Previously, a typical lesson in a Malawi classroom consisted of a teacher writing the lesson onto a poorly maintained blackboard with a class size of up to 150 children and perhaps one or two textbooks available for a whole class.
As an English teacher, for example – can you imagine the time taken to write and rewrite chapters of books and plays onto the blackboard so that every student can see?
As a maths teacher – how hard is it to explain algebra or geometry without suitable resources?
We developed a Whole Class Teaching Kit, which consists of a solar powered LED projector and android tablet containing the entire Malawi junior and secondary curriculum, provided by Malawi teachers.
There are approximately 20,000 pages of lessons and notes stored on the tablets and the kit means the lessons are available at the touch of a button and the can be projected onto a wall so that all of the children can both see and hear the lesson.
Each kit costs in the region of £800.
These kits can be supplied as either electric or solar powered as, although many schools in Malawi don’t have electricity, there are some schools with a suitable power supply.
We monitor the Whole Class Teaching Kit project through monthly reports sent by WhatsApp by each head teacher. There has been a direct correlation between the introduction of kits into the schools and an increase in attendance figure of students. There has also been a direct correlation between the introduction of kits placed in schools and exam results.
In one school’s case, pass rates increased from 27% to 65% in the first year.
