The World Bank said some years back, that over 230 million jobs will require digital skills by 2020. The figure is way higher than this now but the reality for developing countries in Africa is that the language barrier still stands as a barrier to rapid digital education towards a skilled economy. The pandemic made the digital gap even more obvious, with the lockdown causing loss of jobs and a general shift towards remote working and demand for digital skills.
And then, ScholarX comes up with LearnAm – a learning platform that allows people acquire knowledge and digital skills in different local languages
Co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of ScholarX, Maxwell Ogunfuyi explained during the Nairametrics Business Half Hour show that this idea was born during the COVID-19 lockdown when a lot of businesses and individuals were forced to reevaluate their services in line with the digital shift.
Though ScholarX started as a scholarship aggregator and scholarships manager in 2016, the startup had to reevaluate as well and pivot into “a full-blown learning app that connects the underserved, the first time internet users with vocational and digital skills all in their mother-tongue, even as far as pidgin English.”
For a country that is the most populous nation in Africa, statistics show that about 90 percent of employment is informal, and a significant number of them also lack the digital skills they need to compete with their counterparts around the world. By creating a platform that teaches digital skills, ScholarX is closing the gap, making these ones job-ready, and making learning easier for them in their local languages.
“The goal is to build the largest skills platform for the underserved market in Africa so that everyone can be at an equal level for the relevant skills. Being in a rural area, or being unable to speak English language should not be a reason not to learn the digital skills you will need to survive in this economy. Our team comprises software developers, expert educators who are experienced in teaching adults, trainers who understand how adults learn, how their attention span is limited and so on, we also have content creators that know how to tell stories. No matter what level of formal education an adult has been able to attain, he or she can learn with LearnAm,” Ogunfuyi explained.
Barely a month after launch, the product has penetrated 15 cities in Nigeria with the recorded audio and video courses available in five languages – English language, Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa and Pidgin. The courses have been delivered in bite sizes so that a lot of information is covered in short lessons and users can learn at their pace and preferred language, and take the assessment afterwards.
For courses that offer certification, the users can also get certified afterwards. To further perfect what has been learned, interested users will be connected to an apprenticeship or marketplace where they can put those skills to use.
