African School for Excellence 4.25

The African School for Excellence is a unique concept: a self-sustaining chain of elite private secondary schools that anyone can afford.

At the center of ASE's innovative cost-reducing strategy is the rotational classroom model. For each subject taught at ASE, our students rotate through three modules: an instructional-learning classroom, a collaborative-learning classroom, and an independent-learning classroom, usually run with the aid of computers.

Our expert teachers are only located in the instructional learning classroom, with the other classrooms staffed by university students. This lowers operating costs while simultaneously lowering the effective student to teacher ratio. That is, in a traditional African classroom, one teacher will be responsible for a class of 50-60 students. At ASE, we break this unmanageable class size into three smaller classes of 17-20 students each, and rotate them through our different learning modules, thus maximizing the effectiveness of the time spent with our expert teacher. (An illustration of our classroom model is available here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=432303523479392&set=a.432303480146063.92112502.220760937966986&type=3&theater)

This model has been piloted in Accra, Ghana and Tsakane, South Africa with incredible success. During our three-week Accelerate! program in Tsakane, our students' reading comprehension improved by the equivalent of 5 months in a traditional school year, and math skills by 125%.

It is our vision to expand across the continent, providing a world-class and affordable education to all students.