EduFocal grants free access amid school closures
Published:Monday | March 16, 2020 | 12:18 AMNickoy Wilson/Staff Reporter
Students spanning grades four to six since last Friday have been granted free access to social-learning platform EduFocal following the closure of schools for 14 days amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
Gordon Swaby, CEO and founder of the online platform, said that it was a good opportunity to provide an alternative for students to continue learning while they remain at home during the period.
“With what is happening now, we thought it was prudent to allow people to access the platform for free ... . EduFocal is not a free platform or free solution,” said Swaby in an interview with The Gleaner.
“I mean we are a company ... so whatever we are doing now will change shortly, but we thought it was important that we provide some kind of cushioning and solutions to the problems students would have in terms of not being in school and not having any kind of resources or practice in the meantime ” Swaby said.
The platform currently has some 20,000 multiple-choice and true-or-false questions covering all subject areas, math videos, and study guides.
He said that after the 14 days, there will be a review of whether free access to the platform should continue or if there will be a subsidised cost applied for access.
But what about platform’s capacity? The CEO said that it will be able to accommodate thousands of students, but as it relates to the soon-to-be launched EduFocal Live, there is a limitation.
“For EduFocual Live, in terms of the live session, we’ll probably be able to accommodate around 4,000 to 5,000 students per week. That’s what we are aiming for,” Swaby said.
“In the medium term, we are looking to have around 300 teachers that would be working with hus for EduFocal live. So these are teachers who would be on the live sessions teaching the students virtually on a daily basis.”
Students wishing to access EduFocal for free should visit: https://www.edufocal.com/invite/free19