A technological innovation to promote education in Senegal

The challenge of getting children into school remains a major one in the African continent. With only 69% of pupils completing primary school, the continent has the lowest completion rate of any region in the world. In Senegal, it is 61% (World Bank, 2021). In addition, 74% of children in Senegal struggle with poor learning outcomes (World Bank, 2019).

Despite improvements in terms of enrolment rates and learning conditions nationwide in Senegal, inequalities across the country are high and the quality of education is a key issue for public policy. In the region of Kédougou, in the extreme south-east of the country, more than 2.1 million pupils face particularly unfavourable schooling conditions due to the lack of adapted teaching materials, poorly trained teachers, disparity of levels within classes and little access to internet to enrich lessons.

Based on its experience in various countries, the project carried out by BSF is based on a triple mechanism whose objective is to overcome barriers observed in terms of school learning.The solution consists in

• designing and deploying an offline Internet device within schools allowing teachers and pupils to connect without consuming any data
• creating rich digital educational content aligned with primary school curriculum
• training teachers to use and take ownership of the tools to improve their practice.

On one hand, FID’s financial support will enable the technical solution to be deployed in 70 schools in Kédougou region; and on the other hand will allow measuring its impact in terms of learning and academic success of pupils as well as consolidation of their digital skills and strengthening of teachers’ teaching practices.

The purpose of BSF’s project is to improve the quality of education in Kédougou region in a sustainable manner. **Its implementation aims at experimenting new digital technology in schools. **

• Enrichment of learning
• Adaptation of teaching to the levels of the pupils (in mathematics and French in particular)
• Improved student academic performance
• Improvement of pupils’ digital skills (beneficial in terms of personal development and citizenship) and of teachers (impact on their teaching practices)
• Appropriation of technology