certain tutors based on the details the student  filled in during registration. A student can use the filter to narrow down your such based on a specific criteria such as location, then select the tutor of his/her choice and pays a small amount which will be remitted to the tutor after their one on one session. While requesting a tutor the student will direct message the tutor on what s/he exactly wants to learn in the tutors area of specialty. 

Our solution currently serves;

1.STUDENTS

According to the government of Kenya (GoK) there are approximately  12 million Primary school students, approximately 5 million Secondary school students and approximately 1 million Tertiary students. Thus we currently have a target population of 18million students in Kenya. There is little to no engagement between students and tutors due too the high number of students in schools and the few number of teachers employed. Our solution seeks to tap into this disparity as it will seek to provide students with one on one tutors who will enhance their educational experience through one on one engagements.

2.STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

According to the government of Kenya (GoK) there are currently about 250,000 children with disabilities in education institutions. This is a special category thus our solution will seek to serve each student with their own disability in a distinct manner.

3.TEACHERS

 A Teacher Service Commission (TSC) report of Kenya 2019 indicated that there were 300,000 trained, qualified and registered  teachers in primary and secondary school were unemployed currently the number has gone up due to the socio-economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Thus, there is a disparity between the number of teachers available for students in schools and those without employment yet are trained and qualified. The solution will be able to provide employment for tutors/teachers while giving them an opportunity to gain experience and hone their skills through one on one engagements with students.

As the team lead I am experienced in design thinking. Our solution is premised on the steps of design thinking. When coming up with our solution we empathized with  our users needs whereby select tutors and students were able to give us their points of view on what they felt the problem was. Through this we were able to come up with a problem statement on what exactly we were to solve. We ideated possible solutions and created prototypes which we presented to the users where they overwhelmingly identified with our current solution. Thus, through the whole process the potential users were part and parcel of the team, and despite being active members of the communities this solution actually is a communal effort towards the identified problem. 

Technical

1.ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) & MACHINE LEARNING

AI and Machine learning can help us achieve our aim of giving each student an individualized engaging educational experience that is unforgettable.  It can also assist in recommending tutors who best fit certain students and subject matters that may be of interest to the students on the platform at faster and more accurate rates than a human can. But currently we are unable to incorporate AI and machine learning into our platform as our knowledge and technical know-how of the workings of both is very limited and we are bot in a capacity to bring in an expert. 

2.BLOCKCHAIN

We have been considering the use blockchain technology to maintain the records of tutors and students who have registered on our platform, as its safer and more secure and information/ data  cannot be tampered with but just as with AI & machine learning our technical know how is very limited..

3.VIRTUAL REALITY LEARNING

We are looking into how specifically Virtual Reality can be used to assist students with special needs such as dyslexic students.

Through Solve we hope to connect and partner with experts or professional(s) who are interested in lending their expertise or being part of our team in solving the challenge. As we believe creating a quality product will assist in revolutionizing the education sector in Africa and lead to the re-engagement of learners. Solve aims to connect solvers with potential partners we believe we are in the right space.

Financial

Due to the economic constraints being experienced in Kenya due to a number of factors we are having serious cashflow and revenue challenges. This inhibits us from conducting serious marketing of the solution and it inhibits our ability to research develop and improve our solution. If selected by Solve I believe we will be in a position to attract investors as this will show our solution is globally viable.

Our solution is innovative because its human-centered and has been developed based on the needs of the market. The solution (Tutelage https://tutelage.co.ke/ ) takes into consideration the needs of both students and teachers while enhancing engagement of both parties. The solution was arrived at through the design thinking process and it was a collaboration between the team and the communities in which the solution seeks to serve. 

IMPACT GOALS FOR THE NEXT YEAR

• Improve on our web app and also build a mobile app while incorporating AI, Machine learning, Blockchain technology and Big Data so as to enhance the the experience of our users/customers.
• Create 5000 job opportunities for teachers of all cadres in Kenya, thus impacting at least 20,000 people positively assuming a household has 4 people. This will be done through encouraging tutors to join the platform. 
• Improve the educational experience of at least 33,000 students through one on one engagements with tutors in the platform.

IMPACT GOALS FOR THE NEXT 5 YEARS

• Create 20,000 job opportunities for teachers in the East African region this will directly impact 80,000 people assuming a household has 4 people.
• Create a scholarship fund which will cater for 300 students annually thus impacting the lives of disabled students and those with financial challenges, this will be done by setting aside part of our projected profits to carter for this expense.
• Improve the educational experience of at least 4,000,000 students in the East African region through one on one engagements with tutors in the platform.

Key Performance Indicators - 

• The number of tutors and students registering on the platform.
•  The number of tutors on the freemium and premium versions. 
• The number of special needs tutors and students.

Analytical data

• Historical data of our operations

Revenue -

• How much money we have make each month and in what category.
• Amount of money raised through grants and other avenues.

Theory of change

We have carried out sensitization of the public about their being little to no one on one engagements between students and tutors We did this through social media campaigns and marketing. This led to both tutors and students joining the Tutelage platform and engaging with their networks on the need for one on one engagement between tutors and students. This will lead to the expected impact of enhanced educational experience of students through one on one engagements (bespoke learning).

Our core technology is a web application which runs on Laravel (PHP) and Node js.

We are also utilizing SMS technology through our SMS web app which allows us to send bulk SMSs 

Currently we are a very small team  as we are a start-up. We are committed to contributing towards the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Thus, as we continue to grow and expand our  team will consist of diverse individuals from the Sub-Sharan Africa region who will offer divergent points of view which will assist us in the attainment of our goals.

We have 2 models. Namely the Freemium and Premium model. The Freemium subscription is a free to register and use subscription for all tutors in all categories. The price for service is set by the platform and amount paid by the clients/students is held by the platform and shared between the tutor and the platform upon completion of a session minus mobile money transfer charges. The platform deducts 20% of the amount paid and also controls the price. A tutor can upgrade to the premium version at any time he/she wishes
The Premium subscription is a pay to use subscription. The subscription fee will be listed at the time of your purchase. In the premium version a tutor sets his/her on pricing for each session with a student/client. The platform will not deduct any set amount other than mobile money transfer charges to be accrued when transferring payments to the tutors at the end of each session.

We have mainly been focusing on grants to finance our activities in the short term to start us off, despite the harsh economic conditions being witnessed world over due to economies trying to recover from the socio-economic effects of Covid-19. Once we have a strong product we will seek to attract investors through raising investment capital from VCs and other sources for the medium term to finance our operations. In the long term we project that we will be financially sustainable as we will have strong revenues thus we will be able to fund all our activities. 

We were able to receive a grant of KES 900,000 (USD 9,000 at the time) from the Government of Kenya (GOK) and The World Bank under the MbelenaBiz Business Plan Competition (https://mbelenabiz.go.ke/). This initial investment enabled us to to start our operations. We have also been selected for the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) Entrepreneurship program (https://www.tonyelumelufoundat...) where we will receiving mentoring, training and an opportunity to be awarded USD 5,000. We have also attracted some interests from potential venture capitalists.