The year 2020 surprised and shocked education systems on all corners of the world, from North to South and from West to East. The digitalisation of education, which has been a part of education strategies everywhere became the new normal practically overnight. In Africa, various actors have tried or are looking at badges as a simple and scalable solution to recognise and reward learning and accomplishments. Satu Järvinen from SkillSafari shares insights on her work with badges in various African countries, the opportunities, and challenges badging faces in a rapidly emerging continent.

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Badging
Skills in the
New Normal
Satu Järvinen - SkillSafari - 20.10.2020

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School Beach house

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SkillSafari
SkillSafari works to create
successful careers through
recognition and validation of
skills.
Our trusted and digital badging
solution is based on years of
working with skills development
and our dedication to create
pathways to successful careers.

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Why badging in Africa?

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Focus on Badging Opportunities in Africa

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Youth on the continent
There are 600 million youth under age
25 in Africa
11 million youth enter the labor
market each year for the next decade
72% of youth are unemployed or
vulnerably employed

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Skills shortage
The continent suffers from two
major challenges related to
education:
1) The overall number of
schooling years is low
2) The labor market suffers
from a skills mismatch
(right people in the wrong
places)

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Work and
Education
The informal economy in sub-Saharan
Africa makes up nearly 86% of all
employment and constitutes about
40% of GDP.

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Africa is a vast continent,
filled with young people
ready to invest in getting
better jobs.

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Places for badges:
Cases of the old normal

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Badgeons Tunisie
● In collaboration with CNTE
● Validating teachers ICT skills
● 3 education levels
● 12 cities around the country
● Based on the UNESCO
framework level 1
● 17 badges + 4 meta badges
● 22 teachers actively
participating

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Some testimonials
‘“the first badge I got it motivated me to move forward and work more
and more.”
“This helped me to reorganize my knowledge and to test my level and my
knowledge. It helped me open my eyes to topics I did not focus on before. I
hope to participate in such experiences in the future This is really very
useful. I am very happy.”

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Badging Rwanda
● In collaboration with the Rwanda
Education Board
● Validating teachers ICT skills
● Mostly secondary teachers, across
the country
● Based on the REB teacher ICT skills
training modules
● 20 badges + 5 metabadges
● 27 teachers participating
● 297 badges issues in three weeks.

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Curiousity is the main driver

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Positive feedback

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Places for badges:
Cases of the New normal

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COVID-19 has had and impact
Since June this year, interest towards application of badges in various
forums has raised.
Partners are realising the impact the pandemic is having to how people
interact and learn, also there is heightened interest towards practical
solutions that help digitise offering, other than eLearning courses
Access and affordability are key components.
(Affordability also include low use of data)

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Badgeons Senegal!
Badges to validate skills of the informal sector in
● Customer service
● Entrepreneurship
Sectors:
● Agriculture (Women)
● Electricity
● Driving
● Shopkeepers, boulangerie owners, taxi drivers

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Skills framework in the making
Customer Service (PF)
Taking care of the work environment
Professional outlook
Profitability of services
Identifying types of customers
Service quality standards
Managing customer service situations
Welcoming customers
Identifying customer needs
Responding to customer needs
Surpassing customer expectations
Closing service situations
Underpinning Knowledge

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Badgeons Côte d’Ivoire!
Badges to validate entrepreneurship skills of small scale
entrepreneurs / self-employed people in the informal
sector, urban setting

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Skills framework in the making

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Badging Rwanda, V2

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InnovACTION
Badging skills in
innovation capacity for
future African
innovators. Based on the
innovACTION
programme modules /
contents

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Challenges
● Finding the correct challenge level for badges
● Finding the right medium to make badges accessible to target
users
● Find ways to measure skills in a practical way that meets the
capacity of the recipients who can have:
○ Limited literacy and numeracy skills
○ Limited language skills (english and french)
○ Limited ICT skills
○ Limited access devices (laptops, smart phones)
○ Limited means to purchase data bundles

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Thank you!
Satu Järvinen
CEO
Tel. +358414597871
satu@skillsafari.io