According to UNESCO, about 10.5 million children are out of school in Nigeria which represents 1 in 6 out-of-school children globally.
Why is it that children get bored in the classrooms, learn nothing and drop out from schools, but they don't drop out when it is time to play?
In rural Nigeria, there is a lack of educational resources to teach, high teacher's absenteeism and the curriculum is so archaic and rigid that it suppresses the creative mind of a child.
At Prikkle Academy, we asked, 'what if we can remove all the barriers to learning for any child, no matter their background, age or level of Education? What if we can allow them to turn the play they enjoy into learning and solving problems?'
Since 2016, we have answered, 'Why not, we are doing just that!' With our grassroots makerspace, any child now has space, the resources (such as computers, the internet, educational materials, etc) and other children to play with, without being judged as too playful.
They are free to create what catches their fancy, they are allowed to 'break and make', freely choose their tools and build what they will be proud to share with others.
At the makerspace, everyone is a teacher and a student. There are no wrong or right projects, everything is for the purpose of exploration and celebrating talents. We want to ensure that location, finance and every other barrier associated with the success of any child is removed forever.