Zimbabwean ed-tech startup Somesha is reporting significant uptake of its school management platform, which only came out of beta in August.
Formed last year, Somesha provides schools with an all-in-one edutainment system that provides them with the tools they need to successfully manage their institutions in a centralised, paperless manner.
Designed to work with limited or no bandwidth, it comes complete with reporting tools for administrators, a batch of communication and notification options, and sizeable data storage, meaning the platform can be used for everything from planning extra-curricular activities to accessing student information.
Chief technology officer Modality Maphosa told Disrupt Africa Somesha, which launched in close beta with a handful of schools last September, had opened to the public in August and already had more than 10,000 users in eight schools.
“We are very confident that by year-end we should be well over 20 schools,” he said.
The idea for Somesha came about after the team realised there was a lack of mainstream school management systems available in Zimbabwe.
“The majority of the options on the market were expensive, clunky, poorly designed and not fit for the African market, especially where there are challenges with internet connection,” Maphosa said.
“We realised that most schools are still using traditional education systems, which are outdated and out of touch with 21st century challenges. All the activities are carried out manually, teachers have to maintain all the chapter contents to be taught in the class on paper, attendance records are maintained in register books.”
Somesha, which is currently self-funded, addresses this, and has proven popular as a result. Maphosa said it has plans to expand to other Sub-Saharan African countries once it reaches at least 100 schools in Zimbabwe. The startup has a simple pricing structure that charges schools per month, with all features available to all users.
“The biggest difficulty that we have faced is funding. Lack of money has limited us in getting the team that we need to scale quickly and people with necessary skills,” Maphosa said. “We also discovered that most of teachers are not tech savvy. In fact some of them view technology as the enemy because they are comfortable with what they know.”
