The document discusses the challenges facing primary education in Africa and introduces iSchool's approach to addressing these challenges through the use of low-cost tablets called ZEduPads. iSchool has developed a total learning environment covering the entire primary school curriculum across all subjects. This environment is delivered via the ZEduPad tablet and includes detailed lesson plans, interactive multimedia lessons, and teacher training materials. Trials in Zambian schools have shown improved literacy, numeracy, and critical thinking skills. iSchool aims to make this approach sustainable and benefit local communities.

1. Revolutionising African Education
An introduction to iSchool
Reinventing Education in Africa

2. There are many reasons why primary education in
Africa remains a difficult problem to tackle:
Large class sizes Rote learning
Unplanned teaching
No differentiation in class learning
Poor school infrastructure / no power
Teaching in non-native language
High teacher absenteeism
Poor health / nutrition
High teacher attrition
Rapidly Increasing population
Some languages with no resources
Poor literacy
Limited facilities for SEN
Teachers prefer towns
Few textbooks
Little interactivity
Very low budgets
Lack of classroom resourcesUntrained teachers in rural areas
Early drop-out Unquestioning environment
Long walks to school
High adult illiteracy
High student absenteeism
Girls leaving earlyBoredom in class

3. And education is the critical start of a vicious cycle

4. The Opportunity
• eLearning has a real potential for change now that:
– The cost of computer devices has fallen below $80
– The devices are robust and reliable and will last a full
day without mains power
– They are personalised and can
be carried to classrooms: no additional
building is needed
– They can be used by teachers with any level of skill
– They can be charged off lower-end solar power
– There is a growing willingness to pay for education
Reinventing Education in Africa

5. The iSchool ‘Product’
iSchool has created a ‘Total Learning Environment’
covering the 7 grades of Primary School education,
with 3 components:
Reinventing Education in Africa
1. Detailed lesson plans for
teachers for every one of
5,000 lessons. All subjects,
all grades, covering the
entire Zambian curriculum,
and guiding the teacher
towards interactive
enquiry-based learning.

6. 2. Interactive local contextualised audio-visual material for
students for every other lesson. For early grades all material is in
local mother-tongue languages as well as English. All learning
material approved by the Ministry of Education. All material is
voiced as well as written to help those with lower literacy levels.
Reinventing Education in Africa

7. The iSchool ‘Product’
3. Teacher training, to help teachers move towards the new way
of child-centred active learning.
• An initial 3-day fully-participatory course
• Ongoing teacher mentoring by their course leader
• A one-year course on the ZEduPad, including learning,
training videos, classroom discussions and feedback
mechanisms
Reinventing Education in Africa

8. The Delivery Mechanism
iSchool eLearning material is delivered via the
ZEduPad, a high-quality low-cost 7” Android tablet,
pre-loaded with all content in 32GB flash memory.
No Internet connection is required, but one can
be used if present.
Revolutionising Education in Africa

9. The ZEduPad: 3 Models
1. Teacher. With all the student
content plus lesson plans and full
teacher training materials.
2. School Learner. Full learning
material and research content.
Designed for multiple use going
straight to appropriate lessons.
3. Home Learner. Complete with full
learning material, plus homework
modules, and other safe educational
and entertainment content.
Reinventing Education in Africa

10. iSchool in practice
Reinventing Education in Africa
Since student tablets are used every
alternate lesson, it means 1 ZEduPad is
needed between 10 children, reducing
costs.
iSchool’s unique blended teaching
material is based on a rotational
model within the classroom, with
multiple activities taking place. This
allows teachers to concentrate on
smaller groups to whom they can
provide more personalised learning.
The tablets, in use by one group,
are shared to promote peer
education and to ensure cost-
effectiveness.

11. The iSchool Objectives
‘To create school leavers who will know where to find and how
to manipulate information; who will be problem solvers, and life-
long learners; and who will be able to contribute to a new
economic environment and take their place in a knowledge
economy.
And to make teachers facilitators
rather than the source of knowledge’
Reinventing Education in Africa

12. What’s on the ZEduPad?
Accessible in learning sequence or by topic In English and key local languages
Community facilities
Detailed lesson plans for teachers for all lessons, plus higher level overviews, and
including differentiation
All 7 grades – all subjects, including maths, literacy, the arts, sciences,
creative & technology, PE
Multi-level reading scheme
Adult literacy
Range of other educational Apps relevant to grade of learning
iHealth App
iFarm App for small-scale farmers
Library of specially written books – stories to be read by children and to children
Past exam papersAdult numeracy
Internet/WiFi
Child-safe browser
One-year teacher training course including tutorials, videos, classroom activity,
and staffroom discussions in all modules
Interactive self-marking quizzes
Full pre-loaded multi-media eLearning covering the whole primary curriculum
Version of WikiPediaOffice App

13. Testing in Schools
Trialing in schools has been going on in 15 schools in Zambia
with 3,000 children for over 3 years.
There has been significant success in terms of reduced
absenteeism and enjoyment of learning. Literacy and numeracy
rates are well up, as are critical thinking skills, both measured
within the groups, and compared to non-iSchool controls.
Reinventing Education in Africa

