In the latest episode of Marketplace Africa, CNN speaks with CEO and Founder of The uLesson Group and the Chancellor of Miva Open University, Sim Shagaya, about the development and growth of his company.
Shagaya tells CNN about how the thesis of uLessons marries digital technology and education to bring quality education to as wide a population as possible, “The uLesson group serves two primary segments. We have a basic educational division, which is uLesson, and that serves primary and secondary school students across West Africa. And then we have a tertiary division, and that’s the Miva University Division, and that serves currently 25,000 students across 70 countries around the world.”
He explains how his previous experiences helped build this one, “This massive digitisation of the world’s economy and Africa is no exception. In fact, Africa is leaning ahead more than other places. And so, I found that as I’ve built different things, it has always surprised me the willingness of these young people to kind of just gather around a vision and to support that vision and to build something that is bigger than their individual selves.”
He continues on how the students embrace this community and are positioned to thrive within it, “They’re building this very strong sense of community that will continue even after they graduate. Related to that also is that while we build really good technology and we’ve attempted to sort of build best-in-class technology stacks, we know that a human being’s dreams and aspirations will not be realised strictly from looking at a browser or from looking at text or PDF documents. And so, one of the biggest things is attaching what we call success advisors to every student. So this is your coach, this is your mentor, this is your cheerleader, and these are generally people that have performed very well in tertiary institutions themselves, and they understand what you are struggling with academically.”
Shagaya ends by looking at the future of The uLesson Group, “We are looking to offer our tertiary services in even more countries, so we’re pursuing a licence right now in Kenya. So, we want to take these to other parts of the continent.”
