MENA's education problem

🎓 A personal tutor for every student

What if every child in the MENA region had a personal tutor?

I know what you’re thinking, “Wonderful, but - how?”

Look, I totally get it - the challenges are enormous.

1. Cost

2. Accessibility

3. Personalisation

And, maybe you’re wondering, why bother with one-to-one tutoring in the first place?

For context, in the 1980s, educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom found that tutored students outperformed 98% of their peers in conventional classrooms, showing a two standard deviation advantage.

Bloom concluded that most students could achieve high learning levels if given access to effective tutoring.*

That big “if” is known as the “2 sigma problem”.

_{*It’s important to note that more recent research indicates that while most tutoring cannot achieve Bloom's 2-sigma level, high-quality tutors and advanced software likely can bridge this gap.}

Recent edtech innovations and advancements in AI mean that solutions to that problem, may no longer be hypothetical for much longer.

The challenge for edtech innovators in MENA will be how to capitalise on these advancements and make personalised tutoring accessible to all, regardless of their circumstances.

🌍 Why MENA is ripe for disruption

More than 50% of MENA’s population is under the age of 25, and UNESCO estimates that there are around 100 million school-age students in the region.

But, most students lack access to high-quality education, with many schools chronically overcrowded and underfunded.

It’s important to bear in mind that MENA is an incredibly diverse region.

Some countries, using resource wealth, invest heavily in education, while others, facing unrest and instability, spend less.

The regional average spend is 3.8% of GDP, which falls well below the global average of 4.5%.

According to the World Bank, 59% of children are in learning poverty—they cannot read and understand an age-appropriate text by age 10.

Due to this lagging public school infrastructure, nearly 60% of 15-year-olds in MENA rely on private tutoring.

Let’s zoom in on Egypt.

The country has twice the world average number of students per class, and experts contend that Egyptians spend over one and a half times more on pre-college education than the government does.

Even before the recent surge in inflation rates, this expense was unaffordable for many. And for those who can afford it, it’s consuming an increasing share of the household budget.

The private-tutoring market in Egypt is also plagued by abusive pricing and competitive dynamics.

“Star” tutors who have achieved celebrity status dominate the market, running overcrowded classes and charging the highest prices.

And the conditions for MENA edtech platforms to disrupt private tutoring in the region are perfectly ripe.

• COVID-19 drove the adoption of online learning, upending the traditional offline model.

• Internet (90%) and smartphone penetration (97%) are amongst the highest in the world.

Homegrown edtech start-ups like Abwaab, Noon, AlGooru, Ostaz, and Baims are at the forefront of the charge to make high-quality academic education more accessible for students across the MENA region.

I believe the impact will be transformative: greater accessibility, personalised learning experiences, and increased learner motivation.

💰 Accessibility

Does edtech hold the key to delivering high-quality education in underserved regions?

Let’s dive in.

So, we’re going to be using accessibility as a catch-all term to encompass local relevance, cost, and convenience.

(Aware there’s definitely room for a neat acronym there, but 🤷‍♂️)

Globally, there’s no shortage of edtech platforms but the importance of solutions that cater to local cultural nuances and preferences can’t be overstated.

The classic example is obviously ride hailing, and Uber’s difficulty in unseating established regional players, like Careem in MENA, or Grab in SEA.

Invariably, MENA edtech startups are at an advantage when it comes to UI optimised for Arabic speakers.

But one of the major challenges for regional players, is that each national education system is unique, making expansion tricky.

But not impossible.

Regional edtech startups like Abwaab, Noon, and Baims have all expanded beyond the borders of their respective launch countries.

They’ve achieved this by being attentive to local contexts and hiring expert teachers on the ground to ensure alignment with national curricula while maintaining high standards and quality of locally relevant content.

By leveraging economies of scale, flexible tutor engagement, and making private tutoring available synchronously and asynchronously via digital channels, they’ve democratised access to high-quality education for millions of students across MENA, regardless of their location or background.

For example, Abwaab offers a personalised experience at home, much like having a tutor but at a fraction of the cost, with an annual subscription in Jordan costing around $50 USD. Similarly, Baims claims to offer a 60% discount compared to a typical one-to-one session with the best tutor in your area. Noon, on the other hand, offers a freemium model.

👩🏼‍🏫 Personalisation

What if every student could have Socrates as a tutor?

Now, I am aware that Socrates is dead (spoiler) - but what about an AI tutor fine tuned to follow the socratic method? 

