What if the improvement of the school level in Madagascar was through the Internet? This is the challenge that two young Madagascans have decided to take up by launching an educational platform: Madabooky.
Madabooky kesako ?
E-education platform, Madabooky follows the great lineage of MOOC or Massive Online Open Course sites. The site offers students course materials in all subjects. Students, and more specifically high school students, who are on the verge of their professional lives, but also of one of the most important diplomas of their entire curriculum: the baccalauréat.
The first initiative of its kind in Madagascar, Madabooky offers online videos of 5 to 10 minutes in Malagasy. There are also audio course materials and PDFs. In order to check your knowledge, a quiz by theme evaluates your knowledge.
Today, the site contains more than 70 freely downloadable documents and more than 20 videos. Mainly, content for the final year classes of all series found in Madagascar.
Vencesclas and Sylvano, the two creators of the site, hope to open the minds of young Malagasy learners. It is a desire to show that the Internet is not limited to liking photos on Facebook or posting selfies. An inexorable trend that is currently followed by the Malagasy, where access to Zuckerberg’s site is largely facilitated by the various internet operators. Moreover, to ensure free access to all, the two engineers at the head of the platform have facilitated the portability of the site for access on mobile.
(Example of a video for an online course on arithmetic sequences on Madabooky)
New features
Madabooky is not just about the concept of xMOOCs, where professors deliver lectures while the student just listens. The site is available as a cMOOC, where sharing also takes place through exchange. Inspired directly by social networks and especially the most popular in Madagascar, Facebook, Madabooky takes its basic features. You can access instant messaging between members, share files or photos, and access the “comment” function to give your opinion on a particular issue.
For future high school graduates, a university tab allows you to find the school of your choice in order to continue your studies. The platform thus tries to play the role of a guidance counsellor. A field that is currently neglected in Madagascar, where the choice of higher education depends only on the will of each individual.
Madabooky is not only a real comprehensive guide, but also an accessible teacher, with previous exam topics to practice!
According to its designers, the site should provide in the medium term, tutorials to learn about computers. A real training portal in a country where the Internet penetration rate is still very low.
A Malagasy educational portal for Malagasy people
The real innovation of the Madabooky website is without a doubt its will to bring a plus to the Malagasy high school students. Content in Malagasy to be more accessible, tours in high schools to explain the concept and purpose of the site, Madabooky wants to settle in the long term.
It must be said that the site was born from a simple observation. The two founders are passionate about the world of education and want to make education more accessible. In a country with a failing education system, they want to provide the necessary answers. Answers that result in the creation of an original site.
However, students are not the only targets of the site. Madabooky also offers teachers the opportunity to provide content to be shared with the site’s users. Provided in the form of an e-book, all subjects are covered, from mathematics to history, languages or life and earth sciences.
Developed during 6 months, the site is the result of more than 3 years of reflection. At first, the project consisted simply of teachers giving tutoring to future baccalaureate students, but it has expanded to include the setting up of the platform. Originally intended to be a simple online bookstore, the original site was to be called Madagascar Booking. In the end, Madaboky was chosen, a compound word that combines “Madagascar” and “Boky” for book in French.
Two young engineers at the head of the project
This online education platform is the result of hours of work by Vencesclas Louis Tsira, 24 years old and Sylvano Manacé Dada, 23 years old. These two young technicians graduated respectively from the Antananarivo Institute of Technology and the Antananarivo Polytechnic School. As they say on their website, the strength of Madabooky is: “The simple and educational approach of the pdf, videos, forum, their immersive side and the 24/7 accessibility of the courses, even offline, will give a real boost to succeed in your baccalaureate…”
Opting for the principle of free access, the site they have created works on the principle of user interaction. An innovative method, whose aim is to democratize the sharing of knowledge between Malagasy high school students.
The choice of the Internet can be quite comical in a country where only 3% of the population has access to it. However, there is certainly a lot of potential. Indeed, efforts are being made to increase this rate. Initiatives such as “Smart City” allow municipalities such as Toliara to offer its citizens free Wi-Fi in the vicinity of the town hall.
Similarly, the creators of the site are firmly convinced that the country’s future will be shaped by new technologies. In this way, they encourage the introduction of learning to code from the earliest age. An important tool that will help create a better future.
