When he was pursuing his university studies in Creative Design, Emmanuel Mutabazi took up a part job teaching and training arts and crafts at Gisozi vocational where he discovered there was a shortage of teaching aids in the nursery, primary schools as well as other higher education institutions. That’s what inspired him to implement an idea he had harboured ever since he was a University school student of disseminating quality learning material and teaching aids materials on a platform accessible to all students he dubbed ‘Mutware educate’. The platform that he envisaged would also introduce students to “a digital learning system’’ and connect students across the country to exchange knowledge through visuals and ease the challenges that teachers would go through while looking for teaching aids. Mutware educate is a youth-led organization in the education sector with both software and hardware by providing digital content including teaching aids and manuals through their education platform where they work hand in hand with Rwanda Education Board (REB) to follow the same curriculum for local schools programs. Mutabazi who is currently the CEO and founder of Mutware educate which was launched officially in 2019 explained how their platform works, “Since August 2019, Mutware Educate started working officially to boost education from traditional to digital learning by providing an education platform with curriculum-based engaging contents,’’ he says. “Mutware Educate has been able to make good progress, and we are working hard to go higher. We strive to empower generations with quality education,’’ He told Doing Business. He added that they have been able to reach their beneficiaries, and currently they have over 25 schools across the country districts including Huye, Musanze, and Kigali to benefit from the “ Mutware Kid” project. They aim to reach many schools by empowering them with quality education. How it started After attending the ENDP training program, Mutabazi with his two friends Delice Rutayisire and Patrick Amizero, revealed that many children enjoy playing while learning and this made them think of a way students can use toys and video games but in a learning way. “Many children who are under seven years of age need to build, discover, but primarily interact with materials and engaging contents,’’ Mutabazi highlights. He also noted that based on the report by REB in 2018, 21% of digital illiteracy of school children and 85% of parents and teachers lack both materials and time to assist their children at home but particularly at school they lack teaching aids and the platform aims at the transition from traditional to digital learning. They came up with the idea and it was appreciated by REB and supported by different initiatives including African Development Bank Group (AFDB, Ministry of Youth and Culture, Incubation program Rwanda, University of Rwanda, and KOAFEC. Rutayisire, co-founder of Mutware educate continues to explain, “it was a very long journey, we started with many challenges but we decided not to give up. We started drawing sketches on papers, we continued using chalks on a blackboard and later to 3D animations, the journey is still on as our objective is to digitize our platform so that it can be accessible to all local schools.” How it works Currently, the platform has developed into a team of 19, including 12 youth volunteers, and eight staff members. According to Mutabazi the team first research before doing any content, their contents are always based on a curriculum of REB, as it is where they submit after finalising it, after being approved by REB, the supplementary video content with translated curriculums into video games and songs are given to teachers whereby they teach would play the video and children follows afterward and this helps both students and teachers. The founder revealed that for now, they have implemented educational toys and 3D videos for only nursery schools. Adding that they started receiving positive feedback from school teachers, in addition to that children enjoy learning while playing and it makes it easier for them to learn through their platform. He added that currently, they are doing research on secondary and higher institutions contents which they will implement soon. editor@newtimesrwanda.com
