213 – STACK in Africa

[00:00:06] Santiago: Hi, and welcome to the IDEMS podcast. I am Santiago Borio, an Impact Activation Fellow, and I’m here with David Stern, one of the founding directors of IDEMS. Hi David.

[00:00:17] David: Hi, Santiago. What should we discuss today?

[00:00:20] Santiago: Well, a lot is going on with regards to STACK, one of my passions, particularly in Africa, related to our work. Of course, a lot is happening all over the place about STACK and we might record another episode soon about our views on what we could achieve with STACK in the near or long-term future. But what’s happening in Africa at the moment is particularly exciting. There are two places that perhaps I’d like to focus, one is Ethiopia and the other one is Kenya.

[00:01:03] David: And I’ll add West Africa to the mix.

[00:01:05] Santiago: Fantastic, I didn’t know what was going on with STACK in West Africa. So, where shall we start?

[00:01:12] David: Let me very quickly start with the recent trip I’ve had to Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali, and explain the small way in which STACK is really important in what’s happening there. This is related of course to these data courses, we now have colleagues in each of those three countries who have given tailored trainings to research groups where they’ve used STACK as part of the assessment.

And it was a throwaway comment in Burkina Faso actually, where one of the lecturers who was at one of those trainings just mentioned how impactful some of these STACK questions were, that it reinforced the importance that this technology is playing in context for which it was not designed but is being used. It’s really fantastic.

[00:02:15] Santiago: And, correct me if I’m wrong, but those are courses that IDEMS created that GHAIDEMS team members are delivering.

[00:02:25] David: These are courses which, yes, I suppose it is IDEMS people who have created them in collaboration, of course, with the Kenyan partners at INNODEMS and others. This isn’t with GHAIDEMS in Ghana particularly, this is more in the francophone countries, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali, we have apprentices, if you want, in each of those countries, who are involved in training others and supporting research groups in agroecology.

And they’ve been giving these trainings where the trainings have been really interesting in other ways as well, the trainings have included elements of being designed around the actual data of the partners, but they’ve also included these STACK questions, which have been specifically about challenges that people face related to data in general.

This is something where that specific piece on the data skills which come out from these STACK questions, the comment which I loved, this was from one of the lecturers, and I mentioned that the questions were particularly useful for the students, and he said, even for us lecturers, they stretched as they challenged us. And so it was really nice to hear that actually the whole spectrum had engaged with them.

[00:03:49] Santiago: That’s fantastic to hear, that’s absolutely brilliant to hear, because of course, if you upskill the instructors, or the lecturers, or the teachers, then there’s a sort of natural cascading effect. Ah, that is really nice to hear. And of course, just to reiterate, we’ve said this before in the podcast probably, these questions were designed to be completely software agnostic, they focus on the skills that are required to be able to handle data. And you’ve done episodes on the framework you have, I can’t remember the three steps at the moment.

[00:04:33] David: The framework, which is emerging is this Explore, Describe, Present. I have had a couple of episodes which relate to this. But it’s actually, it’s holding up really surprisingly well. We actually gave these workshops in each of the three countries, which related to the Present piece, and it was really powerful.

[00:04:53] Santiago: And of course there are some questions on descriptive statistics in those courses, which are very important for the present.

[00:05:03] David: Yeah, well, the descriptive statistics comes in at each of the three levels. What’s really interesting is your inferential statistics is included mostly in the describe piece, which is ironic of course, because describe and descriptive. But no, we put the inferential statistics, actually, in the describe component. And the present, what was really interesting is that this is beyond what statisticians would normally engage with. This is more what journalists do, taking an audience, trying to think how to present powerfully for a particular audience.

So it is interesting how that data visualisation piece, has enabled us to think beyond what we, as statisticians or as statistics educators, would tend to take as our domain.

[00:05:54] Santiago: Yeah, and I don’t want to get too far down the framework because there’s already at least two episodes on it. But it’s great to hear the progress in West Africa, which perhaps leads naturally to Kenya, where the next STACK conference will be held in July, 2026. It’s the first time that the STACK conference, the official STACK conference, which it’s not called the STACK conference, is the International Meeting of the STACK Community, but it is by all accounts, if I’m not mistaken, a conference.

And it’s the first time it happens outside Europe. And moving from Europe elsewhere, Africa doesn’t necessarily sound like the most obvious place, but we helped organise three African STACK conferences now, and I believe it was the natural step to try to get the official STACK conference to Africa.

[00:07:02] David: Well, we gotta give full credit to Mike here. He’s been pushing for this for years, he’s part of the International STACK Advisory Board, he has been lobbying for this from within, and he’s succeeded. I mean, there’s great excitement about this event. It’s not just that this is something where it has happened reluctantly. On the contrary, there’s real excitement.

[00:07:26] Santiago: Yeah. And there’s excitement from all sorts of places, and I hope that some of the people who’ve been using STACK in West Africa can attend.