It would be game-changing.

The reality is that in a classroom of 35 children with varying abilities, creating the best possible unique learning path for each student is pretty damn difficult.

And it’s simply not the teacher’s fault; they are often pulled in different directions, with up to 40% of their time consumed by administrative tasks.

The current way to ensure smaller class sizes and improved learning outcomes for students?

Parents have to dig deep into their pockets.

But AI-powered edtech platforms hold the potential to level the playing field and propel us toward a future of learning that adapts to every student’s cognitive ability.

Hamdi Tabbaa, founder and CEO of Jordan-based edtech startup Abwaab, provides a really good example to illustrate this.

Let's say a student is asked, "What is 3 + 1?" and answers 2. The platform would recognise the mistake and might deduce the student confused addition with subtraction. It then asks another question to confirm and, if the same mistake is made, directs the student to a lesson on addition vs. subtraction, tailoring the learning journey based on individual responses. 

Edtech promises high-quality learning experiences for all students at scale, rather than being limited to a select few.

There are a number of MENA-based edtech companies rising to the challenge, and Abwaab is one of them.

It’s an online learning platform that allows students to learn at their own pace, and it’s leading from the front on personalised learning journeys. To date, the startup has raised a total funding of $27.5M over 3 rounds.

Their expert teachers produce high-quality video content, and their assessment bank tracks progress, reporting to parents.

Each student gets a “Morshed” (academic advisor) who supports them throughout the school year, ensuring timely work completion, additional support if needed, and regular progress updates to parents.

Back in May 2023, Abwaab also integrated OpenAI’s ChatGPT to provide students with a more personalised test-prep experience. For the first time, students in the region were able to receive immediate, tailored feedback on open-ended questions, a common format in MENA secondary-school exams.

And the reality is that the rate at which AI personalised tutoring is advancing shows no signs of slowing down.

In May 2024, OpenAI released a new version of ChatGPT — ChatGPT 4-o — that is free to everyone. The new multimodal version can engage in live conversations in 50 languages, processing text, audio, and visual data in real-time.

It can listen and speak at the same time, and not only understands what you're saying but also how you're feeling.

Check out the demo below where Sal Khan of Khan Academy demonstrates its capabilities as a socratic AI tutor:

In Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan’s AI 2041, they contended that, “AI companions that can speak, hear, and understand like humans could make a dramatic difference in a child’s development.” 

The future might be closer than first thought.

It would be remiss of us not to mention the important and valuable role that more conventional regional edtech platforms that focus on P2P or marketplace solutions, connecting students with reputable tutors also play.

Notable examples include AlGooru, Ostaz, and Thiqa Tutoring, to name but a few.

 👾 Motivation

Remember that time you signed up for a free web programming course from Harvard or Stanford?

Bright eyed and bushy tailed, with the best of intentions.

But then failed to complete a single module?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

About 52% of people who sign up for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) never actually login.

Whilst a fantastic resource and democratiser of access to information, think Edraak, they can require significant self-discipline on the part of the learner.

Now just imagine an 8-year old tackling math on an edtech platform where the environment they’re immersed in doesn’t strike a fine enough balance between fun and challenging.

Exactly.

Learner motivation is absolutely paramount, and that’s why edtech startups are incorporating gamification and social features to generate and sustain student interest.

Abwaab for example incorporates gamification with the Abwaab League, where students compete and earn trophies, and also offers social interaction through discussion boards with support from verified teacher assistants.

Or take Saudi-based Noon Academy who market themselves as social learning platform, and have literally built a social learning graph to better engage students. 

Their platform includes group study, collaboration tools, a social media-like timeline for sharing and interaction, and live competitions related to course materials. This approach has driven their success, achieving five times the global industry average for student engagement.

And the future looks bright, they raised a $41 million Series B funding round back in November 2023.

✅ The verdict?

While we’re still a ways away from every child in the MENA region having access to a personal tutor, we can’t help but be glass half-full on this one.

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📖 Further reading

• 🔗 This week’s edition was inspired by Nafez Dakkak’s wonderful MENA: Edtech's Sleeping Giant. I wholeheartedly recommend checking out this article, as well as his other work.

• 🔗 EDUCATIONAL RESPONSE TO COVID-19 FROM JORDAN AND OTHER ARAB COUNTRIES

• 🔗 Advancing Arabic Language Teaching and Learning: A Path to Reducing Learning Poverty in the Middle East and North Africa