Education: Africa Deal Round Up and Themes for 2024

Good afternoon. Good evening.

Today today on this webinar, we are a group of, you know, people who have joined from across the globe with interest at various levels in the education sector.

Participants today on this call include investors, educators, advisors and operators who are involved in the sector or have some form of interest in investing in it.

Before we get into the materials, quick round of introductions. My name is Sudeep Laad. I'm a partner in LEK Global Education Practice and I lead our work in Africa.

On call with me today is Subhash Kunche, who's a senior manager in our Global Education Practice and Navid Oshi, who's a manager in our global education practice.

We will be your host for for today.

Some quick housekeeping announcements. We will be recording this event.

And second one, while we have a very limited time set aside for question and answers towards the end of this session, we will encourage participants to reach out to us for a more engaged one on one conversation regarding the opportunities that you may be pursuing.

Super. So with that, let's get onto it. What we will cover today? So we will first talk about how has the investing activity in education in Africa been, and we have taken a little bit of a longer term view.

And then we launch into what are the themes to watch out for and which we are bullish about over the next one to two years.

Before we get into presenting our perspectives, we thought it'll be good to get a quick pulse check of where the group is in terms of their outlook for the sector and what kind of excitement do participants bring to a session like this.

We a few couple of interesting poll questions that will help us all of us crowdsource what is the level of excitement in the sector.

So I think the first one that we want to run by is how our investments in education likely to trend over the next one to two years compared to what we have seen in twenty one to twenty four?

Significantly up, do people feel it'll be up, down or more or less same as what we saw in the last two to three years.

Now feel free to send your responses so that we can all see where the group is headed.

Is the group able to see their responses, on the screen?

Great.

So yeah, it feels like the group is reasonably upbeat about what's happening in the sector and what is likely to happen in twenty four-twenty five.

About fifty percent of respondents feel that the sector will up in terms of investments in education, which is a good sign.

There are few people who feel it will be similar. So about eighty percent of the people here think that it'll be either similar or increase.

And very few in the group feel that there'll be less activity than what has happened in the past. Great, so good to see that.

Moving on to the next one, which is around the geographical coverage of investing.

So the second poll question is which region, which pocket in Africa is likely to see greater traction in terms of investments in the sector?

Great. I think, I think as we can see, there is, there's expectation that North Africa, which is, you know, the Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia belt is likely to see more, followed very closely actually followed by South Africa and very closely third is West Africa.

So we can see more interest in those three pockets compared to compared to let's say East Africa or Central Africa. Now this could also be a reflection or representation of the group that we that we have today, but we will see how the how the data is is telling the story based on what has happened in the past.

And now the last one which is which sub sector of education is likely to attract more investments going forward? Early years K-twelve, higher education, vocational education, after school enrichment, and and education technology.

Great, so I think the responses have built in on this question as well. There's more positive, you know, outlook around K12, followed higher education and those two are probably the core sectors. It is interesting to see that the group is reasonably upbeat about what could happen, in EdTech also.

There's some level of optimism even in that sector.

Great, I think with that pulse check let us delve into delve down into you know what we are seeing in the market.

Learning to start with it is no surprise that Africa story is marked by you know a huge demographic dividend. But the demographic dividend when coupled with faster economic growth which is the outlook for the continent gives rise to a large addressable market. And a word of caution, mean we are seeing outlook for growth in the continent in terms of economic activity is high.

Probably the highest growth you are expected to see in Africa.

It is certainly on a low base and noting that more recently Covid has impacted affordability and consumer sentiment massively.

But if we take the longer term picture in mind, I think the investing activity has kind of kept pace with economic growth And this chart shows deal value of disclosed transactions and we have taken a longer term horizon as I was saying of eight years and what we can see that in the period seven to fifteen when we compare that period with what happened in the recent eight years, there has been a three times growth in terms of investing activity, particularly in deal value. And if you look at number of transactions, it is even higher.

