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The student I couldn’t save. Now we’re building an AI to help millions.

3 min readNichole Lim

The journey started 20 years ago. I was trying to tutor students in an orphanage when John showed up. Of the 20+ teenagers in the home, he was the only one to show up. 15 years old, he was just a couple of months shy of a major exam that every 15-year-old took back then in Malaysia – an exam that dictates where he will end up in life. 

He was asking a question on fractions. But despite my best efforts, he stayed confused. Every clarifying question I gave him ended with pursed lips, puzzled looks, and inevitably wrong answers. So, I asked him simpler questions that kids far younger than John could answer. 

——————  

I found this at every school I went to. More than 80% of students are failing math in our public secondary schools (Abdullah & Mohd, 2019; Untuk Malaysia, 2023). And teachers tell me that their students, even the oldest ones, still struggle to do math that 13-year-olds should have already mastered. 

And the location didn’t even matter. I could be in the city, the outskirts, the villages, KL, Kuantan, Penang, I’d still find that more than 80% of secondary school students are failing math (Abdullah & Mohd, 2019). 

——————  

John didn’t understand anything I was ‘teaching’, and he couldn’t answer any of my questions. So, I went looking for the why. Why was he struggling so much with a simple math idea? I was trying to find the root of his problems in understanding fractions, yet I couldn’t seem to find the bottom. I kept falling to simpler prerequisite math concepts when I was forced to ask John the simplest questions on fraction. 

“John, what is half plus half?” 

He paused, thought about it for a while, then blurted an answer that made my heart sink to my stomach. 

——————   

When students don’t perform, people blame the teachers. But can anyone conceivably help 160 failing students at a time? I knew I couldn’t, not when I struggled to help just one. 

Teachers in well enrolled public schools in Malaysia handle 5 classes of 40 students. That’s 200 students (Anuar Ahmad, 2023). And when 80% of them are failing that means that 160 students are screaming for attention. Yet there is only one teacher. This math teacher doesn’t have teaching assistants, and teachers in Malaysia spend double the OECD average on administrative tasks (Education International, 2024). 

Teachers have an impossible task. So, kids like John fall through the cracks and never catch up. 

——————   

“1/4” 

John guessed in a somewhat assured tone. 

“Half plus half is a quarter?” I asked again. 

“Yeeeees?” He answered with a voice that went up a pitch. 

I was shell shocked. I left the orphanage that day and never stepped into another again. 

I ran. I never saw John again and I don’t know how he did or how he’s doing today. 

The ghost of John has haunted me ever since. He’s a big reason why I left my engineering career and went into education. 

When OpenAI launched ChatGPT, we knew that we could build an AI that could help a motivated student like John. But this time, instead of running away, we ran towards the flames and went deep into solving education inequity for millions. This time, the technology has caught up and we finally have the knowhow to build communities that allow us to increase the number of teachers in our education ecosystem by 10X. Giving the ‘Johns’ everywhere a fighting chance. 

To support us, head on to pitchIN.com/equity/tupaiai to invest in Tupai. 

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Reference

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