By Mark Kawalya
While tech solutions are improving learning outcomes in the developed world, Africa still lags behind due to expensive yet poor internet penetration and lower access to web-enabled devices. M-Shule, a Kenyan EdTech startup, has been using SMS to bridge this gap and make learning accessible to the poorest families. This is possible because while many families in underprivileged communities lack access to smart devices, more than 90% of them have at least a basic analogue handset that is SMS enabled.
M-Shule was co-founded in 2016 by Claire Mongeau and Julie Otieno when they decided to develop a mobile learning platform that had the power to deliver the benefits of AI-powered personal learning to students through SMS-enabled devices.
The duo decided to take this alternative route because the majority of EdTech innovation is driven by reliable internet connectivity and requires users to have access to smart devices.
“This leaves out the mass majority of students in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Claire says. “I worked in education for about six years in India, the US, and Kenya, where I realised that everywhere parents and students were investing so much time and energy into education, but there just weren’t always the best tools available to them,” Mongeau says.
The learning platform comprises lessons that are national curriculum-centered and are delivered through SMS that are adapted through AI to each student’s level of education and abilities. The M-Shule platform tracks and analyses each student’s performance and relays this information to parents, giving them insights and recommendations.
“Together [with Otieno], we realised that there were ways to make the best innovations accessible in the mass market, as long as we met users where they are in terms of accessible technology.”
The company impacted more than 20,000 households, offering more than 10 courses to learners as young as five years old.
A crucial factor in the M-Shule process is personalization which is crucial for improving learning outcomes.
Personalizing its educational content, allows students to advance at their own pace, enabling them to find success without having to deal with the lingering shadows of failure that many students grapple with.
“Personalising learning support to fit the needs of every individual learner is core to M-Shule’s mission. We use artificial intelligence algorithms to automatically analyse students’ levels of mastery, and then deliver lessons that meet and grow their competency levels. By doing so, we ensure that students improve and advance to the next level at their own pace,” she says.
With substantial funding from investors, the firm has plans to begin rapid expansion across Kenya and reach more than one million students in East Africa in the next five years.
“Much of what we are doing is brand-new in the East African environment, so building our strategy and our product takes a lot of trial and error,” Mongeau says.
