Why African Edtech is abandoning children for adults

🍔 Quick Bite: Africa’s edtech scene is growing up. The pandemic led many to believe that online classrooms for kids were the future, but that hype has since cooled. Now, the attention is on adult learning; people paying to upskill, switch careers, and earn more.

🧠 The Breakdown

When Edukoya shut down in February 2025 after raising $3.5 million—Africa’s largest edtech pre-seed at the time—the company’s statement was honest. “In many ways, Edukoya was too early for its time,” they wrote. “The infrastructure and economic conditions needed to support our vision at scale simply aren’t yet in place.”

That confession cuts to the heart of the broader story: in Africa, education technology still finds itself ahead of the ecosystem it aims to transform.

Between 2020 and 2021, global funding for edtech increased from $14.7 billion to $20.3 billion, marking the sector’s highest-ever peak. In Africa, startups like Edukoya, uLesson, and Foondamate rode that wave. Investors saw an opportunity to leapfrog traditional classrooms by betting on scalable, mobile-first learning platforms.

But by late 2022, the excitement began to fade. Classrooms had reopened, parents were back to paying school fees instead of subscriptions, and most K-12 (from kindergarten to 12th grade) edtech products experienced a decline in daily engagement. 

Even uLesson, once a poster child for digital learning, had to slash its subscription fees by half in 2024 to keep users. The return to in-person schooling left most startups scrambling to justify their existence. Those that couldn’t pivot fast enough either folded, like Edukoya, or got acquired, like Orcas, the Egyptian edtech bought by Baim in 2024.

Edukoya admitted the infrastructure and economic conditions weren’t ready. Translation: parents couldn’t afford it and wouldn’t prioritise it even if they could. Those parents already struggled with school fees, uniforms, transport, and textbooks. They weren’t buying supplemental learning. They were surviving.

The pivot to adults

Adult learning models solve the customer problem differently. The person using the product pays for it. Learn Python, get a job, earn more money.

Lingawa’s pivot tells this story precisely. As TopSet, the company helped K-12 students improve grades. Scaling proved difficult. In mid-2023, founder Frank Williams pivoted to teaching African languages to the diaspora. Since the pivot, Lingawa has taught over 3,000 learners and grown to 100 tutors. The company has also raised $1.1 million.

Yet even adult learning platforms face challenges. AltSchool has seen learners flood social media with complaints recently. 

Decagon’s story complicates the narrative further. The company specialised in software engineering training, but in March 2025, Decagon pivoted completely away from tech education. Nigeria’s economic crisis made the programme cost untenable, even with financing. A model that worked for years collapsed under macroeconomic pressure.

What this means for African Edtech

Does this pivot suggest K-12 edtech is dead in Africa? Perhaps the question is wrong. K-12 models were never viable as consumer products. Not in their current form.

The successful K-12 platforms don’t sell to parents. Zeraki claimed to serve over 50% of Kenyan high schools by selling school management systems to administrators. M-Shule and Eneza Education reach students through SMS on basic phones, often subsidised by telecoms. These models are working because they solve institutional problems or eliminate cost barriers.

The sector’s pivot to adult learning isn’t necessarily a failure. Founders discovered that working professionals are willing to pay for education that advances their careers. Parents don’t pay for education that seems to duplicate what schools already provide. But even with willing adult customers, operational execution and economic stability determine survival.

The companies still serving children seem to be those that found institutional customers or eliminated barriers to access. The companies serving adults are those that align product value with customer motivation while trying to maintain operational discipline. Both models can work, but both face challenges. Success requires solving the right problems for the right customers while building systems that are strong enough to scale.