Re-engaging learners in Kenyan Informal settlements

The growth of informal settlements, slums and poor residential neighbourhoods is a global phenomenon accompanying the growth of urban populations. An estimated 25% of the world’s urban population live in informal settlements, with 213 million informal settlement residents added to the global population since 1990 (UN-Habitat, 2013). In Kenya, informal settlements grow at an average rate of 5 per cent every year. These settlements are also referred to as slums. In Nairobi, Kibera, Korogocho, Kawangware, Viwandani and Mukuru are examples of informal settlements. In Kisumu, such settlements are located in the areas of Bandani, Obunga, Manyatta Arab, Nyawita and Kaloleni. Many people in slums are enmeshed in a poverty trap. Slum dwellers are subjected to horrific socioeconomic conditions, including lack of clean water and sanitation, lack of a clear mechanism for managing solid waste, and dilapidated hospitals and schools). In terms of schooling, informal schools, also known as low-cost private schools or private schools for the poor (PSP), are mainly run by philanthropic and religious organisations. They charge a very small amount to pay for the few teachers they employ. Low-cost private primary schools are the preferred choice of parents due to the proximity and relatively smaller class sizes. Overall, however, informal schools are of poor quality with a high teacher to pupil ratio (average of 1:97), teachers are untrained and, in some schools, up to six children share a single textbook. These factors contribute to low learning outcomes(Kitawi, 2019).

  There are several challenges and gaps in informal schools in Kenya at the national and county levels which have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Approximately 50% of children living in urban slums in Kenya do not have access to free primary education and 47% of children in these areas attend low cost private schools, also called non-formal schools (APHRC, 2013). The biggest challenge that non-formal schools is a transitory one since Kenya has not established mechanisms for transition into formal education. In addition, most of the national mechanisms in place (Waiyai, 2014) tend to marginalize children in urban informal settlements in terms of access to quality education. A critical challenge facing these schools are inadequate teaching/learning resources, and a further critical shortage of physical facilities. In 2020 the Ministry of Education estimated that less than 10% of learners had access to digital learning materials while only 18% had access to learning through internet sources. 26% of children based in rural areas had access to stable electricity which demonstrates sharp disparities in home learning during the pandemic. Furthermore, prolonged school closures and lockdowns in 2020 led to a sharp increase in drop-out rates, low retention of students in informal schools, and adolescent pregnancies. The proposed solution aims to bridge the learning gap among young learners living in informal settlements in Kenya by providing shared technological solutions.               

The solution we propose aims to create learning centers within informal settlements with multifaceted learning solutions for young learners. First, we will use our existing network of educators in informal settlements to create and curate online learning materials and assessments for 12 core subjects aligned to the national curriculum beginning with form 3 and 4 and also translate some of the life-skills materials that we already have into digital form. Strathmore University already has partnerships with community based organisations and schools in most of the informal settlements in Nairobi and are already running academic and life-skills interventions but mainly face-to-face. Through previous partnerships, we have managed to create an online portal where local e-learning content can be shared as open educational resources (edu.totem.ke). Learners and teachers can access shared materials through this portal. The shared learning materials will materials that address specific topics such as mental health and wellbeing. 

We already have expert teachers in the different core subjects who already conduct academic support sessions for some schools in informal settlements. These teachers will provide some of these materials which will be shared as OER and will include assessments. The material provided will have teacher and student level of access to enable teachers access specific materials to improve their pedagogy and students with access to materials that can supplement their current classroom materials. In addition, some experts have already curated content on different life-skills topics about different issues including some that address challenges that arose due to the Covid-19 pandemic. All these resources will be shared as OER and the funding will assist in curating some of the content which is in physical form. Strathmore University students who are gifted in specific subjects can also share other materials which these students can access. In addition, there is a growing number of retired teachers who would like to continue providing subject specific expertise, some of these teachers can be paid a nominal fee to provide student support through the portal.

Once we provide OER, we intend to provide this content through digital devices in specific learning centres. We aim to have at least 30 learning centres in informal settlements where students can access learning materials through digital devices (mainly computers). These computers can be bought from the proceeds of the project. Teachers in informal schools who have access to digital devices can also be able to access the same content.Learning centres can also provide some of these materials in physical form so that students who want to photocopy the materials can do so.  A critical component that will be integrated is measurement and evaluation, not only in terms of access to various materials, but also performance of students in different subjects. 

