Source:- Empower Africa
Microsoft has teamed up with Afrilearn International Limited to speed up the rollout of its mobile-first and AI-Powered Education platforms. The partnership is a big step toward giving millions of African kids who still have big learning gaps more access to good schools.
More students enrolling in school across the continent hasn't led to better
learning outcomes. UNESCO and UNICEF say that more than 100 million African
kids are still not in school. Millions of the students who do go to school have
problems like old learning materials, crowded classrooms, not enough trained
teachers, and bad internet connections. These problems make it harder for the
continent to create a competitive workforce in the global digital economy.
Young businesspeople started Afrilearn in 2020 to deal with these problems. The
company started with ClassNotes dot ng, which quickly became one of Nigeria's
most popular online learning sites. Afrilearn had one million students by 2022,
and it has continued to grow quickly since then. Today, the platform helps more
than four million students and works with more than eight hundred schools in
more than ten African countries.
The Afrilearn mobile app gives students access to class notes, video lessons,
quizzes, games, revision tools, and help with homework in real time.
Exambly.com, its sister site, helps people get ready for national and
international tests for free. Afrilearn uses game-like elements to keep
learners interested and has built-in reporting tools that let parents see how
their children are doing. The company's performance data shows that more than
80% of students show measurable improvement within a week of using the program
regularly. The platform's AI-powered personalized learning can help students
get better grades in as little as eight weeks.
Outside of student learning AI-Powered Education has also made a full school management
software platform that uses artificial intelligence. This system helps teachers
and school administrators with things like keeping track of attendance, lesson
planning, classroom analytics, and reporting. The company has also improved
teacher training programs through partnerships with Schoolinka. This will help
more schools use the platform and get better results in the classroom.
The Microsoft and NVIDIA African GenAI Accelerator Programme has helped
Afrilearn grow even faster. Afrilearn rebuilt a lot of its digital
infrastructure with the help of Microsoft Azure's artificial intelligence and
cloud computing services. With Azure tools, the company was able to improve its
personalization engine, make predictive analytics for schools better, and build
a management system that was more reliable and secure. The engineering team
also uses Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, GitHub, and Visual Studio Code to make
product development easier and work together across several African countries.
Microsoft says that Afrilearn has been able to roll out updates faster, fix
bugs, and make its platform more stable as it grows thanks to access to its
tools. Schools that use Afrilearn's management system say they save more than
ten hours of administrative work every week. They also say that the platform
has helped increase the rate of fee collection by 35% to 40% thanks to features
that automatically track payments and make reports clear.
Afrilearn wants to expand its services even more across the continent in the
future. The company is working more closely with UNICEF and the African Union,
and it already has a growing number of users in Nigeria. Ghana, Liberia, Sierra
Leone, Gambia, and the rest of the African diaspora. Its long-term goal is to
reach ten million students in at least twelve African countries within the next
three years.
Isaac Oladipupo, the CEO of Afrilearn, said that the company sees itself as
part of a larger ecosystem that is working to unlock Africa's full potential.
He said that every child should be able to get an education that prepares them
for a successful future, and that technology is a useful way to get there. He
also said that working with Microsoft will help the company grow its mission
and make sure that African students can compete on a global scale.
Microsoft says that its support for Afrilearn is part of its larger goal to
improve AI-Powered Education in Africa so that everyone can get a good education. The
company says that strong local partnerships and technology-driven learning
platforms can help change the way people learn on the continent and open up new
opportunities for the next generation.
Also Read:- Education Excellence Magazine for more information