NIGERIA – Edves, a Nigerian ed-tech startup is in the process of raising a US$500,000 seed funding even as it continues to expand operations across Africa.
The startup founded in in 2016 by Dimeji Falana and Dare Adebayo, is an academic portal that automates operations in schools and colleges from admission to transcript generation.
The platform improves the quality of learning by reducing teacher and administrator workload and gives them opportunities to mark attendance and prepare classroom lessons using AI algorithms.
Prior to the adoption of the Edves software, 70% teachers in the schools which have now adopted the program used to waste a lot of time in time doing paperwork that could be automated. Doing a student report can take up to 2 weeks.
With Edves, teachers have more time preparing for classes and teaching than ever before, a factor that positively impacts the quality of education in schools.
Edves, which recently took part in the global MindCET Go accelerator programme, is currently active in almost 600 schools across Nigeria and Ghana, and is planning further expansion.
The startup according to its chief executive officer (CEO) and co-founder Dimeji Falana was among the most used ed-tech platform in Nigeria during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Dimeji further revealed that the startup had plans to expand into 10 other African countries and was focused on acquiring schools in the regions where it planned to set up shop.
Years of perennial under-funding of education has seen infrastructure upgrade while teaching standards and quality continue to fall short, especially at government-owned schools.
Ed-tech startups such as Edves are however coming up with innovative solutions to try and meet the demand for quality education which according to Sim Shagaya- an ed-tech expert- is huge in Nigeria.
Over the last decade digital innovators and entrepreneurs have launched startups that address a number of shortcomings in Nigeria’s education sector.
PrepClass for instance operates as a a martketplace for connecting after-school tutors to learners while PassNowNow allows users access high school class notes for several subjects and past exam questions for a fee.
Gradely, another recently launched startup, addresses the challenges of lack of content in popular learning sites such as Google Classroom and Zoom, opting to offer learners learning materials.
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