Mobile Class Academy

Among the many causes of global poverty, one factor stands out: Illiteracy.

Although not every uneducated person lives in extreme poverty, most of those living in extreme poverty lack basic education. Unfortunately, people living below the poverty line are more likely to keep their children out of school, which means that their children will also have a greater chance of living in poverty.

 According to UNESCO in 2017, global poverty will be slashed by half if all adults completed secondary education with over 171 million people lifted out of poverty. This is because education is an equaliser, that opens doors to jobs, resources, and skills that people need not just to survive, but thrive in the global economy.

In a bid to meet the Millennium development goals (MDGs) of halving the number of people living on less than one dollar a  day and ensuring all children complete primary education, Nigeria has witnessed significant expansion of school buildings. In the last decade, schools keep springing up on every corner of the Nigerian streets. 

According to a 2021 report by the Lagos state ministry of Education, there are over 20,000 schools in Lagos state alone. However, this proliferation of schools has not resulted in improved learning.

Take for example, the pass rates of mandatory final exams taken by Senior Secondary school students in Nigeria: NECO and WAEC.

In 2012, the National Examination Council (NECO) reported mass failure for five consecutive years. In 2019, only 26.08% of students that wrote the West African Examinations Council [WAEC] passed. That is, out of the 11,892 candidates that wrote the examination, only 3,102 passed with at least a credit and above in a minimum of five subjects including English Language and General Mathematics. 

In 2021, the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), an examination required for university admission, recorded 86% failure, with only 14% scoring above 200 out of the available 400 marks.

The flat learning curve in Nigeria is proof that building numerous schools does not automatically translate to access to quality or improved learning. Additionally, Nigeria faces challenges in ensuring equitable education and excellent learning outcomes across gender, ethnic, religious, and regional lines. 

It is against this backdrop, that we launched Mobile Class Academy, where we leverage technology to provide unlimited access to quality learning materials, educational content, and online tutors to improve learning outcomes of public secondary school students who lack access to quality educational facilities and tutors.

Quality education without borders:

According to a report by Digital 2021: Nigeria report, in January 2021, Nigeria registered over 187.9 million mobile connections. This number of mobile connections corresponds to approximately 90% of Nigeria's total population. That is over 50% of Nigerians use the internet and around 90% of the total population has mobile phones.

•  At Mobile Academy Class, we aim to leverage this huge population of mobile phone users to provide access to quality education just with a single click on the mobile phone.

• Although, it is not uncommon for rural communities to have little or no internet connectivity. Also, the kids from poor homes might struggle with the high cost of data subscription, this is why the Mobile Academy Class has pre-recorded classes and lectures that are easily accessible after sign-up on the website and the app. Our classes and lectures are effectively operational without internet connectivity. This solution directly cuts off the financial burden of internet expenses and gives our beneficiaries access to national and global education materials at no extra cost/financial burden. 

• According to a report by BBC in 2017, the average attention span of a human dropped from 12 seconds in the year 2000 to eight seconds, this is why our lectures and classes are tailored in easy-to-understand, bite-size, and interesting videos for continuous learning gains for students and improved pedagogy. 

• The Mobile Class Academy platform offers unlimited access to a vast library of exclusive lectures with notes, visuals, and graphical representations that are instrumental to the development of teachers and students alike. 

• The Mobile Class Academy also provides access to competent standby online teachers that help students with academic or learning challenges. These online teachers also assist students with assignments, tough topics, and subjects.

Our multi-thronged initiative is aimed at ensuring easy access to quality, comprehensive learning materials and tutelage on the mobile phone, breaking the barrier of financial, gender, and distance constraints. We aim to cater to the learning challenges of 2,000 Senior Secondary School students in Surulere, Lagos State in the next year.

Mobile Class Academy caters to the learning needs and challenges of Secondary School students irrespective of age, gender, location, financial background, and ethnicity.

The lives of the beneficiary of this initiative will be impacted in the following ways;

• They will have easy access to quality and standard learning processes, this will boost their morale to learn and study. Also, they will have better knowledge, deeper insight, and understanding that will improve their academic performance, reducing academic failure by 50%.

• Our platforms; the web and mobile app are tailored to allow students to interact and share ideas and experiences with other students globally, this will not only broaden their knowledge base but give them access to a global academic community.

• Without access to quality learning processes and mentoring, students might get frustrated and tend to give up on the pursuit of their future careers. This is why we provide unlimited access to online teachers that double as mentors. These teachers work with the subscribers to solve academic challenges. This will also improve their study skills.

