Kenyan EdTech platform helps families navigate

Grade 9 learners, parents and teachers discuss senior-school pathways and career options during a guidance session. Tathmini Africa seeks to help families make more informed CBE pathway, subject-combination and school choices. Photo: Sun and Shield School. Grade 9 learners, parents and teachers discuss senior-school pathways and career options during a guidance session. Tathmini Africa seeks to help families make more informed CBE pathway, subject-combination and school choices. Photo: Sun and Shield School. Tathmini Africa seeks to help learners and parents make more informed CBE pathway and subject choices. The platform assesses academic performance, personality and interests before suggesting combinations, careers and suitable schools. Founder Isaac Kihumba says technology should support, rather than replace, teachers, parents and career counsellors. For many Kenyan parents, helping their children choose CBE pathways is turning into one of the most challenging decisions. Beyond academic performance, parents must consider the child's interests, career options, subject combinations and the schools offering them. More importantly, under the current CBE curriculum, a learner must pick from the 418 subject combinations the Ministry currently approves, spread across more than 10,000 senior schools, and that one decision shapes the career options open to them years later. And while there is plenty of information to help navigate this decision, it is scattered across different sources — from teachers and academic reports to schools, official government platforms and the learners themselves. Left to decide without structured guidance, many parents and learners are relying on guesswork. Kenyan tech entrepreneur Isaac Kihumba believes technology can help solve this problem. Kihumba built Tathmini Africa, an AI-powered EdTech platform that seeks to replace that guesswork with a structured, evidence-based process. Tathmini is an AI-powered CBE pathway assessment platform that assesses a learner's academic performance, personality and interests, and matches them to specific subject combinations, careers and schools that fit their profile. Learners can also log real career exposure as they experience and learn more about different fields. Over time, they build a portfolio that completes the picture and turns one heavy decision into a trail of evidence that grows with the child. On how the initial assessment process works, Kihumba says: 'A learner completes a short 40-question assessment. Where possible, a parent and a teacher each complete their own version independently. That last part is especially important, because a child often sees themselves differently from how the adults around them do, and the truest picture is usually in the overlap. 'Tathmini combines all three perspectives, alongside academic performance, into a clear view of who the learner really is. And as a learner logs real career exposure and builds a portfolio of their achievements over time, that view grows sharper.' To ensure the portfolio is relevant and useful to the CBE context, Kihumba adds: 'Once we have a complete picture, we then run it against a database of 384 careers mapped according to the 418 subject combinations currently approved by the Ministry, across more than 10,000 senior schools, and return a personalised answer to help parents narrow down their children's options.' The figure of 418 subject combinations is supported by the Kenya Education Management Institute's current career-guidance material, which identifies three pathways, seven tracks and 418 combinations. Making technology accessible To make the platform accessible, Kihumba says they keep a set of tools free and open to everyone, such as the Combination Finder, which allows users to explore and confirm valid subject combinations; the Career Explorer, which shows where different paths can lead; and the School Search tool. The latter is being expanded into a full 'Explore Schools' directory where schools can showcase photos, videos and other details to help parents make informed decisions. Tathmini Africa is a Kenyan solution developed for learners navigating the country's changing education system. Kihumba says the platform was born out of personal experience. Faced with a similar career decision more than a decade ago, Kihumba picked engineering, only to change course two years later. 'Nobody had ever helped me understand my own interests and strengths before asking me to decide what I wanted to become. I was essentially guessing, and that guesswork cost me time and money. 'Last year, I watched my niece face a version of the same problem, except the stakes felt even higher. She was only 13, and under CBE, she had to choose subjects that could influence the career options available to her in the future. This is at an age when most of us can barely decide what to have for breakfast,' he explains. Platform reports growing uptake Since going live at the beginning of May, the platform says it has attracted more than 11,000 users. According to figures provided by Tathmini Africa, the users have generated more than 500,000 platform interactions, while the platform has produced more than 2,500 career suggestions, over 2,200 pathway reports and slightly more than 800 school-selection insights. The feedback so far, according to Kihumba, suggests there is demand for structured guidance and that parents are willing to use a platform designed around Kenya's education system. With technology being deployed across many industries in Kenya, Kihumba says EdTech should help close the information and access gaps that a major policy shift such as CBE inevitably creates. Schools and government can publish official data, but many families need that information translated into something usable. It needs to be matched to their specific learner, explained in plain language and made accessible on their phones. 'EdTech's role is not to replace teachers, parents or counsellors. It is to give them better tools,' Kihumba says. By Our Reporter Get more stories from our website: Education News To write to us or offer feedback, you can reach us at: editor@educationnews.co.ke You can also follow our social media pages on Twitter: Education News KE and Facebook: Education News Newspaper for timely updates. Sharing is Caring!