What is notable is that there have been some sizable deals as you can see on the right hand side chart there have been sizable deals in the sector and which represent the deployment of capital both by strategics as well as financial sponsors into the sector.

Now just like what we've seen in other parts of the world and we track education sector globally, deal activity has been impacted by COVID and you know the last three year period within that you know ramping up trajectory has seen slower investment.

Certainly the outlook for the country is for the continent as a whole is positive given the large addressable market and very low base from where we starting.

So I think with that let's look at what has happened in terms of which countries have seen and which regions within Africa have seen more traction. So consistent to what participants thought at the start, South Africa has led the way and attracted a large part education capital deployment, followed closely by North Africa, which is collective of Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, which are seeing traction.

And this is fundamentally happening. Why these two regions are attracting more capital is because certainly size and growth of the economy is reflective.

The economy is reflective, plays a role in any types of investing, be it consumer sentiment, be it investing in education.

But also I think unique about South Africa, North Africa is also you know parent aspirations which translate into reasonably healthy price points and ultimately scalability of businesses which then attracts capital because most capital deployment has a sort of a limit or cut off scale that they can go to.

With that let's see what's happened by sector. Putting the same picture by sector we see that core education sector and we define core education a bit more broadly having both higher education which is brick and mortar universities and K through twelve, so brick and mortar schools.

And these two segments have seen the most investment activity.

This also demonstrates that both higher education and K-twelve are sectors which have non discretionary spend no matter what parents are going to enroll. Families are going to enroll their kids into into these two forms of of education.

And I think in these two we have seen some good examples of investment, be it platform building, which is what Honolus has stood for over the last decade, which is a higher education platform seeded by Actors.

And also more recently global providers or based education platform Glo Educates investment into IAG Morocco. So I think those two are examples apart from others that we have mentioned here which signify the appetite for investing into the continent.

Mean activity in other segments of education particularly edtech, supplementary education has relatively subdued though a good number of deals have happened. Transaction of the ticket sizes have been small and part of this subdued activity is also the rebounding back to post COVID growth that EdTech as a category has seen.

But we're talking more about EdTech because this is also one of the areas that participants at the start of the session voted enthusiastically for and I think in that light yes there is traction, There are deals in the domain of EdTech and these mirror some of the global trends. And what we also noticed that most of the EdTech in Africa is showing up in your tertiary education related models or upskilling or higher education related models where as opposed to K12 because the consumption of technology is significantly higher at this level. And what we note globally as well that in K through twelve segment that technology is more used for teachers as opposed to for students which also is one key difference between consumption of edtech within one sector versus other.

I think in terms of who participated in this Africa bandwagon when it comes to education investing. We saw a widespread participation from pretty much all types of capital which just went into the sector. Be it private equity funds, infrastructure long term funds, global education groups who have used Africa as an expansion opportunity and ultimately foundations and multilateral organizations where the likes of World Bank and IFC have put in money into the sector.

I think so that was a broad summary and synopsis of what we saw in terms of deal activity.

The second half of the session will be dedicated to what are the themes, what are the underlying themes that we are bullish which investors and operators in this group should pursue or look after.

So I think in that light, we have chosen five important themes that we are excited about and that we feel that should present opportunities for both operators and investors.

So the first one here is the K-twelve opportunity and K-twelve like anywhere else in the globe continues to be good as gold. There is a significant opportunity.

There is this opportunity in the premium end but certainly a larger addressable market in the mid price segment. So we'll talk about that. Second, private higher education with specific focus on employability oriented disciplines is an opportunity to activate by investors and operators.

Number three, significant skill gap in many areas Particularly in the blue collar workforce, it presents opportunities for TVET sector and we'll talk a little bit about that.

Number four, lifelong learning is a global theme and it works even more from a need perspective in Africa where a large part of workforce is not having any tertiary education.

So upskilling and reskilling is something we are very excited about. Number five, childcare, early childhood education is a provision which has seen low levels of formalization and that warrants more to be done both in terms of organic opportunities build up to enhance access as well as quality.

