Kidato (Visit Website)
Location: Kenya
Sector: Edutech

Do you remember your schooling days? I bet for everyone here school is the most memorable place in our lives. It holds some of the very first most beautiful and equally terrible experiences we ever had. It is the place where we met our first friends, lovers, bullies, careers and the most embarrassing moments of our lives. I don’t know about you, but I really loved school, I loved learning new things and was very curious. I would really look forward to the next science or social studies lessons. The only problem I experienced during my early schooling days was a lack of flexibility. Transitioning from holidays to schooling mode was really hard. It would take me the whole first week before getting back the momentum. I’m sure you also somehow relate with this right?
If you do, I have news for you! We’ve found a way around this and your ward does not have to go through the same struggle again. Yeah! You heard me right. Kidato, a live online learning academic and after school class, offers interactive learning programs for kids aged 4 to 18 years old. Their programs are fun, interactive and diverse, which include chess, art, music, languages and coding. Therefore, with Kidato your kids will not come from school for holidays and lose the learning momentum anymore.

So, who is Kidato?
With the vision to offer home-learning programs across the country and other African countries like Nigeria and South Africa, Sam Gichuru founded Kidato.Inc on 26th April 2020. Kidato learning platform focused on students who are enrolled for K12 education in Africa. The aim is to offer affordable and efficient learning opportunities for students, at a 5:1 ratio as opposed to the usual 50:1 ratio in public schools.
“Education is really disjointed and expensive in Africa, I see an opportunity to change that by streamlining it and making it affordable.”
Sam Gihuru CEO and Founder Kidato.Inc.
Kidato Learning
To solve the problem of overcrowding in public schools and overly expensive private schools, homeschooling is usually the best alternative for most parents. However, when Covid-19 hit in March 2020, physical interactions were limited to immediate family members only and there were strict hygiene protocols to be observed. Thus, homeschooling became an issue and that was when zoom became popular. Therefore, for parents who had already joined the homeschooling program, using zoom was easy to adapt and their kids continued to learn. That was how Kidato was discovered as Sam had his kid’s home school tutor upgrade from usual home-schooling to zoom classes.
The platform grew from Sam’s three kids to ten which included other neighbouring kids. In January 2021 they had enrolled more than 30 kids. As mentioned earlier, Kidato offers both academic and after class learning programs. The after class programs include debate, chess, art, coding, robotics and music. Today, the after-class program has 700+ registered students across African countries. These countries include Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and other countries like Canada, UK and UAE, where students pay $5per lesson. In both programs, students are in groups of 6-8, which are directed and monitored by one tutor. The tutor is usually someone who is experienced and certified in that particular field that the students are learning. The platform also offers an international learning curriculum with smaller personalized learning at a ratio of 1:5.

Post-pandemic Kidato
I know you are probably wondering since the platform launched during the pandemic period, what will happen to the post-pandemic Kidato?
Sam is assuring us that he got us covered and he is fully prepared for the post-pandemic Kidato. Well, we all witnessed the closing of school last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Today, most of these schools are still in the recovery period and they are doing so by having increased school fee charges, high student enrollment and no increase or promise to raise teacher’s numbers and wages. Thus, Kidato is changing this narrative by having reduced enrollment fees, good wages for the teachers that are 1.5 more than the usual teacher gets paid for. Also, the platform is working towards having more interactive learning where students will now be able to participate in organized Educational field trips.
To wrap it up, Techtrend Africa believes kidato is the future of education in Africa. The world today is experiencing a digital migration and everything from manufacturing products to farming is being digitized. Platforms like Kidato are preparing us for this transition and we better be prepared to embrace the change.
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