Wela: Provide The Best Service For Your School

This article was written by Ayako Tanaka. She is a 4th year student at Yokohama National University. She is majoring in education and is interested in educational issues.

Wela was founded in 2017 by John Vincent Fiel and Chris lan Fiel. Serving more than 300 Philippine and other Southeast Asian schools, it has helped more than one million teachers, parents, and students. It is an educational company that has developed in the Philippines, supported by Filipinos. They use a low data volume system that is easy to use in any region, and we take every precaution to protect information from cyber attacks. They have also teamed up with a Japanese company to provide cognitive function tests for students. With that, let’s learn more about Wela with its CEO and Co-Founder, John Vincent Fiel.

What inspired you to start this service？

What inspired us was that here in our hometown, we saw there was a teacher who approached us and they described to us their problem, their pain. We saw that there's a need for schools to automate their process, especially for teachers who have to teach in the Philippines, they need to teach per class. As a teacher, you have about 50 to 70 students per class. You have to keep up with your paperwork and also make sure that your students are learning. It was really hard for teachers. That's our inspiration. We saw that there's really a need for teachers and there's a need to help them. 

What is Wela? 

Wela started as a grading automation. We wanted to lessen the paperwork of the teachers so that they could focus more on teaching. That's our first MVP or viable minimum power product. Later on, we improved our system and added this up for parents and students so they can view their status or performance in the school through the app. This app is for teachers to help them with paperwork, removing the stress. Through this app as well, we help parents and students communicate with the school and see how they're doing.

How is Edtech in the Philippines? How is Wela performing in this industry?

The Edtech industry here is definitely growing. For instance, schools have started doing robotics and other engineering or stem-related products in the schools. 

What about families in areas with poor communication environments or without smartphones?

The Philippines has one of the top social media users in the world. As such, most students have smartphones already. We also have mobile data in case they don't have the internet. Accessibility is much better nowadays compared to before. Also with our system, it's very minimal when it comes to internet requirements or hardware requirements. As such, access is readily available with our systems even with obsolete phones or laptops or the Internet.

Can you share successful stories that Wela was able to contribute to?

One would be about how we are unloading the burden of teachers so they can focus on their students instead of doing paperwork. That's really the main success story we have and are continuing to work towards.

The second would be that during the pandemic, we were able to have schools operate at uncertain times. We were able to help them in those trying times. 

What do you think is the future of edtech for Wela? 

In our case, it's incorporating AI as an assistant for teachers for their materials and lesson plans. It's more of helping teachers to make learning more fun and making their work more efficient. That's how we look at Wela in the coming years.

John Vincent FIel is the CEO and Co-Founder of Wela. They have 300 plus private schools all over the Philippines that they serve. He founded the company in 2017 with his brother. John is passionate about improving educational institutions, reducing the burden on teachers and school staff, and improving the educational environment through the use of technology.