Kenyan Innovators Launch Darasa App To Enable Teachers Monitor, Set Quality Exams For CBC Learners

• Brian Gacari and Chris Kamande are the founders of Darasa App, which helps teachers monitor the progress of students and set quality exams
• They created the app in 2020 after COVID-19 disrupted everyday classroom learning, aiding the continuation of learning despite distance
• After things returned to normal, they revamped the app to fit the situation and to remain relevant to the education digital space

With COVID-19 exposing Kenya's inefficiencies in technology in the education sector, Brian Gacari and Chris Kamande saw an opportunity to ensure learning continued.

What is the name of the application?

The two innovative colleagues created the Darasa App in 2020, which gives students nationwide more class-like interaction with teachers through career talks and animated videos.

According to the founders, the app allowed learning to continue when government lockdowns restricted movement.

Consequentially, the app attracted over 5,000 students, who adopted it for learning by the end of 2021.

After learning resumed in classes and normalcy returned in the education sector, the app experienced a decline in users as teachers interacted with their students face-to-face.

How getting back to normalcy affected the Darasa App

According to Chris Kamande a co-founder of Darasa App, they had to upgrade their system to remain relevant in digital learning. The gap that presented itself was in accessing quality exams.

“To remain relevant something had to be done. After a number of interactions with schools, the opportunity that was a win for us was how teachers struggled to access quality exams for their students," Kamande said.

After the analysis, a shift to providing a platform that allows teachers to interact directly with students, monitor their progress, and enable them to access quality exams was profitable and productive.

The App contains over 100,000 questions categorized and priced at Ksh 20 for any assessment test accessed and downloaded.

According to Gacari, teachers have a rough time assessing students, as the assessment methods are time-consuming and superficial to understand the learner fully.

“The struggles teachers go through in assessing students, understanding and provide real-time feedback is so engaging and time consuming. All these have been resolved by the Darasa App, following its arrangement," said Gacari.

Challenges Darasa App faced after classes resumed

The team had put in a lot of work to ensure that the product matched the market needs, although there was a problem: Many of the teachers they targeted needed to be aware of the app.

Those who eventually became aware of the product were initially hesitant to use it because they were not tech-savvy or were used to the old way of doing things.

"As any start-up, we were not immune to challenges, but this time, we knew we were onto something, so we kept improving the product,” said Gacari.

After convincing several people, the app gained popularity and users increased, leading to an increase in staff and workload to satisfy the clients

How can one access material from the Darasa App?

Currently, the app has employed 22 staff members, with a vision to expand its wings to the global space.

The app offers daily, weekly and monthly subscriptions to students at KSh 99, KSh 159 and KSh 999 respectively.

Students can evaluate themselves through the app in 8.4.4 for high school, as subjects have been divided into topics and sub-topics, while the CBC classes are divided into strands.

Zeraki analytic app

Zeraki is a digital learning app that allows Kenyan students to get the best of e-learning. It provides the insights you need about your child.

The app offers the latest and most exhaustive system of conveniently compiling and analysing student data.

Additionally, it provides an intuitive interface for results analysis, marks entry, and bulk messaging to parents.

Proofreading by Mercy Nyambura Guthua, journalist and copy editor at TUKO.co.ke