Purpose Built EdTech LMS SaaS Platform Is Disrupting the African K-12 Schools
We built a scalable Custom SaaS LMS (Learning Management System) for French-speaking African schools, simplifying learning with multilingual support, streamlined administration, and tools for enhanced teacher, student, and parent engagement.
About Client and Key Challenges
Education in Africa was full of challenges, with outdated systems, manual paperwork, and inefficient communication. So, School administrators juggled with multiple tools that didn’t integrate well. Teachers struggled with tracking grades, managing assignments, and communicating with parents.
Payroll and fee collection were cumbersome, causing financial mismanagement. Many schools lacked digital solutions tailored to their unique needs, making operations slow and disorganized.
This drove a visionary French tech entrepreneur, Jennyfer Ngueno, and her co-founder, Leonnel Noundou, to transform education in French-speaking African countries by creating an affordable SaaS Learning Management System.
As individuals with deep roots in the African education system, they understood these struggles firsthand. Their goal was to simplify learning for students, teachers, parents, and administrators using the SaaS education platform.
SEKOU was designed to offer a multilingual experience, automate administrative tasks like attendance tracking, payroll, and payments, and help teachers focus on what truly matters—teaching.
PlatformsWeb App
Duration16 weeks
IndustryEdTech
Partnership Goal
Jennyfer had a vision, but turning it into reality needed the right technology partner. She wasn’t just looking for a development team—she needed a team that understood the real struggles of schools in Africa. A team that could build not just software, but a solution that truly made a difference.
At RaftLabs, we took that challenge head-on. Our goal was clear: develop a powerful, scalable, and user-friendly SaaS LMS that could handle complex school operations while keeping it simple for users. We focused on automation, seamless integrations, and multilingual support to ensure accessibility. Security was a top priority, safeguarding student and school data at every level. With a strong partnership built on trust and a shared vision, we worked closely with Jennyfer to bring SEKOU to life—turning an idea into a game-changing solution for education in Africa.
Before
- Manual attendance tracking
- Manual fee collection
- No multilingual support for broader accessibility
- Limited engagement between parents, teachers, and students
- Lack of real-time performance insights
- Difficulty scaling to support large student populations
After
- Automated workflows for attendance tracking
- Streamlined processes for fee management
- Multilingual SaaS LMS ensures inclusivity
- Dedicated portals improving parent-teacher communication
- Real-time analytics for actionable insights
- Scalable to support multiple schools and thousands of students
Technologies we used for building Custom SaaS LMS
Team Formation
To bring our client’s vision to life, a dedicated team of 8 members was assembled, ensuring every aspect of the project received the attention to detail it deserved.
Our team consisted of 1 backend developer, supported by 2 additional backend developers, 1 frontend developer, a project manager, 1 business analyst, and 1 designer.
This collaborative effort allowed us to focus on delivering a platform that met both technical and user experience requirements.
At the beginning of the project, we shared a detailed prototype with the client to give them a clear vision of how we would proceed, ensuring alignment from the start.
Given the complexity of creating a secure, multilingual SaaS LMS for diverse user groups, precision and clear communication were crucial throughout the process.
students can be supported per school
boost in school community connections
concept to launch
students can be supported per school
boost in school community connections
Our Partnership
Our partnership with Jennyfer Ngueno, a French tech professional, was driven by her vision to create an affordable SaaS Learning Management System (LMS) tailored for French-speaking African countries. She wanted the application to serve schools, students, professors, and administrative staff, addressing diverse needs within the educational ecosystem.
Her goal was to simplify school operations, including tasks like managing attendance, fees, and staff records, to ease the administrative burden. She also aimed to provide multilingual accessibility and strengthen parent-teacher-student engagement, creating a more efficient, transparent, and inclusive educational experience.
In our role as a partner in learning management system development, we used Slack for daily updates and swift resolution of support issues, while Asana helped streamline project management. Following Agile methods with two-week sprints, we maintained steady progress and adaptability. Daily internal sync-ups kept all team members aligned, fostering a seamless collaboration to deliver a user-friendly and impactful solution.
Student Dashboard
A personalized space where students can easily keep track of their assignments, grades, and learning materials. It feels like having all their schoolwork in one place, making learning less stressful and more organized.
Teacher Tools
Teachers can upload lessons, assign homework, and track attendance without the hassle of paperwork. With everything in one place, it’s easier for them to focus on what matters most—teaching and inspiring students.
Parent Portal
Parents can stay connected to their child’s progress in real-time. Knowing their child’s attendance and grades lets them be more involved and support their learning journey from home.
Automated Administration
Admins can streamline tasks like payroll, fee collection, and attendance, giving them more time to focus on improving the school. Automation removes the stress of managing day-to-day operations manually.
Multilingual Support
Available in French, the platform ensures students, teachers, and parents can use it with ease in their native language. It helps bridge the gap and brings the power of digital education to local communities across Africa.
Notifications System
Important reminders, from homework deadlines to fee collection, come straight to users’ devices. With timely updates, everyone stays informed and on track without missing anything.
Local Payment Integration
Sekou supports regional payment methods, so parents and students can easily pay fees and access services in their local currencies. It makes transactions simpler and more convenient for everyone.
Reports and Insights
Teachers, admins, and parents can access detailed analytics on student performance, attendance, and overall progress. This valuable data helps make informed decisions to improve learning outcomes.
Scalability
As the system grows, it’s easy to add more students, schools, and features without sacrificing performance. Sekou adapts as educational institutions expand, offering long-term value.
Cloud-Based Access
With cloud-based access, learning is no longer confined to the classroom. Students and teachers can engage from anywhere, ensuring no interruptions to their educational journey.
What happened next - Results
We built Sekou, an all-in-one online school and college management software, delivering a custom SaaS LMS platform in just 16 weeks.
Initial beta testing in schools showed great success: teachers and admins reported significant time savings thanks to automated workflows, and tasks like attendance tracking, grade management, and fee collection were streamlined, increasing overall efficiency.
The platform’s intuitive design received positive feedback, with schools praising how easy it was to use and how much stress it removed from daily operations.
The scalable infrastructure is ready to support more schools and handle growing user demands.
The client was particularly impressed by our saas application development approach and the thoughtful improvements we made, which further enhanced the platform’s functionality and user experience.
