Edtech: The African AI Promise 🌍

Welcome to The Afro Pivot Point

Showing You What’s Art and What’s Not in African Tech

Hello to the gentle readers joining us since the last edition. You’ll love it here ❤️

If you haven’t already, please subscribe and join curious minds reading about tech and culture in Africa.

Last week, I wrote about the importance of interacting with multi-sectoral stakeholders as we build tech solutions for Africa. While casually minding my business on X this week, I was drawn to a conversation about how powerful AI is in the Kenyan and African educational context.

It was an interesting conversation no doubt. The tech bros seem convinced that AI is a magic pill that will fix the broken education system. But educators, humanitarians, and citizens found the sentiment quite farfetched.

It is midnight here and I cannot sleep. So here’s my take on how the AI promise can transform education in Africa. Where’s the starting point as we transform a key sector in the African socio-economic liberation? What measures should we take before we find common ground?

For context, here’s the video that inspired this.

As usual, do not forget to subscribe if you like my writing (Or me as a person. A win is a win 😎).

Enjoy!

If you skipped the video, Tonee Ndung’u, a respected thought-leader, tech pioneer, and all-round Mr. Good vibes talked about the significance (or lack thereof) of grading systems in the Age of AI. Tonee argues that parents should consider incorporating AI in formal education because “grades don’t matter that much nowadays”. He mentions that good grades are no longer a guarantee of a great life (Is anything guaranteed really?).

Well, I am not the judge and jury of whether what he said is right and wrong. And obviously, I understand at a deep level the importance of prioritizing STEM education for our children.

But…

Tech Bros and the Dance between genius and grades

When people speak about why grades aren’t important, they are often quick to reference the Zuckerbergs, Gates, and Musks of the world — and for good reason. After all, they are responsible for some of the greatest inventions in humanity and have been at times, the strongest critics of the relevance of a college education.

Yet in a tongue-in cheek manner, these same people are famous for wanting to hire only the best talent for their companies. Case in point, the H-1B Visa conversation that took the internet by storm.

It turns out that they do, in fact, understand the importance of good grades.

Education: The great equalizer

While this trend is exciting and inclusive in contexts with diverse pathways to success, it falters in Africa, where systemic inequalities create a vastly different reality.

In Kenya, only 22% of public schools have computer labs, and less than 40% of students in rural areas have access to basic educational resources. Meanwhile, over 60% of youth between the ages of about 15 and 17 are not in school at all. Students in slums and rural areas still have to take classes in make-shift classrooms and a good number of schools are still largely underfunded and understaffed.

 The "grades don’t matter" narrative doesn’t account for this reality.

For some children in these circumstances, good grades are their only way out. Good grades are their ticket to a great university scholarship that will help lift their family out of poverty. They lack the social capital and luxury needed to come on social media and say that “Grades do not matter” because every version of their success stories involves being evaluated on the basis of what they scored in their national exams.

Without equitable implementation, AI could widen existing gaps.

Where to start?

Now, Tonee makes some great points. But he also mentions that parents who have reached out to him are from “international schools”. The thing about AI is that if we don’t make it accessible, all we are doing is widening the digital, literacy and economic gaps between the rich and the poor.

More than 35.5% of Africans are living in absolute poverty. This paired with all the issues I listed above, look like a great place to start in education reform.

We surely cannot power GPUs in makeshift classrooms, nor can we teach complex AI systems to students who lack core foundational skills in language, basic arithmetic, and logic. More importantly, we cannot successfully use AI to transform our education system if we do not equip the educators who are privy to the different learning abilities and styles of students.

AI is not a magic wand. And while there’s so much that needs to be done to fix this fundamentally broken system, I’m glad that there are several use-cases of the right way to use tech as a tool that closes the gaps in literacy and economic inequalities within education.

Tech for education

Food4education is a school feeding program that has improved school attendance by 10% through offering subsidized nutritious meals to school children. At the heart of their operations is the Tap2Eat cashless payment system which reduces turnaround times and ensures meals are served hot to over 450,000 kids around Kenya. The result? 20% increase in national exams.

Zeraki is significantly reducing the time teachers spend on administrative tasks by 70%. They also have smart analytics that are powering data-driven decision making and policy formulation in education.

SophieBot AI is educating the masses on sexual and reproductive health. It is quite handy — especially now that the numbers on new HIV and STI infections among younger populations are increasing at an alarming rate.

The Finance Bill GPT was an interesting way of simplifying the jargon in the bill to uneducated masses — and the result was increased interest in public participation towards fighting punitive bills.

The common thing about all these success stories is the involvement of multi-sectoral stakeholders before building solutions for the Kenyan education system. In return, parents, teachers, and students have embraced the solutions, and education outcomes improved with measurable impact — paving way for ideating even better solutions.

AI Is good, no doubt

Additionally, we still recognize the value AI can bring to assistive learning for children with learning disabilities. I know it can make learning fun and all, but I have found AI to be more fun with a little foundational knowledge.

As you may have found, a strong grasp of the subject matter enhances AI outputs. Therefore, we mustn’t underestimate the importance of teaching kids how to think critically, question things, and lay the foundations for lifelong learning.

It is no doubt that we have to find a way of evaluating academic capabilities in the AI age but before then, we should remind kids that the importance of good grades doesn’t only relate to what job you have or what career you end up in. Sometimes it just teaches kids the importance of giving their best, honoring commitments, and being diligent — which will surely come in handy in their adult lives.

The basic foundations will teach them how to think and question things. Because if we skip the basics, this same AI we are advocating for will replace them faster than they can say "Grades are useless.” 

Do you think AI is the key to fixing education in Africa, or are we skipping the basics? Let’s talk—I’d love to hear your thoughts! "

• Talk to me: [email protected]

• Follow me on X

• Connect on LinkedIn

• Reply to this email

And if you haven't already, please subscribe to get this in your inbox next week.

Till next time, cheers!