Short answers to 37 questions people often ask, grouped by topic. Each answer links to the page that explains it in full.
A few questions do not have a settled answer yet. The clearest examples are whether certificates are accredited by an outside body, and whether the work leads to lasting income. Those answers say so, and say what we are doing about it.
About the organisation
What is DreamSpace Academy?
DreamSpace Academy is a non-profit social enterprise. We co-create an ecosystem to tackle local challenges through education, innovation and entrepreneurship. We were founded in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, in September 2018.
Is “social enterprise” a claim that you do not rely on grants?
No. Social enterprise describes how we are organised, not how our work is paid for. It does not mean we are free of grants, or that we depend on them. Our work has been paid for in three ways: grants and partnerships; income from the training we provide and from client projects by our media lab and software lab; and the founders’ own capital. We are working out how much each one contributes and will publish that once we know. Until then, we rank none of them above the others.
Where does education fit in the wider model?
Education is one of three pillars, alongside innovation and entrepreneurship, and it comes first: it is where people build the skills and support they need before anything else can happen. The STEAM programmes are one part of it; we also teach business and entrepreneurship, digital security and teacher training. Our education runs in schools, at partner sites, online and in our own spaces. A MakerSpace is one of the places it can run, not the place it belongs to.
How many labs and ventures do you have?
We do not publish either number yet. We only name a lab when it has a making domain, a named person who maintains it, a team, and a date on which all of that was true. We are working out how to count ventures: what role we played in each one and which ventures to include. We will publish the number once that is agreed.
What part of your model is not proven?
Whether this particular rural pathway leads to income that lasts. There is good evidence that entrepreneurship contributes to economic development. Whether this route, from making things to starting a venture, does the same, and for how many people, is a hypothesis. Our measurement work exists to test it.
Which Sustainable Development Goals do you claim?
Eight, and each one is linked to specific work. Two came off the list recently. We removed one because our work did not match the goal’s own definition. We keep the other as an aim rather than a claim, because we have never measured the outcome. The impact page gives both reasons.
What this is
What is MakerSpace by DreamSpace Academy?
It is a community makerspace that a local partner can set up and run as a social franchise. The partner provides the space. We provide the design of the unit (the equipment specification and layout), the brand, the operating standard and a licence to run our programmes there. Our programmes do not need a MakerSpace: they also run in schools, at partner sites and online. Wherever they run, people learn by making things and working on projects and real local challenges. They explain and reflect on their work, and take on more of it by themselves over time.
Is it a school, a training centre, or a makerspace?
None of them exactly: the STEAM programmes borrow from all three. They are not a conventional classroom and not a computer lab. Learners work with tools, materials and other people, follow their interests, build real skills and work on problems that exist outside the room they are in.
What a MakerSpace does not do ,A makerspace is not a computer lab
How is this different from a normal classroom?
In the STEAM programmes, learners do not mainly listen and repeat. They make things, test whether they work, explain the decisions behind them, improve them, work with other people, and apply what they know to projects and challenges that have not been solved for them in advance.
What are the STEAM programmes?
They are our programmes in making, robotics, electronics, fabrication, and music and media making, including our programmes in government schools. Learners learn by designing, building, testing, repairing and explaining things they can hold, hear or use. Technology is one possible tool, never the point: a well-made piece of furniture, a recorded song and a working sensor all qualify. The STEAM programmes are one part of what we teach at DreamSpace Academy, not the whole of our education. In the research literature, this way of learning is called maker education.
Joining
Who can join?
It depends on the course, the places available, safeguarding requirements and any stated prerequisites. Open Explorer experiences need no prior skill at all; structured courses use a placement check.
Is there a minimum or maximum age?
We use no age limit as an entry rule. Placement depends on what a learner can show they can do, not on age, and we do not use age as a band or a label anywhere. Safeguarding and the legal duty of care still apply, and a particular course may have practical requirements for taking part.
Why age does not determine placement ,Placement instead of age
Does a learner need good school grades?
Usually not. What matters is what a learner can already do and what support they need. Where a structured course has prerequisites, a placement check tests for those directly rather than using school results as a stand-in.
How do you decide which level a learner starts at?
A placement check at the start of the course looks at what the learner already knows, what they can do and how independently they can work. Prior learning counts however it was gained (at school, at work, online, or from a relative who repairs things) and it does not need a certificate behind it.
What you can learn
What does DreamSpace Academy teach?
We run the STEAM programmes: electronics, robotics, digital fabrication, music and media making, including term-based programmes in government schools. Alongside them we run business and entrepreneurship training, startup bootcamps and a startup challenge; media and information literacy, digital security and digital marketing; and workplace English, leadership workshops, training of trainers and training for school teachers. We teach software and AI as well, and we have not decided whether they belong inside the STEAM programmes or beside them.
What subjects do the STEAM programmes cover?
The subjects (called domains) we have written up so far are maker and fabrication, digital education, AI programmes, AI with electronics, software and tech-entrepreneurship, creative arts, and fitness and sport. Software and AI also overlap with our digital skills training, and we have not decided where they belong. The list can change: domains may be added, combined or retired. They are not all equally developed, and the programmes page says where each one stands.
Does everyone have to learn coding or robotics?
No. A learner may come in through craft, music, media, art, sport, coding, electronics or another available area, and those practices overlap, with technology supporting work across any of them. We keep the domains under one roof because real problems are not single-subject and people arrive through different doors.
