Anansesem

• Vision – To empower children to reach their full potential through inclusive, innovative, engaging educational technology  
• Mission – We design and deliver innovative educational technologies and resources to bridge the learning gap and empower children everywhere. 

Cores Values –  

1. Innovation: using/ deploying cutting-edge technologies and approaches to improve learning outcomes. 

2. Inclusivity: Ensuring equal access to education for every child, regardless of background, ability, or location. 

3. Empowerment: Enabling children, educators, and communities to reach their full potential by taking ownership of learning and growth. 

4. Collaboration: Working together with educators, families, and communities to support child/ student success. 

5. Creativity: Fostering/ nurturing imagination, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills in children. 

6. Equity: Addressing systemic inequalities and promoting social justice through education. 

7. Excellence: Consistently working toward constantly improving high-quality education. 

8. Compassion: Showing empathy and understanding in supporting the diverse needs of children. 

9. Accessibility: Making education accessible and adaptable for all children. 

10. Fun: Believing that learning should be engaging, enjoyable, and rewarding. 

1. Leading by example: Embodies the organization's core values and sets a positive tone for the team. 

2. Strategic guidance: Provides direction and alignment to ensure projects and initiatives support the organization's goals. 

3. Team management: Oversees team members' work, offers support, and fosters a collaborative and inclusive environment. 

4. Project oversight: Coordinates and prioritizes projects, ensuring timely completion and high-quality outcomes. 

5. Communication: Serves as a liaison between teams, stakeholders, and leadership, promoting transparency and effective information flow. 

6. Professional development: Encourages and facilitates team members' growth and skill development. 

7. Decision-making: Makes informed, data-driven decisions that align with the organization's objectives. 

8. Risk management: Identifies and mitigates potential risks and obstacles that could impact projects or the organization. 

9. Stakeholder engagement: Builds and maintains relationships with external partners, educators, and community leaders. 

10. Continuous improvement: Drives innovation and process enhancements to optimize team performance and impact. 

Anansesem has been created as the non-profit structure of a successful private international school with excellent Montessori and Cambridge checkpoint results over the past 7years.

The vision of Anansesem is birthed by the principals of Cyrus International School who collectively have had a successful 7year track record of delivering top quality educational outcomes. Anansesem project leverages on this track record to make quality education accessible to the 175 million children who are out of school. For instance, we have taken on learners with real academic challenges and put them on a path of transformation to overcome their learning challenges. Also, the school has been able to assist learners with behavior modification and social integration into classrooms. This positions the school to be able to design programs to provide inclusive education for all.

Since the conceptualization, Cyrus School is systematically examining innovative ways to adapt the its curriculum to meet the educational needs of a marginalized population.

Also, the team for Anansesem is cross functional team made up people from diverse expertise from fields such as- education, social impact evaluation, technology and AI, language translation, animation, illustrators, performing artistes, social media and branding and social innovators.

The 2 leaders of Anansesem have an Msc. from the London School of Economics in Social Business Management which reflects their dedication to spearheading social change.

Accelerating childhood literacy through personalized learning using folktales aligned to an educational framework.

According to UNICEF, 175 million children are not enrolled in pre-primary education. Approximately 60 million (8%) of primary school children across the world are out of school and this percentage is higher in poorer communities. In addition, 91% of out-of-school children in Ghana have no child-oriented books in the household. In a pilot program run in Accra, Ghana in April 2023, the data showed that 30.9% of children did not have any books in their home, 33.0% of children did not know how to read and 57.7% of parents did not tell their children stories.  

Early childhood, which spans the period up to 8 years of age, is critical for cognitive, social, emotional and language development, vocabulary, literacy, and opportunities in adult life (Rowe, 2012; Bendini & Devercelli, 2022).  

Consider for example Abena, who is an 8-year-old girl working on a farm during harvest season. She may be helping her mom sell vegetables on the street corner on market days. She may be in a refugee camp. But she is not in school on a regular basis. As one can see, there are many reasons why children attend school intermittently, drop out, or not even entering school in the first place. And every time Abena does not attend school, we witness an aggravation of inequalities. >span class="NormalTextRun SCXW190695921 BCX4">demonstrates that the reasons behind the inequalities and inequities in education and access to it include socioeconomic, cultural and other demographic factors. In the short and long term, the individual, their family, the community and the nation are negatively impacted. 

Our educational solution is a personalized, interactive and highly adaptive learning tool delivered in dominant and native languages to address educational gaps and overcome language barriers. The solution aims to address inequity and inequality in education by empowering children in under-resourced areas through stories that are aligned to an educational framework developed based on internationally recognized curricula. 