We'll go into each of these themes one by one starting K-twelve.

The K-twelve opportunity, clearly K-twelve as a business model, as we talked about, has attracted good portion of the capital that has gone into the sector.

If you pick up international schools a segment for within the premium K-twelve opportunity or as a representative segment for premium K-twelve, there has been a consistent growth in enrollments in international schools.

And seeing this there have been you know brands who have taken this opportunity and have expanded into the continent be it Charterhouse in Lagos Nigeria or a couple of other schools Kings Malvern in Cairo are examples of these and increasingly we are getting more global K12 platforms excited about this opportunity mean Inspire already owns a school there. Globe Educate has recently added IG in Morocco to their portfolio.

We expect there is more to be done in this space.

While premium K12 has an opportunity you know on the back of need for quality international education, a significantly larger opportunity is here in the mid price segment and mid price and budget segment.

The back of you know very fundamental fact that you know price points are lower which means that very large addressable markets And I think there are new models which are coming into play. So if you talk about NOVA Pioneer, Enco, Spark Education, even existing providers, Kuro and Edwutek, who are large South Africa organizations have increasingly pivoted to the mid price and the budget segment for their expansion.

And I think the underlying driver for this investment thesis to work is around the business model innovation. And and that innovation manifest in three two or three forms. One, using a very asset light model, which is largely relying on the software, which is the academic outcomes of the provision.

Use of tech and use of technology to, in a way, increase operational efficiency, make teachers' job easier and by way of that reduce the cost that is incurred in terms of teacher. Young talent which is fresh graduate from universities can be deployed and trained if technology is used to code the curriculum. Now of course this segment is sort of the opportunity here is easier said than done given every unit in the k twelve business is a unit of complexity and to reach a certain level of EBITDA, needs to have a lot more number of units opened for and then there lies the risk of how many units succeed versus not ramp up as per expectation. So there's a word of caution but the opportunity exists significantly in this space.

The second one is private higher education and for private higher education the fundamental thesis is around low access and if you look at gross enrollment ratios which is an indication of participation of the relevant age population. They are under fifteen percent for the continent as a whole and there are few countries where it is sub ten percent, sub five percent.

So there exists an argument for creating that access and that access is largely going to come from private education given governments are not investing in adding public capacity.

What you see on this chart is that the share of private is increasing, it is recognized as a solution for the continent And I think the value proposition that private institutes are bringing in is with a lot more focus on employability oriented disciplines, be it IT, engineering, health, law. These disciplines which absorb labor force immediately into the labor market is where these universities and scale institutions are focused on.

Some case studies in Egypt, for example, there's very strong growth in in health care related and allied health care related disciplines.

Similarly, in Morocco, American context, engineering and science and technology and allied health and health services are fastest growing disciplines. So if you are operators, is an imperative to enter into those high growth, high demand segments. And if you're an investor out there, the imperative is to look for businesses which are operating in that growing category of disciplines.

There have been demonstrated scale by having done a platform activity like Honorez which has acquired several institutions across South Africa and North Africa.

Local providers, Edwitec and Stardio has continued to do M and E in order to roll up and build scale which is possible as access investing opportunities in this sector.

With that we'll move to number three, I'll let my colleague Subhash take up.

Thank you, Sudeep. Now we have talked about the higher education sector. Let's move to the adjacent sector, which is KeyWed, which forms a big part of the tertiary education multiverse as well.

If we could move to the next slide, Sudhir.

So broadly, what you would notice is that approximately eighty to eighty five percent of the employment in Africa is focused on informal sector. However, there is limited access to skills training specifically focused on trade skills or the broader skills that Sudeep was talking about earlier. To address a lot of this gap, there are innovative models that have come up in terms of the kind of skill training that needs to be provided and where you will see that a significant participation from government as well as employers is there in a lot of the countries that we are looking at in Africa. One such good example is the Dangote Academy, considering that it's a large conglomerate, is able to provide training directly to its employees.