[00:07:37] David: We hope so, that’s really a matter of funding. But what I think is more interesting is that the communities like the Australian community, there’s a community in Australia and New Zealand that use STACK and there is a member of that community who’s now part of the organising committee. And so there’s a hope that actually this will bring together some communities that haven’t been so involved in the actual meetings.

[00:08:02] Santiago: Just to be clear, Michael Crocco, he’s part of the academic committee, which is a really important part of the conference, it’s not the organising, he’s not gonna be worrying about logistics, but he’s one of the four people leading the academic side of things, which is really important.

[00:08:22] David: Absolutely. And this is the thing, the academic community has really gathered around this event in a way which I’ve been so inspired by. It isn’t by chance. I mean the other thing which has happened is that of course in Germany there’s been this recent centre which has been created, but that has inspired in Kenya, one of our colleagues, Lawi, to approach his university, which has been one of the big universities taking up STACK, and to say, we need to host the African STACK Centre.

And this sort of is in the verge of existing, it’s very exciting. They’ve allocated a room, there’s now somebody who’s going to be taken on for a few months to make something happen.

[00:09:08] Santiago: And let’s be clear, for a university to allocate a room, in Kenya, that’s a big deal.

[00:09:15] David: It is, I mean, this is sort of something where, actually, these spaces are really difficult to come by, these universities often are very space constrained, but it’s come from the DVCs, both the academic, I believe, and also the finance have come together, they’ve said this is important, we recognise the value. They did host the conference a few years ago, so it’s something where the upper echelons are aware of this work. But it is, you know, it’s momentum, it is really interesting to see how that momentum is gathering.

[00:09:48] Santiago: And there is, I believe, funding for three months to get it started through hiring or engaging one of the people who I mentored on STACK, when was it, started mentoring her four years ago, and she’s grown and grown in skills and experience and she’s now gonna be the main manager of the centre if things happen as we hope they will.

[00:10:17] David: Yeah. And this is where that momentum gathering is really interesting to see, these may seem like small steps, but they take time, there’s real sense of movement. It feels great.

[00:10:31] Santiago: And what does it mean to have an African STACK Centre in Kenya?

[00:10:38] David: Well, who knows? I hope that this is going to become a centre where actually the evidence behind the impact on the ground would become highlighted, where other organisations other universities, would be able to go to them to get the resources.

Masinde Muliro, which is the university, where this is happening, this is still one of the places where the evidence behind the impact of this intervention is the greatest I’ve seen anywhere. I can’t get out of my head this presentation that a colleague there made a few years ago.

[00:11:19] Santiago: At the first conference, at the first African conference.

[00:11:23] David: At the first Africa conference, where it was presented as if it wasn’t a big deal. But she was explaining how, you know, she wasn’t engaged really in making STACK happen for her course, but there were people who supported it, and she accepted it, and it reduced her workload because she didn’t have to worry about the continuous assessment.

And then suddenly she was a convert because the results were just mind blowing. She suddenly got a perfect, normal distribution on her students, whereas in the past, they’d all used to be failing, and she recognised that that learning was happening at a level that was really deep. She hadn’t changed the exam much and suddenly her students were doing the questions that they were failing at in previous years because of the exposure they had to the mastery quizzes and the process they went and the learning that happened, it was incredible.

[00:12:22] Santiago: Yeah, it’s hard to describe a graph, but the visual element of the results and how the pre STACK and the post STACK compare to each other, it’s just remarkable, the curve shifted to the right so clearly.

[00:12:44] David: And the thing which makes this so powerful is that the change was happening at an institutional level, and she as a lecturer, it wasn’t a huge effort she was making, she was just carrying on with her teaching as normal and this change happened. And that’s how she got converted and really engaged.

[00:13:03] Santiago: In fact, she was not particularly convinced about it before that, and she only accepted to use it because it would reduce a bit her workload and she wouldn’t need to do any of the implementation, INNODEMS was there to support another colleagues from Masinde Muliro were there to support.

[00:13:23] David: And yet that change in mindset that came from her, but also through the impact on the students was great. And what I think is so powerful about this and why it’s so incredible that it’s Masinde Muliro which is setting up this centre, is that they’re the institution which has been systematically trying to say, we want all our courses to be using this technology because we are seeing the value it’s bringing to student learning.

This is something where no other institution I know has done this, where they’ve got the whole department behind it, the whole institution is there, and they’re pushing for this, because they’re seeing the results.

[00:14:06] Santiago: And in fact we had a call yesterday where we were told, yeah, we want a new course. They have over 20 courses already with STACK and they were saying, yeah, we still want more courses done. They didn’t manage to get it by the start of the semester, but we’re hoping to find ways to support that for the next time it comes round.

But I’m aware of time and, I think that, you know, one thing more about the centre before we move on to the next topic that is happening, Lawi, Professor George Lawi from Masinde Muliro, who’s behind the centre, he’s already lining up Master’s students to do projects on STACK, maths education Master’s students.

And he’s already thinking of ways where it’s not just about implementation, it’s also about research at different levels, and he’s got two students already in mind. And it’s quite exciting that there could be formal support given to other projects, other institutions, other countries wanting to integrate. And it’s just great.

