Our approach is simple and straightforward. We believe that the teacher remains central to all the learning taking place in the classroom, and so that is where we start.
In our view, creating 21st century teaching and classrooms in African schools require close collaboration between teachers, students, parents, educators, school administrators and Afrelib.
Our work starts by collaborating with teachers and expands out to include students, parents, industry, publishers and various other stakeholders. Our joined-up approach is in order to empower teachers with the right tools, collate the best educational resources, curate relevant learning programs and facilitate easy access to both teachers and students. We describe this approach as the Afrelib Community Environment. A community of different disciplines working together to create 21st century teaching and classrooms in Africa.
Some of the challenges being addressed by this approach are:
- Teacher effectiveness – lack of adequate support and training for teachers to create and deliver lessons in classrooms fit for the demands of a 21st century knowledge economy
- Student engagement – loss of confidence by students and parents that the current education system can make a real difference to their life choices after graduation
- Infrastructure – lack of reliable power supply, internet connectivity and accessible tools/technology limits ability to scale education solutions
- Cost – prohibitive cost of non-local resources making it difficult to quantify return on investment
The Afrelib approach has been designed to tackle these challenges and deliver measurable impacts in education.