However, the scalability in the sector is relatively low, and that's where it provides a strong opportunity for investors to kind of pick up one of these models with support from either government or employers and ensure that it's not only limited to a single country, it could be a cross border entity and achieve scale, which addresses the needs of a large proportion of the population considering the demand supply gap that exists in the market.

Now, after talking about the skills that we are looking at more towards the TVET sector, there's also the other end of the spectrum where you will notice there's a strong demand for skills in new age sectors.

For example, this demand supply gap in distance skills is one of the key talking points, not only in Africa, but also globally. And that is where you will see that a significant proportion of this demand supply gap is being addressed by upskilling and reskilling platforms.

Now, if you look at the demand supply gap, as we are talking about, you would notice towards the right hand chart, where you will see that majority of the African countries follow towards the bottom end in terms of the rankings when we compare it to not only the developed countries, but also the emerging and developing economies. You will see that a significantly large portion of the African countries in the East and West Africa will fall in the ninety to one hundred thirty four range, whereas the relatively Northern African and, the more GDP contributing countries being in the forty five to ninety range, which is still significantly lower compared to what you would notice, in terms of the global average. And that's the key gap that we are trying to solve.

Now, if you look at how the upskilling and reskilling operators are trying to address this gap, there are two broad segments. The first aspect is related to education and employment training models. Here, you will notice that the upskilling platforms are not only trying for bridging the skill gap, but also providing employment to the graduates. And here, are also trying for solving the outsourcing problem that not only exists in developing countries, but also in some of the more developed countries like US.

And you will see that some of the providers like GoMyCode, Decagon are trying to solve for providing the software engineering skills that are required for some of these candidates to get jobs abroad. In addition to that, there are certain companies like Andela and Gebaya, which are more like job sourcing platforms. Andela focuses a bit more on the mid position job roles, whereas Gebaya focuses more on entry level positions. And that's the key area where we are focusing more towards the employability aspect of it, rather than just providing the skills training and not providing, the requisite job opportunities for the candidates. And these have been successful models. And it, of course, pivoted from just providing your course offerings to more job focused offerings going forward. But however, this integrated model is something that can still function and achieve scale going forward as well.

On the other end of the spectrum is where you're also having companies which are solving for, the skills that are required from the African context, where you will see the likes of GetSmarter, even RFU, which has a more innovative model in which they are leveraging chatbots and also ensuring that the skills training can also be provided on a mobile platform using either WhatsApp or SMS, which increases the overall accessibility and adoption related issues that majority of the African population face.

However, you will see that there are certain key limitations that kind of limit the growth of some of these models. One of the key nuances that majority of these are B2C focused models. And that is where you will see that to achieve scale, there is potential for us to tap into more B2B market as well. And that's where the employer related partnerships come into the picture to ensure that the scale is not limited by the affordability constraints or the adoption constraints of individuals, whereas you can tap into the broader base and revenue base of larger corporations. And it has helped scale a lot of these employability focused institutions globally, including developed countries like Australia, UK and US.

Now on the other end of the upskilling spectrum, if you're not looking at just job oriented courses, you will see that there are a significantly large portion of education SaaS companies, which are linked to not only your typical employability focused disciplines, but also K-twelve after school tutoring, which are linked to more academic focused courses. And then there is also non academic enrichment, where you will see the likes of Zendi, for example, which is focused on, the language learning services, not only for the younger population, also the more working professionals as well.

Considering that within Africa, you speak multiple languages, some of the countries are francophone, some of the countries are lusophone. So there is a strong potential for some of these platforms to scale up and support not only younger population, but also employees to develop their language skills so that they can become a more global workforce. In addition to that, if you look at the younger generation, there could be some of the nuances like coding skills, which are linked to, again, non academic enrichment, and that's where High School Africa has gained significant scale. And towards the typical K-twelve after school tutoring, where we are trying to solve the gap for accessibility, there is potential for us to scale.