14. iSchool puts the ‘fun’ into learning
Reinventing Education in Africa
..and creates a new generation of those thinking
for themselves

15. And all without…
• Any new classroom buildings
• Any more trained teachers
• The need for mains power
• iSchools can be anywhere
• The ZEduPads work in any classroom, or anywhere
else that teaching is taking place
• They are designed to be part of every existing class
• They last a full day on battery power
• Solar power for charging is provided
Reinventing Education in Africa

16. ‘iSchool in a box’
• Covering all school
needs, and bearing in
mind that all equipment
can be run off mains or
solar electric power.
• Equipment includes
secure charging cabinet
and a projectors (with
battery) for the teachers.
• To buy all the iSchool
equipment for a school
costs ~$1 per child per
month.
Reinventing Education in Africa

17. Alternative Delivery Platforms
• The iSchool material can also be
accessed directly over the internet,
for those with a good enough
connection, anywhere in the world.
There are individual or school
subscription models.
• The same eLearning content can be
delivered via Intel Classmate style
netbooks, specially built for primary
school children, although these are
costlier than tablets and less
suitable for lower grades and rural
environments.
Reinventing Education in Africa

18. • In order to serve the local
community around a school,
the ZEduPad contains adult
literacy and numeracy courses
(in local language); and life
skills courses, including
financial literacy, health and
farming skills. Aimed at village
communities these can be
accessed without formal
literacy
Revolutionising Education in Africa
Revolutionising Life in the Village

19. Further Sustainability
• iSchool has a team who work with schools on sustainability
with the objective of ensuring that the communities in which
schools operate make full use of the new facilities and thus are
willing to contribute to costs. It also has a positive impact on
security.
• Other strands include:
– Creation of internet cafés for local community access
– Learning for local communities including skills training, and training of
community health workers.
– Use of facilities by local government, including district offices
– Use by MPs constituency offices, and to increase the flow of democratic
information
– Use by village Chiefs and headmen
– Use for banking and trading systems, including integration with local
transport.
Reinventing Education in Africa

20. The ZEduPad• Should be used:
– By taxi drivers waiting for their fares
– By those in minibuses on their way to work
– By the boy selling talk-time at the traffic lights (who
also gets his messages from the telephone
company on the same device)
– By the shop-keeper in the village
– By the community health worker in the village
– By the farming extension officer
– By pregnant mothers
– In teacher resource centres
– In local government offices
– In homes of any kind throughout the country
– In every primary school….
• The ZEduPad will become a means to get
information to anyone, anywhere….
Reinventing Education in Africa

21. • Moving from the $10 Nokia to
$60 Android Smart phones.
• The spread of low-cost smart
phones will be driven by the
rural community getting
access to the services they
need (education, health,
agriculture) in local language
and with minimal need for
literacy.
• All iSchool material is being
prepared for use on smart
phones and on a ZEduPhone
Revolutionising Education in Africa
Moving to smartphones

22. And the rest of Africa..
• iSchool is an independent company,
based in Zambia and internationally.
• Following the example of the work in
Zambia there is now significant interest
from around the Continent in taking the
learning content to other countries.
• Interest is coming from Governments,
telephone companies and educational
publishers, as well as NGOs and schools.
• With there being a high degree of
commonality between the primary school
curricula in the region there is good value
to be obtained in adapting the ZEduPad
content for local use, with the addition of
appropriate languages.
Reinventing Education in Africa

23. The importance of education
• There would be a 12% drop in global poverty
if all students in low-income countries left
school with basic reading skills.
• Countries that raise literacy rates by 20-30%
have seen increases in Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) of 8-16%
• Individual earnings increase by 10% for each
year of school completed
• Each extra year of school increases a
person’s future productivity by 10-30%.
• A farmer with just four years of education is
9% more productive than one with no
education.
• People of voting age with a primary
education are 1.5 times more likely to
support democracy than people with no
education.
Reinventing Education in Africa

24. The importance of girls’ education
• Wages rise 20% for every year beyond 4th
grade that a girl remains in school.
• When 10% more girls go to school, a
country’s GDP increases on average by 3%
• Women’s education is responsible for half of
the reduction of child mortality over the past
40 years.
• In sub-Saharan Africa, investing in girls’
education has the potential to boost
agricultural output by 25%.
• Girls who stay in school for seven or more
years, marry four years later and have two
fewer children.
• A child born to an educated mother is more
than 2x as likely to survive to the age of 5
• A girl who completes basic education is 3x
less likely to contract HIV/AIDS
Reinventing Education in Africa

25. Contact Details
iSchool Zambia
Kalundu, Lusaka, Zambia
Tel: +260-211-845161
Email: info@ischool.zm
Web: www.ischool.zm www.zedupad.com
Reinventing Education in Africa
iSchool has teams ready to adapt
its learning content to countries
around the Continent and looks
forward to the challenges of
working together to reinvent
education in Africa