Nigerian ed-tech start-up AltSchool is entering Kenya

AltSchool Africa, the Nigerian start-up which offers data and engineering courses online has announced that it is expanding to Kenya.

The education technology (ed-tech) venture was founded in 2021 and offers diplomas in software engineering, product marketing, design and management, data science and analysis.

“Greetings to the home of champions! We are excited to announce that AltSchool Africa is now in Kenya!” the company wrote on its social media accounts on Wednesday.

To join AltSchool, one needs a high school certificate and is required to be computer literate. Admission to the school is upon attaining an 85 per cent pass mark on an assessment test.

Programs take a year, including nine months of classwork and a three-month internship at a local tech company and students pay around $30 (Ksh.4,900) monthly for the program.

The start-up's courses are in English but the Nigerian online technology publication TechCabal reports that the school is now working on teaching in Swahili.

“We are in talks with different agencies on the ground to make sure that Kenyans have access the right access to the global in-demand skills that Alt school has to offer,” the outlet on Wednesday quoted AltSchool’s co-founder and CEO Adewale Yusuf as saying.

Yusuf founded the company with Akintunde Sultan and Opeyemi Awoyemi. The venture raised $1 million in pre-seed funding at the start of 2022 and completed another $3 million round in May last year.

AltSchool, which also has operations in Rwanda, has partnered with higher learning institutions to train people with non-technical backgrounds into junior and mid-level engineers and offer diploma certificates.

“We need to find a shortcut for people, whereby they will be able to make money and provide for their family and add value to the economy. That’s one of the reasons we launched AltSchool because if a lot of people can have marketable skills, then I think we can solve a massive problem in the market,” Yusuf previously told the American technology outlet TechCrunch.