Today, 6 out of 10 children globally do not reach basic levels in reading and maths, despite majority of them going to school. Solutions in the form of structured pedagogy, which combines teacher training and structured lesson plans, have been successfully implemented as one of the most effective ways to solve this problem. Low-cost digitization allows us to make the solutions more interactive.
EIDU has created a unique program that combines structured pedagogy and an open digital platform. We digitised Tayari, a highly effective structured pedagogy program (0.5 SD) developed by RTI and the Kenyan government.
First, we train all teacher supervisors, who in turn train school teachers. Subsequently, all supervisors visit their schools to coach teachers in improving their teaching with support from EIDU staff and the digital platform.
EIDU distributes a few smartphones per classroom to be used by teachers (access to daily lesson plans) and students (access to interactive exercises). A student plays more than 100 learning games each week, 8 times Tayari’s paper version. These games include onebillion’s proven high impact content.
Finally, we assess the academic development of all students, enabling partners to monitor the component's effectiveness. This provides the government and the global research community with an unprecedented pool of data to guide operations and policy.
EIDU started working in Kenya in 2016, initially focusing on low-cost private schools until it was approached by the Mombasa County Government to digitize and roll out Tayari, aimed at pre-primary schools. After a successful pilot we quickly signed agreements to roll out in 6 more counties and demand keeps growing. The national government is supportive and we received approval from the Kenyan Institute of Curriculum Development.
We are on track to reach 100,000 children by early 2023, creating the biggest pool of learning data globally. Combined with the ability to change all content in our platform, this will improve learning outcomes faster and cheaper than ever before.
We are confident to hit our next milestone: Reaching all 2 million pre-primary students across Kenya by 2025.
Our goal is to support governments in continuously improving their education system. We empower government staff with training, tools and other support to build capacity to eventually administer the program by themselves. Implementation plans for each area are defined with the education authorities. The execution of the EIDU program is a joint responsibility between governments and EIDU.
