HAVING gone through challenges and failures of his own in high school, Mark Scott decided to find tools to make students realise that examinations aren’t difficult.

Academic Journies is a software company that provides subscription-based services for the academic field.

When the business started in 2009, Scott and his team ran marathon teaching sessions to prepare students for the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC).

The aim was to fill certain gaps in the knowledge of students who were preparing to write the regional examination.

Academic Journies, presently offers six subjects over two weeks before the CXC exams; one session lasts for eight hours. Graduates of the University of the West Indies (UWI), teach the students.

But Scott says that Academic Journies’ integrated learning environment sets it aside from other institutions.

The company leverages social media platforms such as Google and Facebook to do quizzes.

“We place the assessments on platforms where students will typically be considered to be wasting time,” he said. It’s easily accessible on whatever devices they use.”

By September, he and his team hope to fully roll out the online platform that students and schools can subscribe to, where they will engage with more tools to help them fill knowledge gaps on a daily basis in addition to sessions.

“Marathons or extra class aren’t uncommon to people, we are positioning this brand as the last point before exam, so we have to guarantee that we are putting the right concepts in your mind so you can execute right before you get into the exam,” he said.

Furthermore, he wants to increase the number of subjects and expand the marathon sessions to other Caribbean countries.

But he understands that he has a big challenge ahead of him.

“First of all, you have to undo all of the things that other people have gone into the schools and promised and didn’t deliver,” said Scott.

Academic Journies is a partner and not a competitor to teachers.

“It’s difficult for a student to go to school for five years and not interact with every single element of the syllabus that they will be assessed on, but there is the challenge of identifying the link that separates them from fully understanding a concept,” he said.

Putting students in university lecture rooms allows them to recognise that examinations aren’t only about completing high school, but another step to getting a degree.