WHAT ARE STUDENTS’ ONLINE PERCEPTIONS AND CONCERNS ON TERTIARY EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA?
, QUILT.AIILO
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What is it?
ESSA and Quilt.AI’s research analyzed the digital ecosystems of students in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Ghana to answer the following questions - what are enablers and barriers to tertiary education, scholarships, and job applications? What are students expressing on these topics on social media platforms and in their search behaviour?
It mapped a student's learning journey and conducted comparative analysis on school-to-work transition collected from Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Ghana, highlighting similarities and differences across countries.
Findings are deemed crucial to informing policmakers, civil society actors and educators on their communication cues to help students transition successfully from university into the workforce.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Analyzed 2000 social media posts from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram on each key issue across the Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Ghana
- Summarized platform insights highlighting top interests and social media pages the students engage with in the respective countries.
- Gathered data from Google Search on key issues (education, scholarships and jobs) over a one year period (Jan 2020 - Dec 2020).
- 5000 unique keywords were extracted in total across the 4 countries for each issue. A total of 300,000 unique searches were obtained. Rate of change was calculated by comparing the first half of the 12 months (Jan 20 - Jun 20) to the second half (Jul 20 - Dec 20). Searches were categorized into awareness, knowledge and intent related searches for education and jobs.
- Key Recommendations include targeted suggestions for policymakers, civil society actors and educators.