Anansesem project focuses on out of school children and the solution is built on the social value and impact of stories. Our pedagogical approach considers the non-traditional learning environment and individual circumstances of our target group. We aim to achieve educational outcomes comparable to those achieved within the traditional classroom environments. Our Educational Framework, created based on international curricula, maps the folktales to subject areas for different age groups to foster learning in a self-paced manner. We intend to teach basic Numeracy, Literacy and Science using African folklore and tales because they have been the medium of transmitting moral and cultural values from generation to generation. To enable us to achieve educational outcomes and attain scalability, we will employ machine learning/AI algorithm that can analyze educational backgrounds and recommend age-appropriate content and activities to promote early childhood development and literacy, both key elements of quality education. In order to increase engagement and motivation for learning, we also intend to employ gamification through rewards systems, reading ladders and leaderboards. 

Our pedagogical approach is tailored to non-traditional learning environments, delivering personalized, interactive, and adaptive learning in dominant and native languages. 

There are other features as follows:  

A reading Ladder: 

• Milestones from start to end of model and within levels 

• Personalized reading ladder 

•  Engaging activities for each story at different developmental levels 

• Memory cards 

• Crosswords 

• Story composition competitions 

• Family reading and community storytelling 

Learner assessment: 

• Differentiated assessment within and across stages 

• Interactive, responsive assessment 

Reward system: 

• Stars/ badges to mark achievements 

• Leaderboards to provide external motivation/competition 

Tech Model: 

• Model is adaptive 

• Interactive 

• Personalized 

• Self-paced 

• Age appropriate  

• Available offline and online 

• Several channels of delivery 

Our platform is driven by data and technology. We make sure that we use data driven decisions to deliver highly tailored content to our customers. After taking care of any privacy related concerns, the data will be a rich resource for developmental agencies and research organisations to understand drivers of early childhood engagement. Our user base will also be a way for many organisations to be able to reach to those communities delivering their services in far more effective and cost saving ways. 

We conducted research on out-of-school children and decided to focus our pilot on Ghana and outreach to low-income families with children. We had a local presence in Accra and could tap into resources and recruit volunteers to serve as community liaisons and visit families in their homes to introduce them to the program. We targeted children in different neighborhoods including Ashongman, Nungua, and Teshie.  

The stories were found to be appropriate for early readers and young children and contained universal themes, life lessons, humor, and wisdom. There were 3 stories per language (Ewe, Ga, Twi and English) with a total of 12 stories. > 

All stories were drawn from two online database of children’s stories from around the world (Storyweaver and African Storybook) and could be used under a Creative Commons license. Both story databases are well established and validated sources for children’s stories. Our goal was to travel the last mile by making these stories available to children wherever they were and at any time they chose to listen to them.  

Each story was recorded by native speakers in Ghana and, in several cases, re-recorded to improve sound quality, tone, style and delivery. We were fortunate to be able to tap into experienced and talented storytellers, two of whom were teachers and performing artists. 

We used Twilio, a digital communications platform, to create a database, store the recordings, and make them available in dominant and native languages via a Ghana national phone number and using phone prompts (e.g., press 4 for Twi). The Twilio.org Impact Access Program provided Anansesem with a $500 kickstart credit to cover the costs of story delivery during the pilot.  

We also printed 135 books (in Ewe, Ga, Twi, and English) and created Anansesem stickers so that all participating families would get a book and sticker at the end of the program in their preferred language. Book printing and shipping costs were covered through donations. 

Two teams of community volunteers (with 2 volunteers per team) visited parents in their homes. They explained the program to parents, helped them complete an informed consent form, showed them how to use the phone to dial in to hear stories, and answered any questions that came up during the session. Children listened to audio stories under the guidance of parents and facilitated by community volunteers. The informed consent forms were for participation in the pilot as well as for use of images for presentation purposes. Volunteers were provided food and transportation during the pilot, children received biscuits, and parents received mobile credits (5ghc per parent) to offset any costs incurred by calling the phone number to listen to stories.  

Pre/Post-pilot survey 

Here are a few important findings based on completed surveys at the start of the pilot (with one or both parents): 

• 30.9% of children did not have any books in their home. 

• 33.0% of children did not know how to read. 

• 57.7% of parents did not tell their children stories. 

• 51.5% of parents identified as petty traders. 

Pilot results 

• 458 incoming phone calls out of which 390 were calls in which stories were heard. 

• 390 stories were delivered to 79 phone numbers, in Twi, English, Ewe, and Ga, and listened to by 117 children  

• 135,448 words were heard in these stories (an average of 1158 words per child). 

• English was the most commonly chosen language (56.2%) and Anansi and Wisdom was the most listened to story (49,248 words of the total 135,448 words), often listened to more than once in the same phone call, possibly because there were several children taking turns. 

