Innovations in Platform-Led Upskilling: Chalkboard Education
By consultant
Easy-to-Access Education on Demand with Chalkboard Education
Chalkboard Education is a comprehensive e-learning platform that collaborates with non-governmental organizations and higher education institutions to provide training and learning support to over 12,000 users in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Rwanda, and Uganda. Over 40% of their users engage with content on the platform on a monthly basis. The platform has three elements that make it an adaptable training solution to help fill skill gaps:
-
Organizations can manage content, track key cohorts and individual metrics, and export data easily for reporting.
-
The app can be used on almost any internet-enabled device with a screen.
-
It has staff who are experts in transforming existing face-to-face training materials into effective mobile training.
Chalkboard Education’s Impact
In Ghana, Chalkboard Education has supported the training of over 9,000 primary school teachers across the country by digitizing the curricula. Trainees who were previously required to travel to Kumasi for training can now pursue their learning from their teaching posts in rural areas. In Côte d’Ivoire, Chalkboard Education partnered with an NGO to provide an innovative way to train field workers on child labor prevention and safeguarding. Approximately 98% of the NGO staff has accessed the training.
COVID-19 Helped Shift Attitudes Toward Mobile-Based Training
“Before COVID-19, Chalkboard Education faced a tremendous mindset challenge because people could not understand the concept of learning on the phone. Now, people are more interested in exploring the app, especially older people”.Genevieve Simiyu, Chalkboard Education Ghana Country Manager
Chalkboard Education has received more interest in its offering since the outbreak of COVID-19. The pandemic opened up opportunities for grants and fundraising. Unfortunately, it also lost one education client because of school closures resulting in reduced cash flow.
Next Steps for Chalkboard Education
Chalkboard Education would like to become the go-to tool for teaching and learning. Demand for the app is high and they are looking for funding and expertise to support expansion, including instructional designers who can develop content suitable for various online audiences. The organization currently finds it challenging to recruit content developers with this expertise. It is also working to grow its software developer base by recruiting students straight from university.
.png)
How Chalkboard Education Can Support Platforms with Upskilling
As an off-the-shelf solution that does not require stable internet access or much phone space, the Chalkboard app is ideal for affordable data-enabled phones and geographically distributed trainees. Partners can import or create their training content with the support of Chalkboard Education’s instructional design experts. They can also track trainees’ activity and other engagement KPIs. Although Chalkboard Education does not have any platform clients at the moment, solutions such as this could be compelling options for providing training to platform workers and sellers.