Africa has the highest growth rates in eLearning in the world for four out of the five self-paced eLearning products and services, including packaged content, custom content development services, cloud-based authoring tools, learning platform services, installed authoring tools, and installed learning platforms (Ambient, 2016). Kenya is projected to have the highest mobile learning growth rate in the near future (World Bank, 2019). However, a huge portion of the population is underserved and has little access to modern technologies like the internet and smartphones. Smartphone penetration is estimated at 20%, with the majority of the population using basic mobile phones. 78% of users communicate via text messages and 74% instant messaging (Deloitte, 2019). In 2019, 20,694,315 individuals aged 3 years and above owned a mobile phone, 9,869,962 used the Internet and 4,527,254 owned a desktop computer, laptop or tablet. 4.3% bought goods and services online. 57% of households owned a stand alone radio and 40.7% a functional television.  This implies a huge potential. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused a global shock to education, which is unprecedented in our lifetime. Globally, more than 1.6 billion children have been out of school and governments have scrambled to provide distance learning with varying levels of success. In Kenya, schools were abruptly closed in March 2020 after the first case of the virus was confirmed in the country, disrupting learning for over 17 million learners and trainees. The ramifications of prolonged institutional closures are particularly stark for the marginalized and most vulnerable children who already experience barriers accessing education, who are at higher risk of being excluded, and who do not have access to internet and smartphone technology at home. 

For technology to provide a solution for the most vulnerable, it must be “right sized” and accessible so that it provides an avenue to bridge the learning gap and address - rather than exacerbate - disparities caused by the pandemic. While technological innovations remain important, the most viable and efficient way to reach out to students, especially those most marginalized, when delivering learning and education materials remains largely via text messaging and shared platforms. Our solution therefore targets the following individuals: students; teachers and principals; universities and research institutions. 

In terms of students, we shall provide OER through a shared platform that includes both content and assessments. Students can be able to do online assessments and self-paced learning. Retired teachers and university students can provide support to needy students who require extra help through the platform. Another material that will be accessible to students will be podcasts and other digital materials that address specific challenges and aimed at developing life-skills and 21st century skills. Some of these materials already exist. Current teachers and principals can access additional learning materials and assessments and can be connected to an online community of practitioners connected through the platform to share their concerns and challenges. University and research institutions can have access to anonymized information on student progression and assessment and can be able to carry out their own research and enable assessment of learning. 

At implementation, the project will strive to maintain engagement with stakeholders throughout, allowing them to advise on the project and keeping them aware of progress. To ensure that the research stays on track and is responsive to changing contexts, we will establish a multi-disciplinary project and research advisory board comprising technical representatives of the partner organizations.

Outcomes are: an engaged youthful population; positive attitude of students on life challenges; youth able to find gainful employment especially using ICT skills; sense of commitment & bonding of parents, students and teachers.

The project funding team will enable us upscale and improve what is already in place in terms of serving children in informal settlements. We have networks to informal schools in Mukuru, Kawangware, Kibera, in addition to partnerships with community based organisations already residing in these areas. The solutions targeting students are co-shared and co-created by informal schools, parents of children in informal schools, community based organisations and research institutions this is mainly through regular meetings, physical surveys and focus group discussions. Some of the students who have been supported and progressed to tertiary institutions through the Macheo programme, a similar intervention though mainly done through face-to-face means, later on volunteer to support other students. Some of these students have established their own informal learning communities within the informal settlements. Teachers who access materials and will receive pedagogical training reside in informal settlements.

The outcomes of the different phases of the project will be presented to the different communities of learning that Strathmore University has access to. In terms of project progress, we aim to track the progress of the project through time sheets and transparent and accountable financial reports scheduled within specific intervals. A risk register will be created, monitored, changed and disseminated especially due to the upcoming 2022 general elections.

The project team includes a multidisciplinary team of students and experts in education, sociology, information technology, commerce and management. Sharing of information through communities of learning and practice (especially education practitioners) will enable technical and personal skill development.

We are applying to solve team in order to expand the current model to other schools and partners and to enable on-boarding of a particular community that has been left out and are skilled, i.e. retired teachers, in contributing to knowledge development and community service. The intention is to build a larger community that is connected and shares a common concern for the well-being of children in informal settlements. We hope that also through the solution retired expert teachers, not only within Kenya but from other countries, can be onboarded to provided educational expertise and sharing of knowledge with the community of education practitioners. 

The solution addresses two main issues: inequities in access to quality educational content and life skills materials; bridging the digital divide. Inequities to educational content are because less than 20% have access to relevant digital content that can enable them transit from one level of education to another. The OER created and curated by expert teachers will ensure no child is left behind. In terms of bridging the digital divide, focus will be placed on learning centres where students can access shared digital devices. 

The solution will leverage on access, adaptability and relevance as critical pillars in the provision of content. Adaptability will be through monitoring of the content being uploaded according to current circumstances and relevance will be achieved through open and constant feedback from teachers and students. Provision of OER which focus on life-skills will enable students develop specific skill sets necessary for the 21st century and also to overcome challenges they face in their own local contexts.