Considering that even in the k twelve secondtor, you will see that there's a strong demand for mid priced offering, there still is a significant gap in terms of accessibility, and that's where EdTech can be leveraged in terms of solving some of the gaps that exist in the market.

So as a broad theme, the rise of SaaS companies, not only in the employability focused courses, but also in terms of the K twelve academic as well as non academic enrichment is a broad theme that investors can focus on to ensure the scalability of the platforms. Now I'll hand it over to Abhi to look at the last theme that we want to present.

Subhash, so as we look at the ECC market, we understand that there are low levels of formal adoption across Africa. Most of the ECCE centers that we see in Africa are primarily dominated by mom and pop centers, which leads to them having lower scales, quality of issue offerings, and sometimes the parents also have hesitation in terms of adoption. So if we look at on the next slide, we've seen that this presents as an opportunity for international brands and homegrown brands to expand their presence. In terms of international brands, we've seen the bigger names like Maplebear, Deblers, and Little Einstein expand their presence across multiple countries in Africa.

And homegrown brands like Innovate and Kidogo have also expanded their presence and gotten investments to ensure that the quality of offering across major countries like Kenya, Egypt is provided in the ECE sector. There is also an additional push if we go to the next slide from both the the government as well as the employer to ensure that the ECE provision is given to their to the children. When we look at government provisioning public provisioning, we see that there are two models that broadly operate in the market. The first one being community nursing, where voluntary based or social franchise based models are used to provide the services to children.

These services are provided to the children at a cost efficient manner so that there is higher adoption levels. There is also the joint ownership or PPP model, where there is a government service model or even a stakeholder model that are used by various governments, ensuring that the quality of provisioning is there across the country. When we look at the private provisioning and especially employer support, we see that the employers are opting for one of the two models. Either they are doing an external tie up where employers subsidize services for their employees and the nursery providers tie up with multiple employers giving them scales through the nursery. Another option is in house provisioning. Depending on the scale and size of the employer, the employer sometimes either hire their own staff or has a service model based contract where they can tie up with an existing nursery provider to operate a service in house.

Both of these models point to an increasing adoption that can be seen in the market and a more formal approach towards the ECE segment. Another interesting trend that we have seen in the market is that the K12 chains are also identifying this gap in the provisioning in the market and expanding their presence and consolidation in the ECE segment where they're operating. This has been seen in Egypt specific specifically with the EEP platform. Passing it back to Sudeep just to summarize it.

Thank you, Abhi, and thanks, Subhash.

So team recapping what are the opportunities we are bullish about over the next twelve to eighteen to twenty four months. K12 continues to be a significant opportunity. There is this stuff to be done by investors and operators both at the premium end as well as the mid price end of the segment.

Private higher education has demonstrated more scalability and given where we are in terms of access, is more to be done for for private higher education, specifically focusing on key employability oriented disciplines.

Platform building is a clear demonstrated way through which private equity and other types of capital have accessed this opportunity.

As Subhash talked about skill gap is a big topic in Africa.

TVET comes as a solution, but it's a harder story to crack and it will require all participants to come together, be it learners, employers and even government.

So it's an opportunity where the ecosystem needs to come together in a much more collaborative fashion and hence we call number three as an opportunity in making. The significant demand side driver but limited examples in which which was talked about, which have scaled and done well.

We are from a from a upskilling and reskilling lifelong learning is a theme.

Which which we have seen globally, and it works. You know, there there are models like Moringa and Ella. It it works on two themes. Know, one is building in Africa for Africa, but also building in Africa for the world.

So and then you know providing the solutions which can help global companies tap into the African talent.

So that's that's number four and and number five is the is the you know catching them young. Early childhood education is an opportunity where there has been least level of formalization and and there's demand for quality.

Providers can access it by opening up more centers.