But let’s move on to the next.

[00:15:24] David: Well, before we move on to Ethiopia, which I know is your next topic, we should mention that also in Kenya at the moment, there’s the things happening at school level, there’s the things happening with the technical institutions, there’s so much we could talk about there, I don’t even know, I’m dying to find out, but I’m guessing I’m not gonna hear much until I catch up with Juma more formally, about what they’re doing with these technical colleges, because that’s really exciting.

[00:15:52] Santiago: So, you assumed incorrectly, I wanted to stick to Kenya, and I wanted to mention schools, but, yeah, let’s spend a minute or two talking about Juma. Juma was a subcontractor in IDEMS for a while, working on STACK for a few years before joining the University of Trieste as a PhD candidate. And his research is focused on technical colleges and STACK.

So, that is really exciting. I don’t know much about it, but I believe that he’s working with six institutions at the moment. And it’s great to see that it’s not just universities, it’s also technical colleges.

And now moving on to schools, we mentioned in previous episodes the textbooks, and I think that it’s important to highlight where they’re at at the moment. Four full textbooks have been authored on PreTeXt with STACK questions, and PreTeXt was discussed as well in previous episodes so I’m not gonna go into detail, it’s just a publishing tool for textbooks that allows for interactive textbooks as well.

And there’s plans, they’re continuing to work in some shape or form on the remaining two textbooks to cover the whole of secondary level of the new competency-based curriculum. And they are hoping to pilot the textbooks in six schools with about 20 teachers and up to 2000 students early next year, which is remarkable.

Again, it’s just so exciting what’s happening, and it’s across levels in Kenya.

[00:17:57] David: There is actually a crowdfunding campaign happening for that right now where there are challenges around this actually supporting this to happen. But it’s just incredible work that’s going on.

[00:18:09] Santiago: And now that we’re talking about textbooks, we have to move on to Ethiopia because it’s really exciting what happened. There is one course at first year university in Ethiopia, and Ethiopian universities are somewhat centralised in terms of the curriculum, all the universities have to have the same curriculum. And there’s this one course, Basic Maths, which has two strands, natural sciences and social sciences.

Currently, they’re delivering the natural sciences one, and there was a big effort to get a PreTeXt book with STACK questions done for basic maths for natural sciences. And that’s a course that every single student doing something on the natural sciences, will have to do a compulsory course in every single university in Ethiopia. And there’s a PreTeXt book for it, designed and authored mostly, with support from INNODEMS and with support from IDEMS, but designed and written by Ethiopian experts.

And as well as the textbook, there’s an accompanying course in an Ethiopian wide Moodle server so that those lecturers want to use the book and present quizzes with questions similar to the book for continuous assessment can do it. And there’s already more than 4,000 students enrolled in that course, which is huge.

[00:19:53] David: Wait a second, sorry, I said, wow, and then I thought, wait a second. There’s a hundred thousand students doing this course in Ethiopia at the moment, so this is just the drop in the ocean compared to what’s actually gonna happen or possibly gonna happen, but still 4,000. This is interesting.

[00:20:10] Santiago: Baby steps, David, baby steps. Viral scaling?

[00:20:15] David: Yeah. One step at a time. But no, this is incredible. Wonderful. I wasn’t clear, I was expecting this to be really kicking off next semester with the social science one, because I think that’s what, at the last meeting, that’s what was pushed. And so this semester was gonna just be a pilot with a few people trying things out. So, yeah, exciting to see what happens next.

[00:20:37] Santiago: Well, it’s interesting that we have over 4,000 students, and that’s only from two universities, we are in discussion with three other universities. And we have to recognise Abdu here, he is amazing and he’s really pushing this, and he’s currently giving a small workshop to other universities on how to use these materials.

[00:21:05] David: No way. I wasn’t even aware of that. Oh, fantastic. I’m glad we had this discussion. Oh, that’s so nice to hear, good for him.

[00:21:14] Santiago: To finish off, there’s all sorts of other people in other African countries using STACK as well. We have Namibia, we have Tanzania, and all sorts of other places. But I think that we can’t finish this without mentioning Somalia and South Sudan. We have two groups, one in each country, really doing their best and pushing to get STACK integration. And it looks like it’s going to happen. It will need support.

[00:21:52] David: Yeah, of course, of course. But no, that is exciting that that’s actually gonna push through and I look forward to hearing more about that as that becomes a reality.

[00:22:01] Santiago: Indeed, me too. It’s still conceptual, but you know, those are challenging countries, they’re really challenging countries. I’m seeing that these ideas are reaching the most challenging countries. You talked about West Africa, we’re talking about South Sudan and Somalia. Really challenging places where this technology can be hugely impactful. I’m so glad to be part of this, just even be a witness to some of the things that happened.

[00:22:34] David: Absolutely. Thank you for this and, yeah, I look forward to our next update in, let’s say six months time.

[00:22:42] Santiago: Well, maybe just before the conference.

[00:22:44] David: Sounds good.

[00:22:46] Santiago: Thank you David.