Hi friends 👋🏻,
Before I proceed, I want to explain why I’ve been silent these last few months. While preparing for essays or topics to write, I realized something. I don’t like writing.
I don’t like writing- Kamso😔
I realized it because the feeling I experience from researching or reading articles on startups and technology feels very different from what I experience having to write.
Writing has always been a chore. I think I’ve known this all along, but have never been able to admit this to myself until now.
I will continue writing but only when I have something important to say and I’ll go through the pain necessary for me to say it (this hurts already). I don’t expect you’ll be hearing from me as often since owing people weekly essays just isn’t my way.
I hope you can understand for all the reasons above, and primarily because I don’t like producing bad work.
Welcome to another episode On Today’s Episode (sorry we’re not talking about movies, no pun intended:)
Today we’ll be talking more about Education. If you missed my previous article on Education, well here it is:
In the past months, we have to see mind-numbing fundraising and now $1 of every $5 in venture last quarter went to fintech. We all know about the Paystacks, Flutterwaves etc, but when discussing Education, it’s largely silent (no, don’t call uLesson).
The Covid-19 pandemic has created a new normal in most of the ways we experience education. We are now seeing an uptick in the number of deals as more people gravitated towards online learning. The EdTech industry saw an increase in funding - from ~$7m across 26 deals in 2019 to ~$14m across 28 deals in 2020.
So far in 2021 EdTech companies have raised $13m in disclosed funding.
Reinventing education requires not just working inside the established systems, it means working outside of them and ultimately rethinking them and replacing them.
- Fred Wilson, AVC.
While it seems like funding into the sector is increasing, I believe it’s absolutely crucial to ramp it up. Education will be one of the biggest determinants of Africa's prosperity in the next decades. By 2050, Nigeria would have the youngest population in the world- half of whom will be less than 25.
Thus, we need to rethink what our education needs to look like to prepare for the future of work.
Today’s post however is more of a “controlled rant” than a post. I tweeted earlier about the topic but decided it would be good for my audience here.
Now, let’s get to it!
Rethinking Education in Nigeria For The Coming Decades
Education will be one of the biggest determinants of Africa's prosperity in the next decades. By 2050, Nigeria would have the youngest population in the world- half of whom will be less than 25.
This should make us scared yet opportunity still exists.
🧵
The question I believe we should be answering is:
How can we improve education in Nigeria within the next 10 years that will lead to greater access and quality of learning?💡
Access- barriers that are both infrastructural and technological
Quality- tied to learning outcomes such as getting a job, creating a job or professional advancement
To resolve this, my thoughts centred around this question:
How do we provided more choice for students, greater support for teachers with richer content while hedging learning outcomes to institutions?
On Improving Teacher Quality.
I'm thinking of two things:
Improve current teachers
Add more teachers.
Strategies to support teachers using eLearning, increased administration and better hiring policies will go a long way to solving this. There are startups solving aspects of this with school administration and management tools. FlexiSAF comes to mind.
Still, more startups need to focus on hiring policies, learning analytics and teacher retention strategies through upskilling.
On Tackling The Current Processes Students Get Taught By.
There should be personalized courses particularly targeted at underserved communities with aspects of gamification.
Learning should also be self-directed as students are entering the classrooms less naive than ever before. Abwaab helps with self-directed learning with expert tutors and uLesson provides self-directed video courses for students for a subscription fee.
On Improving Our Structures of Learning.
I loosely defined these to be institutions that help learners get a job, create a job or offer career development.
Although not Nigerian, On deck, is creating the Stanford of the internet extending the normal aspects of the university. Scholar X is financing education for the next billion. Andela offers IT training for global companies.
Some exceptions,
Some other startups don't fall finely into any of the buckets as they offer unconventional learning. Akiddie is providing entertainment and learning for children. STEM Cafe is a space where both adults and kids can learn by doing, Gidimo gamifies learning. Alula Learning provides bespoke learning management systems.
What To Expect From Future Startups
I believe that startups building edtech solutions would focus on a few if not all these points below:
Education will be decentralized. As more parents and students use broad online learning tools, for both learning and career development, more companies will need to prioritize services that are key to an individual’s learning needs than the rigidity of the current system.
Focus on lifelong learning. More and more people are seeing that education gained from higher institutions and universities are not sufficient for the workplace and so startups will need to emphasize tools that promote community and continuous upskilling and development.
Choice especially to underserved communities. Most underserved communities don’t have the kind of access that many wealthy individuals possess and so startups will have to figure out how to get the best of modern learning to these segments. Eneza Education is currently doing something in this space.
Tools that make offline to online possible. This follows upon the third point. How do you get learners that are largely offline to gain the benefits of online modes of education?
Education without borders. Today, a startup doesn't need to go to silicon valley to get the talent or network. Can the same be applied to education and still gain the same networks, education and credentials?
Wild thoughts and open questions:
Should education be democratized just as other industries are?
Will there be consolidation across different institutions?
Whether or not things go the way I'm thinking, I believe governments and startups need to improve upon these questions.
We need to build!
Original tweet 👆🏽
If you enjoyed this piece, please try to share it with your friends, bosses, journalists, co-workers and anyone else that can benefit from this piece.
Also, if you’re an early-stage startup in Africa in the seed or pre-seed stage that wants to share your story to a wider audience and also bag some extra deals :), I’d love to hear about what you’re working on. You reach out to me on kamsonwani@yahoo.com or Twitter: @gerald_wan
What did you love about today's essay? Your feedback helps me make this great. Good, Meh, Great?
Thanks for reading and see you on the next episode,
Kamso.