Building websites for 100,000 schools in Africa.
“Our mission is to connect every school to the world.”
Who We Are
Elimu was established in 2008 with a mission to connect every classroom in every school to the world. We strongly believe that technology will help bring education to all citizens.
Today that mission is alive as Elimu pushes to build official websites for 40,000 schools in Kenya under our Taking Schools Online program. This program extends to a further 40,000 schools in Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We plan to expand this work to also cover an extra 20,000 schools from all across Africa.
Elimu is an active member of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), Domain Registrars Association of Kenya and ITLET (IT in Learning, Education and Training) Technical Committee at the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS).
The Problem
Africa is on the path to sustainable digitization and large sections of the economy are embracing the benefits of technology. However, the education sector has been left behind. A majority of schools fail to have even the basic components of digitization in place. These components include well-managed official websites, official email addresses, parental SMS communication systems among others. This means that getting official information and data from schools is a tedious, manual and most cases an in-person process that is both expensive and time-consuming. This problem also contributes to environmental degradation through paper-based printing for day-to-day information dissemination.
According to the ITU Aspirational Targets for 2030 all schools should be connected to the Internet and reap connectivity benefits. Connectivity includes a schools’ ability to keep in touch with stakeholders such as parents, students, teachers, alumni and the public through online means.
Today, parents and other stakeholders demand that information about schools be made available on official school websites.
The Solution - Details
Taking Schools Online Program
Our solution and innovation is mainly on the third-party commercialization approach to developing and maintaining websites for schools in East Africa starting with 10,000 schools in Kenya. This has enabled the Elimu network of websites to span from the top national schools to some of the most marginalized schools. The schools include those with differently abled students and girls’ schools in areas with low education penetration. Elimu school websites provide a gateway for any school to connect to the rest of the world. In collaboration with various partners, we put together a sustainable website and digitization package that includes the following resources and support:
- an official website via a Country-Code Top-Level domain e.g., schoolname.sc.ke
- official, verified and authoritative school email addresses
- subsidized education content and learning tools embedded on the school websites, including interactive lessons, quizzes, and videos
- training and capacity building to empower staff on the management of digital resources, including the use of learning management systems and online collaboration tools
- SMS for parental communication, real-time notifications, and attendance tracking.
We work with the ministries and organizations responsible for education to identify schools to get the websites as well as to roll out the program. Each website created is added to our network of school websites. This website network becomes self-sustaining through the provision of digital branding spaces, the sponsorship of associated research projects, the provision of integrated education products, and the trading of carbon credits through the carbon reduction program.
Services
Library
Elimu Library is your one-stop shop for educational teaching and learning resources. The content on the website is updated and helps pupils and teacher needs in classroom.
School Websites
We develop school websites, academic and financial management systems for schools around the country.
Bulk SMS
We provide institutions with a channel of communication through bulk SMS to improve communication to stakeholders.