Introducing West Africa Open Education Platform (WAOEduP)

Our mission is to leverage open technology solutions to provide free and quality education to everyone in West Africa, starting with Sierra Leone

What is the Initiative about?

The West Africa Open Education Platform is a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform for teachers and students in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gambia, Ghana, and Nigeria. Trained and qualified teachers in Sierra Leone use the platform to publish West African Examinations Council curriculum-based course content. Students in West Africa use the platform to learn and collaborate with their peers and facilitators. Students are able to test their knowledge using cognitive simulation exams, using West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE), Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), and National Primary School Examination (NPSE) past questions for the years 2000 to 2019. We believe the content can be used by any student in West Africa who has to sit for one or more of these exams.

What is our Vision?

We imagine a Sierra Leone were

• The literacy rate for all people aged 10 and above is 99%.
• The unemployment rate is below 2%.
• No child is born at risk of ending up on the street.
• Women have the same access to education as men
• Citizens are equipped with the knowledge and understanding of how to contain and prevent diseases.
• More than 60% of its citizens use technology for learning, working, and entertainment

What will the final platform look like after the pilot?

A learning platform to create, manage, publish and distribute quality open educational resources in digital formats (video, audio, HTML, SCORM and ebooks) with or without electricity grid and internet connection using smart networked solutions and renewable energy that does not require citizens to have an active high-speed internet connection or electricity supplied from the national or community grid.

Citizens will receive free and quality education daily from the comfort of their homes, community centres or in school. They choose their learning paths, track their progress, practice what has been studied, compete, collaborate, and receive badges when they complete a series of courses and practice exams and receive a certificate of completion.

What is the Current Status of the Effort?

The platform has been developed and is available today at https://mooc.edu.sl

• We have purchased WASSCE/BECE/NPSE past papers from 2000 to 2019 and currently digitizing them for upload into the platform.
• We have created the structure of the various subjects in the platform for online learning.
• We are hiring teachers who will start working on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020.
• We plan to officially launch the pilot of the platform on July 1st, 2020 so that NPSE students can start using it right away, our team is working diligently to get it out quickly.

Where do I find more information?

• Visit http://waoedup.org/ to learn more about the initiative
• Visit https://mooc.edu.sl/ to sign up and get ready to start using the platform on July 1st, 2020
• Visit https://bit.ly/waoedup-donation to support the initiative with a donation
• Visit https://bit.ly/demo-video-mobile to view a mobile demonstration of the platform
• Visit https://bit.ly/demo-video-desktop to view a desktop demonstration of the platform

How can you help?

• Visit https://bit.ly/waoedup-donation or http://waoedup.org/donate to support the initiative with an online donation. We use the donations to pay the salaries of teachers and give stipend to volunteers
• You can also use CashApp with the tag $waoedup or phone numbers +1 (646) 478 7317 or +1 (917) 623 4281.
  If you are in Sierra Leone
• You can donate using +232 (76) 617550 with Orange Money.
  You can deposit money into our UBA account # 540310030001481, Account Name: TpISENT (SL) Limited or write a cheque to TpISENT (SL) Limited and call Mr. Mohamed A. Jalloh at +232 (79) 408180
• Raise awareness about digital learning platforms and like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/waoedup
• Co-sponsor the initiative so that we can involve as many qualified teachers as possible.
• Refer us or collaborate with us to raise funds to take it to the next level (i.e. create the free full-blown open digital course content for all WASSCE, BECE and NPSE subjects)
• Volunteer to create and publish content
• Volunteer to validate answers to past questions and provide detailed solutions in the form of short two (2) to three (5) minutes videos

Any other way you think you can help bring this initiative to life.

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