In May, Eneza set on a journey to solve one of the biggest challenges faced by many Edtech companies in the world, content creation. From research, we have realised that most of our students and parents have expressed a great need for more content. The current model of content creation is built around teachers, who are already overburdened by their day jobs and often very reluctant to deliver. We decided to then take a bet on the most unusual stakeholder and reimagine this process. What if our biggest asset, the student, would champion this process?
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Rather than building a system around a scarce resource, which are the teachers, why not build it around a more abundant resource? It is such thinking that has enabled man to go to the moon, making unconventional decisions and doing things differently. At Eneza we’ve proved that we can do the hard things and think differently, by continuing to redefine education through asking the right questions.
On the 12th of July, we hosted a group of ten students from Kibera Girls High school, for the first ever student-generated content lab. Our assumptions were proven correct. In 8 hours, we had managed to train students on how to make content and by end of the day, they had generated 6 quizzes in Biology, Chemistry and Geography. By using Youtube to study they took down notes and converted that into quizzes.
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Their teacher was quoted saying, “If more of our students back at school are able to generate questions too, it would help them revise and even the lazy students would start approaching learning differently.” The students where nothing less of inspired. One of them, Esther (18) currently in form 4, asked how she could be able to join Eneza. This means that there is definitely a great opportunity to build school student led Eneza communities in future, where students can generate content and help us co-create our experience. By choosing to look at problems differently and believing in our students capacity to learn fast and challenge themselves to deliver, we can achieve more together.
Lastly, this endeavour would not have been possible without the partnership of Junior Achievement, who graciously gave us access to their students. Thanks to the Content team for driving the project and the product team for their unwinding support. We imagine a future where both students and teachers can work together to shape the future of content creation.
By Farai Munjoma
About the author:
Farai Munjoma is our Entrepreneur-Intern-in-Residence, who founded Shasha Network in Zimbabwe, while in high school. Coincidentally, Shasha means Shupavu (champion), in the Shona language. Shupavu291 is our SMS/USSD mobile tutor. You can access Shupavu291 by dialing *291# on a Safaricom line, at KES 1.42/day, through any mobile phone, even the simplest 2G phones.