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Educo Apps

Leading Foundational Research and Design for Caribbean
e-Learning App

Services Research, Design

The Challenge

• Creating a complete consumer experience that would enable L’Oreal Men Expert to improve brand equity with millennials
• Developing an innovative product and service that did not exist in the L’Oreal Men Expert Portfolio
• Launching a fully integrated marketing campaign focused on established strong, long term relationships with the consumer.

The Solution

We started by creating a research roadmap capturing our hypotheses and key questions. We then set up several stakeholder interviews with a range of teachers and students to validate our assumptions.

We reviewed 100+ studies, articles, and data sets to create a master report that included:

 

  • Research on Caribbean education
  • Student exam performance over the last 20 years
  • Research on the effectiveness of online learning
  • Competitive research (local and global)
  • Customer segments and value prop design
  • Business model design
  • Pricing strategy

Customer Profiles

Once we adjusted our research roadmap based on stakeholder feedback, we created a customer profile to guide our research and design efforts.
Customer #1: The CSEC Student (Secondary School Success)

High school students who are struggling to learn or want to do well on the CXC
examination

Demographics

  • Grade Level: 4th – 6th form (10th – 12th grade)
  • @ Age:15 -18 years old
  • Location: 16 CARICOM countries

Their Challenges

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Market Research

Now that we understood who the target customer was, the goal was to validate whether these issues were prevalent across the market..
The Extra Lessons Market is Vulnerable for Disruption

Extra Lessons are limited by time and space

Students need to be physically present with teachers, which can be inconvenient or hard to coordinate

There’s a shortage of qualified teachers

With few teachers and limited capacity, it’s hard to find the help you need

Classrooms are overcrowded

Extra lessons happen in groups, which makes it hard to get individual attention

Extra Lessons are too Expensive

Students pay hourly rates which makes it hard to get help across several subjects

There is widespread and consistent demand for education services

90%

Of students enroll in afterscholl education (Extra Lessons)

2.4x

More students enroll in after school education than the international average

54%

Of students are actively searching for study materials and resources online

$550 Million USD

Total Market Size ( Yearly )

There are favorable conditions for distribution across the Caribbean

67%

People with Internet Access

World Bank1

2.4x

Mobile broadband penetration

ITU2

54%

Students searching for online test prep

Google3

Source : 1. World Bank, 2.International Telecommunications Union, 3.Google Search Volume

Access to Quality Teachers

The first pain point we found was that students lack access to quality teachers. 89% of Math teachers in High Schools ARE NOT qualified to teach high school math, meaning they DO NOT have Bachelor’s degrees. As a result, many students are never given the opportunity to learn.

There is a shortage of qualified teachers

89%

Of High School Math Teachers are not fully qualified

-Ministry of Education

“Many teachers lack interest, care, and qualifications. We are not cultured to provide targeted attention and support for our students”

  • Jamaican Minister of Education
“There’s a nationwide shortage of mathematics and science teachers in particular. The quality of teaching in our schools is one of the reasons students seek extra help”

  • Jamaican Minister Observer

Resources

The second pain point is that students don’t have the resources they need to prepare. The National Inspectorate reports that 69% of Jamaican youth said that lack of resources is a factor hindering their education. There’s no effective way to review class lectures outside of class.

When it comes to CXC, students have to first find mock exams online or from a friend. Then they have to print out the exams, then fill them out. Then go back online and manually check their results. And then they have to sit there and figure out what they did wrong and how to improve.

The biggest problem is that past papers are hard to find, and it takes a lot of effort to complete them and track your results. And if you get a question wrong, there’s no way to know why.

And many students are forced to share their past papers and as a result don’t get enough time to practice.

All of this makes things incredibly difficult for even the top students, and with SATs it’s even worse because there’s so little information available.

Schools are not preparing students to succed

55%

Say education is the most important issue facing children

69%

Claim lack of resources is a barrier to their education

79%

Underperforming in English/Math in National Inspection

Individualized Attention

The 3rd pain point we found was that students are not getting the individualized attention they need. In 2015, the Minister of Education said that disproportionate class sizes and constant pressures to rush through the syllabus is a major roadblock for students. He said that even in a class of 40, teachers are forced to move on even if only 1 or 2 students grasps the concept.

Competitive Audit

We emerged from our market research with 3 key questions:

How could we provide students with access to quality education, without an adequate supply of qualified teachers?
How can we make it as easy as possible for students to prepare for their exams effectively?
How could we make everyone feel like they had a personal tutor in their pocket?

User Experience
Design

Upon concluding our research, the team aligned that the goal was to transform traditional education by removing the barriers of cost, location, access, and helping students learn on their own terms
Students needed a well designed product that is engaging, easy to use, and allows the student to focus completely on learning. They needed one single destination where students can go to find everything they need to prepare for finishing high school and preparing for college.
Designed Product to Address Key Pain Points

Pain Point

  • Classes are overcrowded
  • Shortage of teachers
  • Lack of resources
  • Students have different learning needs
  • Extra lessons are expensive

Our Solution

  • Self Paced online learning system
  • Video lessons taught by expert teachers in every subject
  • Interactive online coursework thousands of online practice questions
  • Personalization based on student needs | track & analyze students activity and progress
  • Affordable monthly subscription

Full syllabus of video lessons that cover the full syllabus for the most popular and difficult CXC subjects

Students don’t have to buy a book of practice tests for each subject. Or worry about finding past papers, or borrowing old past papers from another student, spending hours trying to take the test, grade themselves, and figuring out where they went wrong.
Students will get every single past paper for every single subject at the touch of a button for a fraction of the cost, be able to complete them online, and have them graded automatically.

Every past paper from the last 15 years in an interactive online format

Students don’t have to buy a book of practice tests for each subject. Or worry about finding past papers, or borrowing old past papers from another student, spending hours trying to take the test, grade themselves, and figuring out where they went wrong.

Students will get every single past paper for every single subject at the touch of a button for a fraction of the cost, be able to complete them online, and have them graded automatically.

A way for parents and students to track their progress and performance

Students can see their grades and progress at the touch of a button. A personalized dashboard will give students study recommendations based on their individual needs.

Instead of paying an arm and a leg to get a private tutor, students now have a system that provides instant feedback on what you did wrong, why, and what you need to review.

Interactive features that allow students to get support from peers and teachers

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