Safaricom, education content providers partner to enable free access to digital learning in Kenya

Kenya-based telco Safaricom, has partnered with Eneza Education, Longhorn Publishers and Viusasa to provide free access to educational content for primary and secondary school students studying from home.

The partnership with Eneza Education will see students from grade 4 to form 4 access learning and revision content on the SMS-based Shupavu291 free of charge following a 60-day waiver of the daily KES 3 subscription fee.

Peter Ndegwa, CEO, Safaricom, said: “These are difficult times for our country and the world at large and as a company, we are constantly looking at ways of being present for our customers.”

Ndegwa said through this initiative, Safaricom wants to ensure that all students can access education content, whether through feature phones or smartphones, and keep up with their studies for the time they will be at home.

Learners will also be able to access education content on Shupavu Web, Viusasa E-learning and the Longhorn E-learning portal through the Safaricom network at no data cost, up to 250MB per day, for the next 60 days.

“Eneza Education is excited to partner with Safaricom to make the Shupavu291 learning platform available for free to learners across the country during this time. Our content is delivered via SMS and does not require an internet connection, and this ease of access has seen more than 5.3 million students use the platform,” said Wambura Kimunyu CEO, Eneza Education.

In 2019, Shupavu291, which is accessed via USSD *291# or through the short code 20851, saw 6.2 million quizzes taken and more than 1 million questions asked on the Ask-A-Teacher platform.