Educlick: Developing offline alternative learning methods.
EduClick
Since 2016, 2 regions of Cameroon (The North West and South West Region) have been going through conflict; schools were attacked, with students and teachers murdered and, in this situation, schools remained closed for over 3 years. The Covid-19 pandemic that broke in 2020, further exasperated the situation with the national lockdowns.
In response to this, EduClick partnered with teachers and many education stakeholders to develop alternative learning methods for these vulnerable communities. The objective of EduClick is to leverage all aspects of the technology revolution to facilitate access to education for disadvantaged communities and prepare them for the future of work through hybrid (online and offline) training programs.
The target audience for this project includes youth in regions affected by the Anglophone crisis, those who dropped out of school due to Covid-19 school shutdowns, persons with disability, those living in inaccessible rural communities and those with no access to formal education.
EduClick implements in partnership with secondary school teachers, developers, social media marketing experts and a pool of volunteers from diverse sectors.
EduClick’s good practice approach entails the use of an Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD system) to enable users to access their school curricular. This is the same system mobile operators use to enable subscribers to check their airtime balance.
EduClick is a subscription-based platform where we develop the content, host it on a server powered by Wi-Fi and users can access it through their phones. This is made possible through a program developed by the back-end team and users can subscribe by dialling a short number and following the instructions. The instructions include the selection of the service, subscription, and payments. Users can select from weekly, monthly, and yearly subscriptions which cost 2000XAF, 6000XAF and 12000XAF per year respectively. The service can be utilised by children as young as 12 years old while those below that age would need someone to walk them through, like parents.
EduClick also offers professional Technology related courses through the educlick.africa platform; the courses offered include digital marketing, web development, graphics design and UI UX Design. After taking these courses, learners have access to a pool of job opportunities through the Educlick Careers platform which is a search engine. The platform searches all job portals on the internet and updates our platform with opportunities for which Cameroonians are eligible. The platform also filters illegitimate and fake jobs and sends automatic emails to users.
- Currently, 5000 Users have accessed learning through our platform, either e-learning or online revision.
- 1375 primary school students from 6 of the 7 regions of Cameroon have accessed the platform.
- Over 1000 learners have taken National Exams and learnt on the platform.
- Over 2000 young people have taken EduClick tech courses (Coding, digital marketing, and Design)
- To ensure or facilitate access into the job market, EduClick offers an online job search engine. Users can also subscribe to have their favourite jobs delivered directly into their inbox.
- Educlick has a dedicated team and volunteers who are passionate about making education accessible for all.
- Finding the right model enabled the success of the project. EduClick uses a “Hybrid Model” which entails a mixture of “B2B and B2C” at the same time. While targeting households, the project also targets Organisations and associations who can sponsor some students.
- EduClick has received support from the teaching community; teachers shared their lessons and worked with us without payment.
- In 2018, the project received an award from the African Union’s Innovating Education Expo (top 10). The funds from this award have contributed to the progress made as well as the support from the community. Our target audience also played a great role given that they find value in our program and welcomed it.
Challenges/Barriers
The greatest challenge has always been finding a way to make the program sustainable to cater for the target audience who are unable to contribute financially. This challenge has often reduced the scope of our impact and affected the running of the organisation. However, we consistently try to test our models, update them and redirect the project to better serve communities’ interests while considering their challenges.
Moving Forward
EduClick’s goal is to build one of Africa’s largest hybrid Educational platform, as a result, we keep developing new initiatives and models to facilitate this. Over the years, we have achieved several milestones, and our plans consist of developing fundraising models, increasing the number of co-founders to scale up and replicate in other countries and regions.
Resources
Websites: www. educlick.africa(currently beta testing but already live)
www.educlickcareers.com Job Matching Platform
Instagram @Educlick.Africa
Twitter @educlickafrica
Contact details:
Email: blandinemessa@gmail.com
Tel: +237656196113
