Education widens opportunity only when people finish, not when they sign up
I'm Ahmad A. Idris. Pathways is my weekly letter on that idea: one question a week from a five-question test I use before I try to fix anything, tried out loud on my own work, in the UK and in Nigeria.
Why Pathways exists
Sign-ups are easy to celebrate and easy to fake. A form filled in, a seat booked, a course started. None of it means anything actually changed for the person who did it. What changes something is finishing: staying long enough for the thing to work.
I built education technology in Nigeria, and I now teach and lead in UK higher education. I keep meeting the same gap in both places, so I built a short test I ask before trying to fix it. Each week, one question from that test, and what it looks like tried on something real.
What subscribers get
- One short letter a week, about 600 words, written like I am actually writing to you rather than a mailing list.
- One question from The Finisher Test, and a way to try it yourself that week.
- Honest numbers from a live experiment I am running on my own work: a free scholarship cohort I am watching to see whether people actually finish it.
- A standing invitation to reply and tell me how your week went. I read every reply.
Join Pathways
Issue 1: Why I care more about finishers than sign-ups
Sent Sunday 4 October 2026. A new issue lands every Sunday morning; past issues stay here.
Hi friend,
In a few hours I stand at a start line for the first time as a registered club athlete. I turned 35 last week, and running my first race for West End Runners is the present I gave myself: permission to try something I quietly wanted since I was fourteen, and never quite let go of.
I am not telling you this because Pathways is a running newsletter. I am telling you because of what happened between turning 35 and this morning. I trained quietly from January. Nobody watched. Most people who start something like this do not finish it, and I very nearly did not either.
That is what this letter is about from now on. Not a diary of my week, not a list of events. One idea I keep running into wherever I look: education widens opportunity only when people finish, not when they sign up.
I saw it first in Nigeria, building coding programmes for schools in places genuinely short of options. Sign-ups were never the problem. Getting a child to still be there in week six was. I see the same thing now in the UK, teaching adults who come back to education after ten or twenty years away. They arrive. Many of them do not finish. The gap between those two facts is where I actually spend my working life, and it is what this letter is going to be about from here.
So this month I want to show you the five questions I ask before I try to fix anything like that. I call it The Finisher Test. Question one, this week: who exactly isn't finishing?
It is not one question, really. It is four, and most problems fall apart at the second one.
What exactly is the problem, in words you could actually watch happen? Not "engagement is low," but something like "second year students stop handing in drafts after week four."
Who has it, specifically? Not "students." Which students? This is where most problems fall apart, because the honest answer is usually "we are not sure."
What do we actually know, and what are we guessing? Write the guesses down separately. They are the dangerous part.
What is the smallest test that would tell us if we are right? Small enough to try next week, not next year.
I learned this way of thinking from Bill Aulet's Disciplined Entrepreneurship, a method I picked up at MIT that was built for founders choosing which customer to start with. It turns out it works just as well pointed at a classroom, or at a course nobody is finishing.
Try this in the week ahead: pick one thing you or someone near you keeps starting and not finishing. Work, home, wherever it shows up. Answer question two in one sentence: who, specifically, has this problem? Not "everyone." Not "me, sometimes." One honest sentence.
On the cohort, briefly: last month Steamledge and DataCamp opened 150 free scholarship places on a data and AI course. This month I am going to do to my own work exactly what I am asking you to do to yours, and watch, honestly, whether people actually finish it. I do not have real totals to share with you yet. Once our partner and I have agreed what I can say publicly, I will give you the actual numbers, good or bad, not a tidied-up version of them. That is the whole point of this exercise, so I am not going to skip the part where it might not look good.
One question back before I go. What did you start and not finish? What got in the way? Hit reply and tell me, I read every reply. And if this letter is no longer for you, just reply with the word unsubscribe and I will take you off the list, no hard feelings.
Right, I should go and find my running shoes.
Ahmad
Cikin Hausa
Wannan fassarar Hausa ce ta wasikar sama. Idan wani abu bai fito daidai ba, ka gaya mani ta hanyar tuntubar ni.
Sannu abokina,
Cikin 'yan sa'o'i kadan, zan tsaya a layin farawa a karo na farko a matsayin dan wasan da aka rijista a kulob. Na cika shekara 35 makon da ya wuce, kuma gudun tseren farko na tare da West End Runners shi ne kyautar da na ba wa kaina: izinin gwada wani abu da nake so a shiru tun ina dan shekara 14, kuma ban taba barin shi ya tafi ba.