Currently, there is no university in Kenya that directly engages with informal schools to ensure that students in these schools transit, including engagement with communities where they are coming from. This implies that the solution is locally generated and relevant and connects university community engagement with immediate communities.

We do not expect the change brought out by the approach to replace the current interaction in schools but rather complement what is happening in informal schools. This will make it easier for teachers and students to adopt it.

The impact of solution within five years will be: a) increase in academic performance; b) documented regular contact and advice between teachers, and students; c) reduction in number of teenage pregnancies and crime rates in informal settlements; d) reduction in number of students involved in drug abuse especially in final years of secondary education; e) improved ICT
facilities in selected learning centres; f) youth aware of career paths.

The activities include: expanding the current content available in the open platform (edu.totem.ke); enabling an online life-skills programme; establishment of community of education practitioners, students and teacher support groups; creation of decentralized learning centres.

The outputs are:

Next one year:

a) provide open access to academic, life-skills content to learners and teachers in specific subject areas, mainly form 3 and form 4 which are the final secondary school years;

b) provide digital life-skills content with relevant stories and experiences that can motivate and inspire learners;

c) begin creating a community of learners;

Next five years we aim to achieve the following outputs:

a) increase in academic pass rates;

b) academic progression and at least 50% transition to tertiary institutions.;

c) Students should develop critical thinking, ICT skills and peer support networks to overcome life’s challenges.

The short term outcomes are increase in weighted school performance, >95% completion rates, stronger commitment from parents and teachers and sustainable regional centres with adequate skills and knowledge on academic and life skills support.

The long term outcomes are an engaged youthful population with gainful employment and relevant 21st century skills.

The indicators we are using are grouped into three categories: content;  access; interaction-process; output.

In terms of content: we ensure that the subject content we get are from recognized teachers who are subject experts; the assessments given by teachers are from experts in the subject area within the country; assess teachers' performance in comparing the formative assessment marks with final student secondary school examinations to measure fidelity to national standards.

In terms of life-skills content: we adopt materials from alive-to the world to the local context. This material takes cognisance of student developmental stages and the content is contextualized by students who were initially part of the programme and expert mentors; we also measure the transition levels , retention and and dropout levels of students.

In terms of access: we ensure that students have access to the materials and that schools where these students are coming from can have access to the same materials if they wish; there is a co-learning process between teachers in informal settlements and subject matter experts; the platform will be provide OER and accessible to learners and teachers.

Interaction-process: a) constant feedback between teachers and students, including regular assessments; b) tracking the number of life-skills sessions a student engages in.

Output: we track student progression; student dropout; gender equity ratio

Challenge statement: Many youth in Kenya (>70%) are at risk and face both academic and social challenges especially due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Few of these youth form part of the engaged population with gainful employment. The aim of the project is to empower youth, particularly in informal settlements to face social challenges, complete basic education and have life skills for gainful employment.

The inputs are from the different stakeholders. Parents are required to give time and resources to support students in different schools. Schools and teachers are expected to create sessions for life skills transmission and create mechanisms to support students facing academic challenges especially
the disabled. The retired and subject experts to provide the relevant content.

The activities include: expanding the current content available in the open platform (edu.totem.ke); enabling an online life-skills programme; establishment of a community of education practitioners, students and teacher support groups; creation of decentralized learning centres.

The outputs are: provide open access to academic and life-skills content to learners and teachers in specific subject areas, mainly form 3 and form 4 which are the final secondary school years; provide digital life-skills content with relevant stories and experiences that can motivate and inspire learners;  increase in academic pass rates; academic progression and at least 50% transition to tertiary institutions.;  Students should develop critical thinking, ICT skills and peer support networks to overcome life’s challenges.

The outcomes are increase in weighted school performance, >95% completion rates, stronger commitment from parents and teachers and sustainable regional centres with adequate skills and knowledge on academic and life skills support and an engaged youthful population with gainful employment and relevant 21st century skills.

The assumptions are: support from teachers; political stability; continued expansion of Internet technologies; commitment from project team members

A Measurement and Evaluation protocol, and risk register will be developed and will include the establishment of a core project implementation team, and the involvement of beneficiaries and implementers.

The core technology will be provision of education processes through learner management systems, specifically the Moodle platform that is already in use. We shall also use bots to customize specific responses to academic and life-skills queries. Students can ask questions to the bots and get live responses almost instantaneously.

We shall also eventually embed SMS technology that will provide short answers to issues that are of concern to students and teachers.