And there is already some presence as we talked about international providers, but also roll up. There are there are multiple small small nurseries and chains which are with nurseries which are there which could be consolidated behind a platform which just helps address issues of quality governance. You know accessing talent and an Egyptian education platform is one such example. We're just trying to to do that.

So those are the those are the those are the five themes which brings us towards the end of of of our of our presentation, but I would I would also touch upon the key considerations that exist in the form of risks for investors and operators.

You know, while there is significant demand side push, know access is a big issue, is quality, know look quality that needs to be built into the sector.

Investing in the in the continent is not free of challenges and this is typical of any emerging markets market more so in Africa.

Number one, I think calibrating the product market fit important as well as calibrating the scale aspiration because it is a reality that price points will be subdued and for a high price point product the addressable market will be smaller. So it's a sort of you know calibration between volume and price.

Number two, we did talk a lot about you know M and A opportunity while that does exist given the level of fragmentation but I mean asset base is quite fragmented and quite subscale.

So so so one needs to one needs to, you know, underwrite hard work in terms of consolidating that. That does exist, you know, in various pockets, but but it is it is subscale.

Number three, I think making sure that you're calibrating right on the horizon for investment. Not everything in the continent is ready for a classic three to five year private equity style of done.

And and this goes back to saying that assets are subscale and they would require a deployment over a longer period to to have them scale and and and the whole period could could be longer than what we see in other in other parts of the world.

Fourth operational challenges I think everybody in the group probably knows knows about it given given interest in Africa and basic things like payments collections could be could be could be challenging and so so so one needs to underwrite.

A good considerable amount of operational effort while making while making making transactions or or investing in the in the sector.

And finally, I think there are certain macro elements which which do create questions in the minds of the minds of global funds, particularly the dollar denominated funds, which do see currency as a major factor.

Which should be baked into into your return profile as you as you look to invest in the in the continent.

So yeah, with that with that we will we will end the the presentation part and we will probably take up, one or two questions, if they have come up, by the group. But, but post the post the Q and A session, feel free to to write to us and we would love to get in touch with you.

Oh, wow. Okay. So, I think, I think the question is how do you see currency volatility in Egyptian pound affecting investment? I think I think my last point was was touching upon that that that there is there is there is currency risk. Right? Locally, the businesses will be profitable. They would be making, you know, their same margins.

But it's just that when you convert that EBITDA into a global you know into a USD EBITDA, it may not meet the threshold.

So it's about applying that haircut already and baking that into your plan. But business wise, mean demand wise Egypt as a market is behaving as a very high growth emerging market with high levels of parent aspiration in terms of consuming high quality education product.

So I think that is certainly a constraint and and one needs to one needs to one needs to take care of it. If there are more questions, feel free to feel free to write on the on the Q and A box, which is which is there in this in this, know, on the top of your window and we would be able to address it. We'll probably wait for another one, two minutes, team, and then, and then we will, we will we will wrap it up.

But feel free to send your questions, here while while we are here.

There's a question on the regulatory framework in the education markets, mostly in the core education sectors.

Great. Yeah. And so I mean, generally, the the regulatory framework in in in in continent and and it's an overgeneralization, but generally the policy regime is quite smooth in the sense that for profit operations are allowed. The role of private sector is well recognized.

There are checks and balances in place which do come and create some barriers in terms of licensing, in terms of adding one courses, but but they're not they're they're certainly not prohibitive for for private capital to to enter into the market. So by and large, we see the continent as, you know, on a favorable regulation.

Mean barring fewer let's say you know in market like Nigeria there have been huge requirements around opening a campus and so those onerous requirements do come in you know as you look at it into you know case by case or market by market But by and large, the role of private capital, private education is well recognized.

Unlike let's say in Asia where there are markets, Indonesia, India where for profit education both in K12 and higher is is fundamentally not allowed and and and you know that creates restrictions for and for a long time that created a restriction for global capital or foreign capital deployed in these in these markets. We don't see that in in Africa.

