Kiwix4Schools: The journey to impact teaching and learning in Africa.

Introduction

Many African countries and their Ministries of Education face monumental challenges in education. Studies suggest that about 90% of children in Sub-Saharan Africa cannot read or understand a simple text by age ten (10) (World Bank, 2022). The situation continues to be exacerbated by limited access to teaching and learning resources and trained teachers. Given the urgent need for action, the Open Foundation West Africa (OFWA) and the Kiwix community in Africa, with whom it has been working with over the last few years run the Kiwix4Schools program, are working together to align Kiwix4Schools to the needs of Africa to ensure that every child has equal opportunity to learn.

The Kiwix4Schools journey

The first ever implementation of Kiwix was carried out by a co-founder of OFWA in 2014. As an organisaion, OFWA began offering training on Kiwix in 2016 which evolved into a comprehensive program known as Kiwix4Schools in 2019. Kiwix4Schools started as an initiative to help the education community in Ghana (and Africa) have access to high-quality educational content offline, powered by the world’s largest open repository, Wikipedia, and its sister projects. 

Using the Kiwix software, Kiwix4Schools trained teachers and students on the fundamentals of Wikipedia. Through the initiative, the Kiwix Africa Mentorship Program launched on 16th March, 2023 trained 64 volunteers to implement Kiwix4Schools in their communities, scaling the initial impact of our work in 2022. Over the last 5 years, the initiative has been implemented in 6  African countries, reaching 2343 teachers and students, removing the internet connectivity barriers many Africans face, and providing access to Wikipedia’s vast knowledge repositories. Now is the time to revamp Kiwix4Schools to take on Africa’s teaching and teacher training crisis actively.

Is there a teaching and teacher training crisis in Africa? Why should we even care?

Our journey with Kiwix4Schools taught us several things. The most striking learning implementing Kiwix4Schools  is that providing access to free and open teaching and learning resources means nothing if it is not accompanied by effective teaching. The growing trained-teacher gap in Africa hinders education recovery; the trained-teacher-to-pupil ratio in Sub-Saharan Africa is 1:58 (UNESCO, 2023).  It is no secret that teacher quality plays a significant role in determining learning outcomes at the school level. Unfortunately, many teachers do not have the required qualifications, digital skills, and adequate support, impacting their ability to provide effective teaching (EdTech Hub, 2023). These are only a few examples to justify our drive to change our initiative to directly contribute to improving the learning outcomes of millions of African children at risk of learning loss.

Expanding the scope of Kiwix4Schools to contribute to improving learning outcomes in Africa.

Educators must have a strong foundation in Wikipedia and how to navigate it to successfully adopt Wikipedia and its sister projects and improve teaching and learning outcomes. With that in mind, we will not be changing too much. We are expanding the initiative’s scope to tap into the teaching and learning process. 

Leveraging the Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom resources, we plan to, together with education stakeholders across the continent, build teacher capacity to use Wikipedia as a teaching and learning resource while accessing curriculum-aligned content. 

To get this point, we are hosting a two-day design workshop with the Kiwix community and anyone interested in improving teaching and learning outcomes in Africa to:

• Shaping a robust Theory of Change aligned with our goals and Africa’s education agenda of improving teaching and learning outcomes.
• Developing practical and innovative implementation plans to ensure effective delivery and integration of the initiative in African schools.

Workshop Details

On 6 – 7 June from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm UTC each day, we engage in an interactive design work session with participants to shape the future of Kiwix4Schools together.  Your participation and insights are not just important; they are crucial to the success of this project. We value your expertise and want to ensure that as many of you can attend the work sessions as possible.

To register, click on the link below.  

Registration Link