The main issue facing the solution is digital divide and social exclusion especially for the marginalized. In terms of digital divide, we aim to provide our content as open educational resources (OER) and whenever possible, provide equipment in learning centres. The students included in the project will be both females and males. In terms of social inclusion, the project mainly focusses on providing content to schools in informal settlements. Therefore teachers and learners in these schools will be the ones given access to the platform. This implies that learners and students will need to identify themselves in terms of school and location.  

The project team has an almost 50-50 gender ratio. Though the project lead is male, the co-lead is female. The outputs of the project will be sensitive to societal culture and will be co-created with educational practitioners in these contexts.

The main challenge in terms of social-cultural conflict is mainly tribal in nature within Kenya and East Africa. It will therefore be imperative not to restrict access according to tribal or regional stratification. It will therefore be important to monitor regional balance of learners accessing materials to ensure a fair representation.

We plan to use a shared value business model to ensure we provide value propositions for multiple stakeholders. Shared Value-a concept coined by Prof. Mark Kramer and Prof. Michael Porter is defined as those policies and practices that enhance the competitiveness of an organization while simultaneously advancing the economic and social conditions in the communities in which it operates (Porter and Kramer, 2011). Shared value creation focuses on identifying and expanding the connections between societal and economic progress. Our model hinges on the first level of shared value which is reconceiving needs, products and customers; essentially providing products and services to underserved communities. The products and services being provided in the short term (as described in the solution section) are open access to academic, life-skills content to learners and teachers in specific subject areas, mainly form 3 and form 4. We will also provide digital life-skills content with relevant stories and experiences that can motivate and inspire learners. We therefore create value for learners and increase their prospects for employment and self-determination in the future. Furthermore, we will also be leveraging on the expertise of retired teachers who have several years of experience and who will in turn benefit from re-engagement with a vibrant learning community. 

As discussed prior, in terms of partnerships and resources, Strathmore University has established several partnerships with community based organisations and schools in most of the informal settlements in Nairobi and is already running academic and life-skills interventions. The university also has access to a wide and diverse range of subject matter experts who can build on the learning materials and assessments that are already available. Additionally, the online e-learning portal is available for sharing open educational resources through a prior partnership. Core to a shared value model is leveraging on existing and new partnerships that can scale the social impact created by a range of interventions. We will also explore the possibilities of partnerships with other organizations, specifically corporate organizations that may be looking to scale the work of their foundations. For example financial institutions understand that they need to invest in bankable communities and would find the project we propose in alignment with their strategic objectives. We are also keen on the growing impact investing landscape in Kenya (GIIN, 2015). There is a growing network of impact investors who could potentially fund part of the proposed solutions we will be providing to the learning community. 

We will also use shared value metrics to assess the social impact and economic value generated by the project. Shared value proposes a measurement framework that ties economic value to social impact. For this particular project, it would be interesting to observe whether the students who benefit from the learning interventions end up in TVETs affiliated with Strathmore and/or join the professional training arm of the university-Strathmore Institute of Management and Technology. The social impact would be tied to the learning outcomes achieved and the value generated from enrolment into professional programmes.

We plan to use a mixed approach to financing and sustaining the project. First, there are several grant opportunities available due to the learning gaps created by COVID-19 in the short to medium term. In addition, impact investing momentum in Kenya is growing fast due to a young, enterprising and ambitious population, a number of social or environmental challenges which need investment, and rates of return which are attracting the attention of private impact investors (DFID, 2019). Investments in education is one of the top 5 sectors of interest for the investing community which the team will explore further.

We have received small grants for the academic and lifeskills mentoring programme on campus and these sessions are for students in informal settlements in Kawangware, Mukuru (Kitawi, 2019). We have also received funding from Finland to establish an education portal where lecturers in universities which have schools of education can receive specific training towards capacitating their student-teachers to be competency based curriculum compliant (totem.ke). An off-shot of this portal is the edu.totem.ke. This portal already has structures for the competency based curriculum for teachers and students spanning all levels though the content has not been populated for form 3 and form 4 learners for the existing curriculum (currently an authenticated user only can access the content on the portal). Some curriculum content already exists in soft form from expert teachers but on other shared computing devices within campus. The aim is to make this and other content curated by subject experts including retired teachers available for learners in informal settlements. The phases therefore are to provide the content and then access to the content through shared digital devices. Since the content will be open, it will be possible to onboard other entrepreneurs who can provide devices. 

In terms of lifeskills content, we already have lifeskills podcasts (winning@lifeskills), stories and videos (https://www.audible.com/pd/Pod...). The main issue will be to use these videos and create assessments which can gauge learner understanding and  their appreciation of specific life-skills content and capturing all these knowledge and skill sets acquired in the centralized platform. The financing of the podcasts is done through pro bono hours and asking students to contribute funds internally.