Ba na gaya muku wannan don Pathways wasika ce ta gudu. Ina gaya muku ne saboda abin da ya faru tsakanin cika shekara 35 da wannan safiya. Na yi horo a asirce tun watan Janairu. Babu wanda ya sani. Yawancin mutanen da suka fara wani abu kamar haka ba sa kammala shi, ni ma na kusa kasa kammalawa.
Wannan ne abin da wannan wasikar za ta tabbata a kai daga yanzu. Ba diary na makon da na yi ba, ba jerin abubuwan da suka faru ba. Ra'ayi guda daya da nake ci gaba da haduwa da shi a duk inda na duba: ilimi yana bude dama ne kawai idan mutane suka kammala, ba lokacin da suka fara rajista ba.
Na fara ganin wannan a Najeriya, ina gina shirye-shiryen coding domin makarantu a wurare da ke da karancin zabi na gaskiya. Rajista ba shi ne matsalar ba. Sanya yaro ya kasance a can har zuwa mako na shida shi ne matsalar. Ina ganin irin wannan a Birtaniya yanzu, ina koyar da manya da suka koma karatu bayan shekara goma ko ashirin. Sun zo. Da yawa daga cikinsu ba sa kammalawa. Tazarar da ke tsakanin wadannan gaskiyoyi guda biyu shi ne inda nake kashe rayuwata ta aiki, kuma shi ne abin da wannan wasikar za ta tabbata a kai daga yanzu.
Don haka wannan wata, ina son nuna muku tambayoyi biyar da nake yi kafin in gwada gyara wani abu kamar haka. Na kira shi The Finisher Test. Tambaya ta daya, wannan mako: wanene ba ya kammalawa, daidai?
Ba tambaya daya ba ce, a gaskiya. Hudu ne, kuma yawancin matsaloli suna rushewa a tambaya ta biyu.
Menene ainihin matsalar, cikin kalmomin da za a iya gani da ido? Ba "shigar dalibai kadan ne" ba, sai dai wani abu kamar "daliban shekara ta biyu sun daina mika ayyukansu bayan mako na hudu."
Wanene ke fama da wannan, daidai? Ba "dalibai" ba. Wanne dalibai? Nan ne yawancin matsaloli ke rushewa, domin amsar gaskiya sau da yawa ita ce "ba mu tabbata ba."
Menene muka sani da gaske, kuma menene muke zato kawai? Rubuta zatonku daban. Su ne bangaren mai hadari.
Menene mafi karancin gwaji da zai gaya mana ko muna daidai? Karami har za a iya gwadawa mako mai zuwa, ba shekara mai zuwa ba.
Na koyi wannan hanyar tunani daga littafin Disciplined Entrepreneurship na Bill Aulet, hanyar da na koya a MIT, wadda aka gina domin masu kirkirar kasuwanci wajen zabar wanda za su fara aiki da shi. Ya zama tana aiki daidai idan aka mayar da hankali zuwa aji, ko kuma zuwa wani karatu da babu wanda ke kammala shi.
Gwada wannan a cikin makon da ke tafe: zabi abu daya da kai ko wani kusa da kai ke ci gaba da farawa amma ba ya kammalawa. Aiki, gida, ko'ina abin ya bayyana. Ka amsa tambaya ta biyu cikin jimla daya: wanene, daidai, ke da wannan matsalar? Ba "kowa" ba. Ba "ni, wani lokaci" ba. Jimla daya ta gaskiya.
Game da kungiyar dalibai, a takaice: watan da ya gabata, Steamledge da DataCamp sun bude wurare 150 kyauta a kan darasin bayanai da AI. Wannan wata, zan yi wa aikina abin da nake tambayar ku ku yi wa naku, in duba, da gaskiya, ko mutane suna kammalawa da gaske. Ba ni da ainihin lambobi da zan raba muku tukuna. Da zarar ni da abokin aikina mun amince kan abin da zan iya fada a fili, zan ba ku ainihin lambobin, ko na kwarai ne ko a'a, ba wani sigar da aka goge ba. Wannan shi ne dukkan manufar wannan gwaji, don haka ba zan tsallake bangaren da bazai yi kyau ba.
Tambaya guda daya kafin in tafi. Menene ka fara amma ba ka kammala ba? Menene ya hana ka? Ka amsa min, ina karanta kowace amsa. Kuma idan wannan wasikar ba ta kara dacewa da kai ba, sai ka rubuto min da kalmar unsubscribe, zan cire ka daga jerin sunayen, babu wata matsala.
To, ya kamata in tafi in nemi takalman gudun na.
Ahmad
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Tell me how your week went
Pathways is a conversation, not a broadcast. If you tried one of the tests, if your week brought a win or a wall, or if there is a story about finishing something that this community should hear, write to me. The best material in future issues comes from readers.