Bacela Classes – A window to knowledge

Bacelar Bacela speaks calmly, with pauses. He always tries to adapt his speech to whoever listens to him, he always thinks about being understood. He is shy. When he is nervous, he sometimes stutters. But, in front of the students, he faces his fears and conveys what he knows, without hesitation or reticence.

When distance learning and digital learning platforms were a futuristic conversation in Mozambique, he went against the grain, invested in the pursuit of knowledge and used the Internet to pass it on.

With his laptop camera, programming knowledge, free time and the certainty that small acts can drive change, this teacher created Bacela Classes. The digital teaching platform, created in 2017, prepares pre-university students for 12th grade exams, higher education and beyond. Using video lessons, tests and other learning resources, his initiative has already gathered the approval of thousands of students. But that’s not all, in his list of projects, which he periodically sends to embassies and large companies, there are initiatives such as “Escola Moz 4.0”, “Teacher Grade 20+1”, “Program Mozambique”. But this is a conversation for another day.

While the projects take shape, he maintains the routine of a civil servant, a professor at private higher education institutions and gives private lessons. Who sees him from a distance, cannot see the dark circles around his eyes. The late nights of Bacelar Bacela, currently, are no longer dedicated to rest, as he decided to create a YouTube channel and works to produce more than 500 video-classes for solving 12th grade exam exercises, extraordinary and admission exams. The effort will bring results, this August, the material will already be finished.

When distance learning and digital learning platforms were a futuristic conversation in Mozambique, he went against the grain, invested in the pursuit of knowledge and used the Internet to pass it on.

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The YouTube channel will promote part of the projects and will open space for more students to have access to education. “My biggest ambition when creating the projects is to give the opportunity to students, who are often unable to pursue higher education in private institutions, to prepare, for free, for the admissions exams using only their smartphone, tablet, laptop or computer,” he explains.

In the medium and long term, he has the ambition to contribute to the expansion of hybrid education in Mozambique. All of his projects are part of a parent initiative, called the Virtual School of Mozambique.

“The initiative aims at digital integration and social transformation based on non-profit education,” he says, adding that while waiting for this macro action to take place in 2020, with Covid-19 giving a new face to teaching and learning, he realised that more needed to be done. After months of research, in July 2021, he created another initiative: Stor Bacela. The name is inspired by his students, who address him like that. The platform, which can be accessed via the t.me/stormozbot link, facilitates student-teacher contact using artificial intelligence and improves distance teaching and learning.

Despite not feeling the immediate gains from his actions, Bacelar continues to improve his knowledge for the creation of electronic distance learning platforms for schools, universities, teacher training centres and corporations. It has been 12 years. Much of his knowledge was learned through digital educational resources, face-to-face training and virtual workshops.

At dawn, he sees the sun peering through the window of his makeshift office for distance learning, gains faith, closes his laptop and prepares for another journey, hoping that his efforts at teaching will one day bring results.

Issue 75 Sept/Oct | Download.