The continual report of mass failure in Nigeria despite the growing number of schools nationwide is saddening. Moved by the growing incidence of poor academic performance, the Mobile Class Academy team decided to use their educational and technological expertise to provide easy access to standard and qualitative learning processes.

Our Team is led by Mr. Taiwo Popoola. He utilises his skills from some of the best technology institutions in Nigeria and the United Kingdom to manage the operational activities in the academy. He oversees the creation of educational content on the app and the web. He also handles the onboarding of competent teachers on the Mobile Class Academy platforms. He provides the financial resources to keep the academy running.

Prince Adewumi Adefemi leverages his expertise in managing resources to ensure the right learning materials are available on the platforms.

 Mr. Emmanuel Aremoh leverages his strong background in broadcasting, Media Marketing, and Journalism to lead departments and initiate inputs to sustain the Academy. Some of his inputs are; building teams that deliver educational content on our platforms, implementing processes that improve creativity, designing strategic frameworks for product launches, and deep market penetration.

I am applying to MIT Solve Challenge because;

• We need funds to scale Mobile Class Academy to more Secondary School students across the country.

• We need funds to improve the mobile application and web page to create more global-standard educational content.

• We aim to collaborate with the MIT Solve Mentors and a pool of Solvers to gain exposure, stretch our experience to develop ideas and skills. We also aim to gain hands-on experience to reposition our initiative for growth and expansion while developing cross-cultural competence and awareness.

The Mobile Class Academy is innovative because it uses the mobile phone to provide easy access to both standard learning materials and competent teachers that attend to learning challenges.  Our classes and lectures are specifically structured to be effectively operational without internet connectivity. This solution directly cuts off the financial burden of internet expenses and gives our beneficiaries access to national and global education materials at no extra cost/financial burden.  Also, our solution is tailored to provide a global learning community that encourages positive learning outcomes no matter the users' location.  

We aim to provide 2,000 underprivileged students in Senior Secondary Schools in Surulere, Lagos with easy access to quality learning materials and competent learning mentorship in the first year. This solution will cater to the needs of students in public schools in this region. This is because the weight of substandard learning materials, age-old academic syllabi, the financial cost of hiring professional mentors fall disproportionately on them.

In five years, we aim to reach 15,000 students across Lagos State. We also aim to scale our solution across the Federation. Our goal is to snatch African kids from the preventable growing poverty index.  Our long-term goal is to provide easy and unlimited access to the global standard of education such that no African child is shut out of the global market. We will incorporate feedback from the project's evaluation to ensure our initiative have the intended impact and also to ensure the initiative scales as proposed.

• The success rates of students that use our platforms against the students that doesn't.

• The success rate in both internal and external examinations for students that use our platforms

•  How the online teachers have helped with academic and learning challenges.

• The number of views on the educational content.

• Numbers of students that seek the assistance of our online teachers

• Numbers of subscribers on the web platform

• Numbers of downloads of the mobile app (From playstore and App store)

• Numbers of users of the mobile app

Our theory of change is that by providing easy access to quality learning material and competent mentorship assistance in learning processes for underprivileged secondary school students, we will reduce the growing index of mass failure in schools. The long-term goal is to provide beneficiaries with the skills and knowledge to compete in the global marketplace.

• The core technology that powers Mobile Class Academy is a blend of a web-based and mobile application learning platform that allows interactive and educative sessions. The Mobile Class Academy uses a web-based platform and mobile app to provide unlimited access to a vast library of exclusive lectures with notes, visuals, and graphical representations that are instrumental to the development of teachers and students alike.

The Mobile Class Academy app and web page also provide access to competent standby online teachers that help students with academic or learning challenges such as providing insights and clarification on tough subjects, topics, and guidance on assignments.

To ensure that operational activities incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusivity, our core value is based on inclusivity irrespective of sex, cultural differences, age, gender identification, and financial background. We are also reaching out to students from poor or underserved communities by ensuring that our initiative can be accessible with little or no internet connection as soon as they sign up on their mobile phones. 

Like any other modern application, our business model is circled around having enough users to subscribe to our mobile application. Mobile advertising and in-app purchases will be our main focus in building a viable business model and enabling recurring revenue generation.

As the project scales, we will leverage both grant funding and our business model to provide financial sustainability for our initiative. 

Our business model uses a subscription-based model. These subscription plans are in segments: monthly, termly, and yearly plans.

These plans will be very affordable to encourage continual usage of our learning platforms.

We run a small-scale subscription-based training project for teachers. We train teachers on how to create virtual classes using different software, and hardware. We also provide post-production training.

In the last year, we have trained over  300 teachers in Lagos, Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti, and Ogun State, generating $10,000.