Can This Startup Turn Zimbabwean Classrooms Into Smart Class Rooms?

Farai Mudzingwa Avatar

Away from the technicalities, technology is just amazing because it allows us to do things we couldn’t do or things we had to exert absurd amounts of effort in a single click. Yes, the phrase smart this or smart that has been abused and cheapened but technology really has revolutionised efficiency.

The Zimbabwean classroom is yet to undergo this revolution and I think this somewhat represents a problem. In most schools pen and paper is still king and it will be a few years before we actually see a (widespread) difference in the way teaching is conducted across the country.

Somesha is a local startup that is taking the problem by the scruff of its neck and proposing their own solution to make education smarter. Somesha is a software platform that allows schools and parents to track the academic progress of their child from anywhere. The goal is to “provide schools with an all in one edutainment system to implement digital learning”.

The platform can track a school’s classes, teachers, students, invoices, news and events, and communication. The software is a top-to-bottom solution that tries to track every single little thing that the school needs to track.

Academics

In the academics section, you (parent/teacher) can track a number of variables including class schedules, student/staff attendance, school library, assignments, and exam dates among other features. This means the parent has a greater view of what their children are up to in class and if ever there is a problem you are a few clicks away from being alerted.

Administration & Accountancy

There are invoice sections that can show whether or not a student is paid up or not. A school can also log in the details of information such as hostels, transportation. Really the key focus is on integration, so the application tries to link every administrative task or

Communications

There is also a hub for communications that will handle communications between the school and the parents/students/teachers.

We just tested out the front-facing end and we can’t give testament to how this will actually run once schools have actually started using the service in real-life. The demo, however, was quite impressive and I was really chuffed by the way the platform goes a long way to integrate and create one ecosystem that brings together everyone involved in the education process from the kids to the administration.

On their website, Somesha has also made it known that their software has already begun getting adoption from schools around the country and I’m not too surprised by that…

Also read, Your Child Is Writing O Level This Year, Here’s A Tool To Help Them With Math And Science Subjects

3 comments

  1. Timothy Shava

    Great platform, our organisation is interested in you giving access to schools where you can implement and role out your platform. Read to know more about us

    https://263chat.com/e-learning-technologies-launch-websites-for-government-schools/

    However there are things that you need to factor in to enable the success of the project and you need to address these problems.

    https://www.techzim.co.zw/2015/09/the-5-reasons-why-e-learning-startups-in-zimbabwe-do-not-succeed/

    From my experience the biggest problem is lack of teacher computer literacy. The project success is going to be determined by the computer literacy of the teachers and the school administration.

  2. Herzilet Dube

    I would like to be part of this system, I am based in South Africa and have a number of schools that I work with. Please may you link me up with Somesha, I tried the link but none of their weblink seem to be active including the contact page

    1. Mod

      Thanks for reaching out, have also fixed the site links.

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