Growing up, our parents, teachers and guardians used to sing to us that “education is the key to success”. Over and over again, it was so firmly ingrained in our psyche that there would be no contest. And indeed over the years, the phrase continues to remain true. Education, of whatever level, is always the starting point for sustained success.

Today, we live in a world ravaged by a pandemic that threatens not only this key, but life itself. For one to have access to this key, they must be alive, and as such, when the world was faced with this choice, we chose life. For the whole of 2020, we chose life. The COVID-19 pandemic saw schools all over the world close and students sent back home. For long periods, it wasn’t clear what was going to happen to school calendars and exams. The objective became simple, to remain alive. It still is. Human nature is known for its resilience and its survival instinct, and this time, there has been no difference.

Over the course of the last one year, we have seen education emerge from the rubbles of COVID-19 pandemic to find ways of continuing in its endeavor of opening doors of success for students. At first, it was through the use of technological tools to provide access to education through remote learning. However, this has evolved to a combination of various methods (as discussed in our next piece), all geared towards finding an avenue for providing access to education.

However, in a world where over 700 million people live in extreme poverty, remote learning can only be a figment of their imagination. Access to digital platforms for educational needs is a conversation that does not even begin to happen in a world still grappling with the provision of basic needs such as food, shelter, clothes, clean drinking water among other basic needs. Nonetheless, in the hierarchy of basic needs, where does education rank? If you cannot get education because of poverty, and yet you need education to have a chance at fighting poverty, what choices do you have? We need to be very honest when it comes to digital learning, it is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity.

Change is not easy but it is inevitable. Humans are not wired to accept change easily. But all of us know that to evolve in our thinking, even in our relationships we must reconsider why we do what we do as well as how we do what we do. And that in itself is not easy. We need to view technology as an investment for the future both for schools and students. When you look at the skills people will need in the future, even now, it will be about problem-solving, efficiency, effectiveness. It is about speaking the language of technology and tech-savvy

. With the pandemic here with us and the country moving towards digital learning, then we need to ask ourselves, “how is this going to change the way we do things?” “how are we going to be applying to institutions of learning?” Movement has definitely reduced, gone are the days when one was comfortable moving from one office to another looking to join an institution or filling out numerous forms to send out to different institutions. Institutions can no longer conduct career fairs, according to government directives, social gatherings have been banned.

So, how do these institutions get to their potential students? How do they tell them, “we are here and we are offering these courses?” That is why there was need for a digital marketplace for both institutions and student hostels. You just log into your phone or computer and apply for any programme, or any course that you might be interested in at the comfort of your home.

Jiunge is that marketplace for that school, that parent, that student. It is driven by the need to leverage on technology to automate a seemingly manual and tedious process for students and institutions. Jiunge provides you with an efficient, effective and user-friendly platform for your studying and accommodation needs. The desire is to give students in the country a stepping stone as they learn, live and grow.