Also from distance learning perspective in higher education, the regulations are also relatively more more opening up going forward. So it could also present a potential opportunity for investors in the higher education space.

Great. I think there's a question on on AI and and and how do we see AI, you know, affecting education in these in these themes, particularly in theme four where, you know, the trend of outsourcing skill labor to to develop markets.

So a good question there.

Think the role and AI has already permitted in education in various forms.

See that AI standalone will will be of less use, but education businesses which embrace AI and use it to to to effective advantage are likely to get get more traction.

And and where we see opportunities for existing businesses, you know, in order to deploy AI, it's it's more around one, enhancing revenue, be it existing customers, getting into new customer segments where they can offer online only products.

That's where AI will play a role. Second is. You know its role in operational efficiency and and that's another big element where there could be a lot of unlocking of teacher time.

And that can that can help enhance productivity of teachers, reduce cost base to some extent.

The third one is around personalization that can be achieved using, you know, using chatbots or other forms of AI which could which could enhance learning. We've seen we've seen more use cases in, you know, certain pockets, be it assessments or language learning, not so much into into core education, but brick and mortar institutes who can, you know, use AI into into these elements, either language learning, you know, assessments, unlocking teacher time through through lesson plans, more likely to benefit. And and, with AI, I think the the world is getting more and more connected.

One could expect that outsourcing a skilled labor from Africa to other parts will become easier with more sophisticated deployment of AI. So it will certainly give push to the upskilling segment where somebody sitting in Africa can do the coding as effectively using AI enabled models as as as somebody in India or in Philippines.

I think one more perspective here, Sudeep, is also regarding, the software employees where using AI, some of the existing employees in the developed countries can do a bit more, which could limit the growth of some of the outsourcing sectors. But still, the overall trend that you would see in the market is to reduce the cost base. And that's where the whole perspective that Sudeep was talking about, in which even the employees in Africa can leverage a lot of the language learning models and improve their productivity and further reduce the costs. So there would be some counterbalancing act that you would see. But still, the demand at an overall perspective for outsourcing will not be reduced significantly, at least in the short term.

Yeah. I think there's a there's a discussion around operational challenges.

So we we did we did talk about that. I mean, you know, education as as as a whole is a is a simple business, but then, you know, everything comes down to execution.

In terms of operational challenges, getting the student acquisition at the right level, getting the right talent both on the academic and non academic side.

And then the retention on the back of superior collection receivables.

Those are the type of operational things that we're talking about when we talk about operational challenges.

These are not new to Africa.

They are challenges that remain for education businesses, but then given the level of fragmentation, the maturity curve where Africa is, these operational challenges do play out more than than than than than other parts of the of the world.

I think there's a comparison on West Africa, and the question is, do we see West Africa closing gap between North and South Africa in terms of investment volumes?

Countries like Nigeria have high parental aspirations, especially for local cater focused British curriculum. Yes, I think Nigeria is in this, you know, a large a larger population and does present opportunities.

It is pretty close. The adoption levels or participation levels into international K-twelve, even if we are just on affordability, have low.

Nigeria has faced constraints around policies, politics, export of currencies, those have prevented the emergence of successful scale models, but from an addressable market, definitely one of the large addressable markets presenting opportunities in Nigeria is in top three source markets for consumption of British university education.

So yes, there is an opportunity, Dami, to your question there in Northern Nigeria. And some of these policy and operational challenges are fixed could bridge the gap that exists between Nigeria and what we've seen in North Africa and South Africa.

Interestingly, Ghana and Accra are also markets which are seeing traction and and they are kind of absorbing the opportunity which Nigeria has has lost you know in the past.

Great, I think I think we have we have kind of Tackled most of the questions.

We would be we would be circulating a part of the presentation to the to the participants.

Thank you so much.

We've enjoyed the presentation. Hope you found it useful. Please feel free to reach out with your feedback, comments, or anything additional that you would you would like to discuss.

Yes.

Thank you.