L-R: Christelle HIEN, our CEO, Wambura Kimunyu, and CTO, Thuita Wachira at Eneza Côte d’Ivoire offices.

Eneza Education is pleased to announce its acquisition of Prenezlesfeuilles.com, an exam prep startup in Côte d’Ivoire. As part of the deal, Christelle HIEN – KOUAME, founder of Prenezlesfeuilles.com, joined Eneza on 15 August 2019, as our Côte d’Ivoire Country Manager.

I had a chat with Christelle about her entrepreneurial background and her plans moving forward in her new role.

Who is Christelle?

Christelle has been an entrepreneur for nine years, in the field of communication and digital content production. I graduated with a degree in Business Administration from the Polytechnic Institute of Yamoussoukro in Côte d’Ivoire. I also hold two master’s degrees, one in Sales Techniques and the other in Marketing & Communication. I am a mother of three, who is cheerful and determined by nature. I am very passionate about entrepreneurship, women’s empowerment, and education.

Give us a brief background of Christelle the social entrepreneur.

Christelle: I was the only girl taking sciences in my final year of high school, in the municipality of Abidjan. Nineteen years later, I noticed that school results in my school had still not improved. I wanted to offer a service to help solve this problem so I started working on a solution that could help students pass exams. 

It had to be a solution that I could offer with the resources available to me. This is how I came up with the idea of the first digital platform that brought together assignments and exams from the best schools in Côte d’Ivoire.  The objective was to considerably raise the school success rate in Côte d’Ivoire. The pass rate for BACCALAUREATE, an exam intended to qualify successful candidates for higher education in Côte d’Ivoire, has been 44% over the last three years. 

When did you start Prenezlesfeuilles? 

Christelle: Prenezlesfeuilles (translated in English as Take Papers) was founded three years ago. It is a collection of test and exam content from partner educational institutions and educators. 

What does the name Prenezlesfeuilles mean? 

Christelle: Prenezlesfeuilles is a common sentence throughout the Côte d’Ivoire school year. It refers to homework, questions, and exams literally translated as Take Papers in English.

How does Prenezlesfeuilles work?

Christelle: With a smartphone, feature phone or a computer, students register free of charge on Prenezlesfeuilles, with their mobile number and class level. They get assignments and exams for their grade and in their chosen subject area, classified by chapters, with references from the source institutions.  This is free. They, however, pay a premium of 10,000 CFA F (17 dollars) for the entire school year, to access homework assignments.

Who is the target user of Prenezlesfeuilles?

Christelle: Prenezlesfeuilles can be accessed by all students from Grade three to twelve. Our content is from our general education curriculum. So far we have approximately 550,000 secondary school students in Côte d’Ivoire.

How will Prenezlesfeuilles complement what Eneza Education does?

Christelle: Prenezlesfeuilles and Eneza’s iEduk, form the perfect duo for students’ success because they complement each other. In practice, iEduk service allows the student to access the summaries of courses and take quizzes through SMS, to test their understanding of the course received. Prenezlesfeuilles complements iEduk by preparing students for their exams. Prenezlesfeuilles has assignments from the best schools in Côte d’Ivoire which Eneza’s learners can now have access to.

What are your plans for Eneza Education Côte d’Ivoire and iEduk? 

Christelle: Côte d’Ivoire has an average primary school enrolment of 700,000 children each year. An average of 90,000 of them, obtain the Baccalaureate yearly- a transition rate of 12%. Eneza Côte d’Ivoire seeks to help improve these figures with the provision of digital educational content. We will continually adapt other services to the local needs of school-going learners. We also want to also produce content for learners who have dropped out of the general education system, to offer them alternatives for professional training.