Darasa, an edtech platform developed to make education easier by simplifying the assessment process for teachers, grading work done by students automatically, and providing valuable insights for teachers, students, and parents is partnering with tablet manufacturers to distribute education tablets to schools to simplify education.
“We are partnering with tablet companies that supply education tablets to schools to make accessibility of our app easier,” said Brian Gachare, Darasa App co-founder and CEO. “Yes, we plan to expand to other curricula, like Cambridge and even go beyond Kenya and onboard other countries to use Darasa as their preferred assessment option.”
Tailored to meet the needs of Kenyan CBC and 8-4-4 curricula, bridging the gap between traditional learning and modern digital education, the platform works simply. Teachers create and assign assessments organized by strands and sub-strands to catering to individual student needs and learning styles ensuring improved student outcomes.
Students then take assessments directly on the platform and receive immediate feedback including detailed explanations of questions attempted. The system auto-grades assessments and delivers data-driven analytics with valuable insights on student performance and CBC-aligned psychometric insights. Parents, on the other hand get knowledge about their child’s progress through performance reports and insights, creating better involvement in the whole learning process.
Speaking to TechMoran, Brian Gachare, co-founder and CEO Darasa said the platform was inspired by the need to solve learner and parent needs during the pandemic.
“Darasa means “Class” in Swahili. It was born out of a passion to educate,” he said. “We started Darasa in the heart of 2020 COVID pandemic with a goal of impacting learners across Africa. With learners at home, and with little or no access to learning resources, we built an E-learning platform so that our children could access good quality enhancing content. We build a platform that would be relevant even after the pandemic.”
In their previous interactions with teachers, one of the things Brian and his team noticed was how they struggled in acquiring quality exams, struggle to quickly access and assess student understanding, provide personalized feedback, and make data-driven decisions.
“Current assessment methods are often time-consuming, subjective, and lack the insights needed to truly optimize learning. With a lot to read, learners need a leveled ground with personalized insights to help them improve their grades,” Gachare told TechMoran.
The Africa e-learning market size reached US$ 3.1 Billion in 2023 and the market is expected to reach US$ 7.2 Billion by 2032, a 9.9% during 2023-2032 due to rapid digitization, increasing sales of smart devices like smartphones, tablets, and laptops, and rising penetration of high-speed internet connectivity among other major factors.
However, Kenya is only partially ready for e-learning. In addition, full adoption requires improvement in infrastructure, Internet access, training of teachers, and inclusive digital policies. Probably, the most feasible approach at this point is a blended learning model: mixing online and offline methods of learning.
Other challenges include access to multi-format digital content, lack of technical skills is in both teachers and instructors in Kenya, lack both infrastructure and resources to replace conventional learning with elearning in the near future but Darasa.app’s unique value proposition lies in its extensive collection of curriculum-aligned questions, particularly its repository of over 100,000 questions spanning both the 8-4-4 and CBC systems. This specialization makes it a valuable tool for educators seeking to create customized assessments that align with national educational standards.
At the moment, Darasa is pushing to sign up more teachers and students and help them adopt use of technology instead of the traditional teaching methods. Darasa.app is positioning itself as a leader by aligning solutions that empower schools, teachers, and students to deliver unparalleled value to the education ecosystem.
The EdTech industry is rapidly evolving, driven by technological advances and changing learner, educator, and institutional needs. Darasa.app is interviewing teachers from its user base after realizing how teachers struggle to quickly access and assess students.
“Due to the amount of time taken to create just one assessment, understanding student needs, provide personalized feedback, and make data-driven decisions. We made it our mission to make assessment creation easier and offer insights on student performance to help teachers concentrate on the learning needs of each student,” Gachare told TechMoran.
Darasa delivers data-driven analytics with valuable insights on student performance and CBC-aligned psychometric insights, catering to individual student needs and learning styles. With over 100k questions in its database, private learners are able to practice and assess their understanding in diverse subjects and topics within the Kenyan CBC and 8.4.4 curricula. With the use of resources available on Darasa.app, private learners in Kenya will have greater capability in learning and with confidence understanding concepts and improving performance in private classes and exams.
Part of Darasa’s future enhancements is to get teachers to give live lessons to their students in the system and Darasa is currently visiting schools and pitching to teachers and school directors about the app, explaining how it will benefit them. Thea team is also doing a lot of activations at various education events to continue building awareness about Darasa’s products and services.
Even in the age of Social media and AI, Darasa is engaging its audience, spreading awareness, and receiving feedback. AI is helping it personalized learning experience and making the platform more efficient and user-friendly.
