Whiz Kids Workshop: What we have learned so far about scaling our education innovation
by Tihitina Woldetensae, Business Development Officer, Whiz Kids Workshop
Whiz Kids Workshop (WKW), founded in 2005, is an Ethiopian, woman-led, indigenous social enterprise with a mission to improve the lives of Ethiopian children and youth through cost-effective, age-appropriate and culturally relevant educational media. WKW implements four local innovative and tested solutions with educational content from pregnancy to early childhood, to early adolescence and youth.
To effectively mobilise and acquire behavioural change at scale, WKW works across Ethiopia in six regions and produces content in seven local languages. WKW works with regional education bureaus and hundreds of schools, as well as partnering with 25 national, regional and community television and radio broadcasters and Ethio Telecom to exchange useful information, mobilise community and promote wellbeing for children and youth. WKW has also signed a 3-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Healthin Ethiopia.
We believe that mass media is a cost-effective and immediate way to spark young imaginations and positively impact education. Using existing research on mass-media education, novel lower-cost technologies for media creation and the wide reach of television, radio, print and cell phones, WKW puts this belief into practice. Our content covers comprehensive topics including literacy, health education, character building, social-emotional learning, gender equality, and disability inclusion to prepare children and youth for a successful life.
WKW’s Tsehai Loves Learning (targeting age 3–10) — the innovation we are focusing on within the HEA — is the longest-running early childhood educational show in Ethiopia, nationally broadcasting on television and radio, reaching over 5,000,000 children every week.
Our Scaling Journey so far
Production scale:
- In our first season, we produced only four episodes of Tsehai Loves Learning; we now have the capacity to produce 39 episodes annually. To date, we have completed a total of 150 episodes.
- Starting with our first educational TV series, Tsehai Loves Learning, we scaled production to four distinctly different educational shows for children and families starting from pre-pregnancy to young adults. Our latest one, Tibeb Girls geared to 10–15-year-olds is the first animated Pan-African series telling the story of three adolescent, superhero girls fearlessly problem-solving real-life challenges girls face, such as forced child marriage, FGM and overwhelming, obligatory, domestic chores that block their chances to succeed in school. Tibeb Girls is currently under production and will be broadcast on TV and mobile devices in 12 languages across 10 countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Uganda, DRC, Nigeria, Côted’ivoire, Sudan and Mozambique, reaching an estimated 50 million young Africans.
- Beginning with the production of five levelled full colour children’s books in one language, we then scaled to seven mother tongue languages and our production total to date is 546 titles in multiple languages.
Intervention scale:
Having started with the mini-scale Tsehai Library pilot project in six classrooms in 2016, WKW has successfully scaled to 338 classroom libraries, partnering with Rotary Club of Addis Ababa West, and to 410 school interventions in two regions and three cities, with the support of USAID, reaching over 200,000 children and 10,000 parents.
Systemic Scale:
Our independently produced educational books and videos have been endorsed by the Ministry of Education and integrated as part of daily lesson plans to be used in all schools in Addis Ababa and Amhara Region. Another systemic scale is making the Tsehai Loves Learning Programme a multi-sectoral and inter-ministerial approach for a better return in human capital development. Based on the impact we are having, the Ministry of Education and the Federal Ministry of Health, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to scale our intervention in four thousand schools across the country. Joining this effort, we are working towards partnering with the Ministry of Women and Children and the Ministry of Peace.
Key Learnings from the HEA
Tsehai Loves Learning started its scaling journey when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in the middle of the previous academic year. Schools were unprepared for the emergency and the only distance education alternative for children aged 3–10 in Ethiopia was Tsehai Loves Learning. Hence, we scaled Tsehai Loves Learning from one language production to six more local languages and expanded our broadcasting partnership to reach an estimated 7 million children every week.
While we managed to improve our process of production and partnership, a challenge still exists to build a strong evidence base on the impact of broadcasting, to extend our intervention to unreached areas and emergency settings. We, therefore, were looking for resource partners to strengthen our internal monitoring and evaluation unit and measure the impact of our innovation. At that time, HEA came into our life, and we were shortlisted to first be part of the HEA Scaling Bootcamp with 12 other finalists, after which we were selected for HEA Stage 2, as one of 5 teams given targeted training and experience sharing on how to scale education innovations in humanitarian settings. The following are some key learnings that we acquired during the HEA Scaling Bootcamp and Stage 2 capacity building:
- Looking deeper into our scaling pathway
There is growing evidence that scaling up impactful educational innovations improves children’s learning outcomes. With this in mind, we are committed to turn our insights into successful executions that include, but not limited to strategic planning and management of the scaling process, as well as the following:
Selection of type of scaling to pursue — Our major aim of scaling up is not merely to expand the use of our educational innovation, but to improve children’s learning outcomes. The HEA Bootcamp opened our eyes wider to different approaches of a guided scale up process to help meet our goals. For example, incorporating relevant elements of a scaling framework into operational strategies through sustained engagement of governments and other stakeholders would allow us to scale up our intervention to humanitarian settings.
Mobilisation of resources for scaling — Designing and implementing a scaling strategy requires the availability of adequate resources. Identifying the costs of the scaling process and ensuring the resources are in place for expanding the innovation to new geographical sites, for efforts to institutionalise the innovation is vital.
2. Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning
The value and feasibility of scaling our model, producing data on its impact and cost-effectiveness of the model and establishing the demand for its applicability outside the pilot area — all require evidence. In our case, the HEA Bootcamp and Stage 2 training helped us understand how to monitor the process of scaling our innovation, which is already underway, even if the scale-up is not initially well-monitored. The importance of a planned scaling process accompanied by strong M&E was underscored in the HEA Bootcamp in a number of ways, including the need to:
- Understand key considerations for monitoring the scaling process in simple and practical terms, such as guidance on how to plan for, gather, analyse, and use data;
- Identify possible criteria for systematically reviewing our practices currently being brought to scale;
- Identify which areas to focus on monitoring efforts around long-term sustainability;
- Acknowledge the importance of involving stakeholders in the M&E process and providing timely and reliable data of evidence-based indicators of the progress at different levels of implementation, which would greatly enhance ownership by stakeholders;
- Build the resource team capacity to strengthen internal monitoring, evaluation and learning processes for successful scale up of the innovation.
What next?
Following the HEA Bootcamp and Stage 2 capacity building, WK’s innovation team came together and designed the frameworks and approaches that address the different dimensions of scaling, highlighting the relevant models that should be implemented to ensure effective scale-up in different contexts. Inspired by the training, the team continues to expand their knowledge of factors that lead to successful scale-up of Tsehai Loves Learning in the target African countries.
In the coming few years, WKW will continue to scale Tsehai Loves Learning and support 15 million children who are not getting quality early childhood education across 10 African countries as a curriculum aligned, play based, educational mass-media and e-learning approach with the support of resources from the Ministry of Education, Developmental Partners, Telecom Providers and other financial initiatives.
