This project is one of the 2024-2025 WISE Prize for Education finalists.
FastTrack+ is an accelerated foundational skills development program that enhances literacy and numeracy proficiency among refugee, displaced, and out-of-school children. The program combines a bilingual instructional model, a flexibly structured pedagogy, and an offline assistive “talking pen” technology.
Organization’s Background
The Aid for Rural Education Access Initiative (AREAi), founded by Gideon Olanrewaju, was born out of personal experience and a deep commitment to educational activism. Growing up with limited access to quality learning opportunities, yet later benefiting from excellent education, inspired Olanrewaju’s lifelong advocacy for improved educational systems and equitable service delivery. His work in educational reform revealed significant gaps in access to quality, technology-enabled learning, particularly for underserved communities.
FastTrack+, AREAi’s flagship program, has demonstrated remarkable growth and measurable impact since its inception. What began in 2019 as a pilot project serving 1,500 children in a single internally displaced persons (IDP) camp and has rapidly expanded over the past four years. Today, FastTrack+ has reached more than 25,000 learners across ten refugee camps in Nigeria. This exponential growth not only highlights the program’s effectiveness but also underscores the urgent need for innovative, scalable educational solutions within refugee and displacement contexts.
2. The MVP: Design and Impact
Implemented by AREAi in partnership with PAWA, FastTrack+ is a self-assisted and accelerated foundational learning model designed for out-of-school children, as well as refugee and displaced learners aged 5-15. Using bilingual audio content delivered through the MAVIS Talking Book and Pen—a voice-enabled, offline device—the program was piloted over three months in the Mugunga and Nyiragongo camps in Goma, DRC. It integrates the Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) pedagogy, community-based facilitator instruction, and biweekly regrouping of learners based on ability.
Key features of the program include:
- A bilingual instructional model that emphasizes the importance of mother-tongue learning for effective language acquisition
- A flexibly structured pedagogy that adapts to the unique needs of learners in refugee and displacement contexts
- An offline assistive “talking pen” technology that bridges traditional and digital learning, offering interactive audio support even in areas with limited connectivity
- A translanguaging approach supported by text-to-speech assistive tools, promoting accelerated and effective acquisition of multilingual literacy and numeracy skills
Future Prospects
AREAi has ambitious plans to scale FastTrack+ nationally and regionally over the next five years:
- Expand the program to reach 5,000 learners across Eastern DRC
- Integrate FastTrack+ into national alternative learning pathways
- Establish mechanisms for refugee-led or community-based educational organizations in Nigeria to replicate the program’s model
- Develop AI-driven tools to enhance assessment, provide personalized instructional support, and improve learner progression
- Expand operations into Francophone and East Africa, particularly the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda
- Collaborate with national and local government agencies to embed FastTrack+ within humanitarian education programs
- Develop offline AI-based assessment tools, a WhatsApp chatbot for structured teacher support, and portable “Magic Box” classrooms for low-resource environments
Impact to date:
Despite time constraints caused by shipment and translation delays, the program achieved remarkable results:
- Reached 1,200 learners and trained 84 local facilitators
- In just three months, the proportion of learners at the beginner literacy level dropped from 65.3% to 5.6%, while those reading at the word level increased from 9.7% to 47.4%
- The share of learners at the beginner numeracy level fell from 60.7% to 11.5%, with proficiency in two-digit operations rising from 18.6% to 52.9%
Addressing WISE Prize for Education Challenges
- Artificial Intelligence in Education ☑️
- Teaching of Arabic Language
- Foundational Literacies ☑️
The solution directly addresses these challenges by leveraging technology to enhance foundational literacy and numeracy skills, with a particular focus on refugee children who often face significant educational barriers.
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