Crowdsourced videos plug education gaps in Arab world

In his home-made video using computer graphics to explain the solar system, Sayed Obaied, an Egyptian student, dodges meteors before he meets a cartoon alien in a spaceship, who introduces the planets.

Mr Obaied, now in his first year at university, made the short film for Nafham, a crowdsourced online educational service which relies on volunteer teachers, students and parents to supply videos explaining lessons to children in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Kuwait and Algeria.

“I have benefited from Nafham in understanding my own lessons,” says Mr Obaied, who has made some 130 videos in the past three years. “When I explain lessons to others, it helps me retain the information I have learnt.”

The brainchild of three young technology professionals, Nafham was launched in 2012 to address dire shortcomings in the Egyptian education system, where 19m pupils are educated in overcrowded and overstretched schools. Poor teaching means most parents resort to private tutors in order for their children to pass their exams. Egypt was recently ranked 139 out of 140 countries for quality of primary education in competitiveness rankings issued by the World Economic Forum.

According to official figures, Egyptian families spend between $2bn and $3bn a year on private lessons, often given by the same tutors who teach their children inadequately at school. The cost is a burden on families and a problem that successive governments have promised — but failed — to resolve.

“Since the birth of my son, I have been dreaming of changing the way children are educated using my experience in technology,” says Mostafa Farahat, co-founder. “I needed to address the problem of my son’s education and [more generally] the gap in available ideas for online education in the Arab region.”

According to its founders, Nafham, which has a staff of seven, covers more than 90 per cent of Egyptian curricula, 65 per cent of Saudi curricula and around 30 per cent of all school subjects in Kuwait, Algeria and Syria.

The website has 500,000 active users every month who clock up 5m page views and 3m lesson views — double last year’s figures. Students make up 80-90 per cent of visitors, the rest are teachers and parents.

“We have the biggest educational channel from our region on YouTube with 125,000 subscribers, ” says Mohamed Habib, co-founder and chief operations officer.

Nafham relies on a group of some 25 teachers to check the accuracy of content provided by contributors. It provides help and advice to its amateur video makers to improve quality, but will often carry more than one video focusing on the same lesson so as not to discourage contributors.

“There are usually alternatives for each video and with time, we see quality improving,” says Mr Habib.

Sayed has no doubt that Nafham was good not only for his education, but also for his personal development. “I have learnt presentation skills, how to film and how to use a computer to alter images,” he said. “You can see the difference in quality if you compare my first videos to the later ones. I advise everyone to use the Nafham website.”