When asked to share three words “that come to mind” when thinking about the Anansesem story program, volunteers offered the following descriptive words in their survey responses: 

• Innovative 
• Impactful 
• Educative
• Interesting
• Exciting 
• Curious
• Wisdom 

  Suggested improvements based on volunteer survey responses: 

• Create app: Based on feedback from children and families, all volunteers believed that Anansesem should be turned into an app with visuals and background music. 

• Credibility: There was a concern about credibility of the program and one volunteer suggested that it should be extended to basic schools and churches since “these are the core bodies that shape our children.” The benefit of this would be endorsement and peace of mind for parents who were not fully convinced. Another suggested that we should “collaborate with GES” or Ghana Ministry of Education to avoid being viewed as having improper motives.  

• Branding: They further recommended that the program should develop a brand with a logo and identification.  

• Books: Others felt that the books should be provided on the first day and not at a later time. 

• Stories: At least one volunteer felt that the stories should not be limited to Ananse stories and should include other types of stories and characters. 

User Experience  

1. Volume was low so others put it on loud speaker  

2. There was no pause function  

3. Incentives helped to gain interest  

4. Parents were interested and wanted more volunteer time 

5. Music in the background to accompany stories 

6. Pictures to go alongside  

7. Legitimacy needed through endorsement from Ministry of Education or religious bodies. Parents were concerned program will instill good morals into kids. 

Other 

1. Parents calling volunteers for extra tuition for their children. 

1. Parents not interested in reading. 

1. Support needed from volunteers for parents to understand how to use it. 

1. Educational framework should be in place. 

Currently, there does not appear to be sufficient research on education through alternative means such as we intend to offer via this project. Research either on how alternative education to children who lack access for any reason or on alternative education via stories. The pilot phase of the Anansesem project indicated a high level of interest in the children and also in parents. However, we do not have sufficient information to refine the development of the educational framework such that it fully addresses learning variability and learning progression in our target group. 

We also need further data to guide the development of appropriate assessment and evaluation tools for this method of learning. The methods of assessment suitable for conventional education may not be useful for this project. One key element of the Anansesem project is the delivery channels. We would need sufficient evidence on the planned delivery methods in order to plan several successively effective iterations of delivery channels. Where data does not support a particular delivery channel, we would then be in a position to analyse further and make design changes till we able to develop effective channels. 

Additionally, strengthening our evidence base would provide concrete support for advocacy with policy makers and stake holders in Education, first in our home country and then in other similar countries. 

Does our Educational framework significantly impact learning in the target group positively? If yes, in what ways can we evaluate/assess the impact of our framework on learning outcomes in the target group further improve on the product? 

How effective are our delivery channels? How can the effectiveness be improved? What aspects of our delivery channels have the most and least reach? Why? Do the less popular channels reach a subgroup with different baseline characteristics? 

Research recommendations that are crucial to the next phase of development of this project would include –  

• Key Improvements necessary to educational framework and appropriateness for our target population – out of school children.  

• We would also need information regarding better methods of using folktales within the context of an educational framework to introduce foundational concepts to children.  

• Detailed information on what concepts can be taught via the method of structured storytelling, what concepts that can easily be grasped within a story versus concepts that are best taught and reinforced using spiral learning. 

• Recommendations on feedback channels and to what extent Artificial intelligence can be deployed to give age and content appropriate feedback such that learning is not only evaluated during assessment but is also adequately reinforced. 

• Recommendations on what Delivery channels are appropriate. 

• External standardized evaluation methods of our framework and delivery channels and the integrated product. 

We will be in a better position to review and improve the project Educational content in terms of scope and quality. 

We will also be able to refine our Educational method and adjust it such that using tools such as AI, we can reach beyond cognitive and social barriers to teach children who would otherwise go unreached. We would also be in a better position to assess the potential benefits of gamification as another teaching and learning tool. 

Assessment – we will be in a better position to evaluate our assessment methods and thereby improve them. We will also be better able to design appropriate interventions based on the results of our assessments and also of external assessments. 

Delivery channels – the effectiveness of various delivery channels, both offline and online – will offline impact learning outcomes. If we are able to evaluate the extent to which delivery channels affect children's receptivity and if this in turn affects learning outcomes, we will have better idea about which delivery channels to deploy at which levels and with which learners and what changes to make to these channels. 

User experience – we will be able to measure user engagement and evaluate level of correlation/ causality between engagement and learning outcome. We will also be able to observe and evaluate learning variability in children of same age and key characteristics and children of varying age and key characteristics. 

The aim is to understand challenges, access constraints, and enhance learning outcomes. Third party Evaluation done will be used to first assess whether learning outcomes are improved from our educational framework using tools such as EGMA/EGRA tools framework and second whether the technology mode of delivery enables educational content to reach children in different contexts. Feedback from this will be used to improve the overall solution