Why the domains sit together ,Why the music room is next to the electronics bench
The Changemaker Journey
What are Explorer, Maker, Innovator and Changemaker?
They are the four stages of the Changemaker Journey, the path learners follow in the STEAM programmes. Each stage describes what the work is for. Explorer is open discovery. Maker builds reliable skill in a chosen subject. Innovator aims that skill at a real problem. Changemaker is reached by producing work that came from a community, has been tested by a real user who is not on the project team, and that someone depends on.
Is everyone expected to become a Changemaker?
No. The stages describe possible routes, not a ladder everyone must climb. Leaving with a real skill, a finished project or a job is a complete outcome. We are setting up a way to follow up everyone who leaves a stage and where they go, not only the people who stay, and will publish what we find.
What is a “level”?
A level belongs to a course, inside the Maker stage. It has three parts: a description of what the learner can do, an expected number of learning hours, and a piece of work that can be assessed. It is never a label attached to a person: there is no such thing as “a Level 3 learner”.
How long does the journey take?
There is no single duration, and we publish none. It depends on the course, what a learner already brings, the projects they choose and the evidence they produce. Progress depends on what a learner can show they can do, not on how long they have been enrolled.
Assessment and certificates
How are learners assessed?
From the Maker stage onward, work is judged against a published standard called the Definition of Done. The work has to show six things, in any order, among them a clear aim, a reasoned choice between options, and at least one improvement. A certificate also needs three kinds of evidence: the thing that was made, a talk-through of it, and a reflection, which may be written, spoken or recorded. Explorer work is not assessed.
Are there exams and marks?
Assessment centres on finished work rather than a written exam or a single mark. A learner shows what they made, explains how it works and why they made the decisions they did, and says what they would change.
What does a certificate prove?
It proves that the learner completed a named course and level, and it names the evidence used to judge the work. It stands for work that met a published standard, not attendance, which is why we publish the standard.
Are the certificates nationally or internationally accredited?
Not as a system, and this is not yet settled. Unless a particular course names an accrediting body, a certificate should be understood as issued by DreamSpace Academy itself.
Trainers, facilitators and safety
Who teaches?
Trainers and facilitators, and one person is often both. A trainer is a content expert who teaches knowledge and skills directly and demonstrates safe practice. A facilitator is a process expert who coaches, asks questions, helps a group reach its own answers and connects people to others who know more. The balance changes as a learner becomes more skilled. Guidance is highest where knowledge is lowest, so structured teaching is a full part of the approach, used from the start.
How are learners kept safe around tools and equipment?
Every course publishes its tool, material and safety requirements. A learner only uses a piece of equipment once they have shown they are ready for it and the right supervision is in place. Safety requirements limit what a course may offer.
What happens when a learner struggles, or something fails?
The learner gets more help, and failure is treated as useful information as long as everyone stays safe. Trainers and facilitators can add instruction, demonstration, practice, feedback or help from other learners, and work can be improved before it is assessed. Improving the work is one of the six things assessment looks for, called Refined.
Outcomes, evidence and impact
Will this help a learner get a job or start a business?
It can help, though it cannot guarantee either. The programmes build hands-on, digital, creative, innovation and enterprise skills, and enterprise runs through the whole journey rather than being added at the end. Small income is a realistic near-term outcome. A sustained livelihood is a hypothesis we intend to measure rather than claim, and we are setting up the follow-up that will measure it. We promise nobody a job, a business or an income.
How do you choose which community problems to work on?
The problem has to come from the community, not from a competition brief or a funder’s theme. Learners investigate the situation with the people affected, test whether the response is useful to a real user who is not on the project team, and a prototype on a bench is never counted as a solved problem.
How can a donor or partner tell whether this works?
By reading the results level by level: we report activities, outputs, outcomes and long-term impact separately, so each can be read for what it is. We publish limitations alongside results. We also keep three things apart: what a curriculum says, what was actually taught, and what someone outside DreamSpace Academy has checked.
What is this model’s biggest limitation?
There is no strong causal evidence that makerspaces improve long-term livelihoods in settings like this one, neither from our own work nor in the research we have reviewed. Our approach is built to collect that evidence rather than assume it, and we publish the registers and checks for doing so.
Taking part
What is running, where, and at what cost changes, so ask us directly for those answers.
How do I find out what is running now, and where?
Courses, locations and dates change, so we do not publish the current timetable. For what is open now (including places, dates, language of teaching, any fees or funded places, and accessibility arrangements) contact us at [email protected] or through dreamspace.academy.
What should I ask before enrolling?
Ask which course and level it is, what it costs and whether funded places exist, where and when it runs and in which language, what the placement check involves, what tools and materials are provided, what the safeguarding and supervision arrangements are, and what a learner leaves with. Several of these are part of the published course specification, and a course that cannot answer them is not ready to be offered.
Is there support for learners with a disability, or who need another language?
We arrange support course by course rather than through one policy for everything. Each course has to state its accessibility and language arrangements before it is offered. Raise the specific need when you enquire. It is a practical question about the room, the tools and the facilitator, and it is better answered before enrolment than after.
How can a parent, school, donor or community organisation get involved?
There are several ways: ask what is running now, visit where that is appropriate, propose a school or community partnership, contribute expertise, equipment or materials, or pay for places and teaching. The contact for all of these is [email protected].
Can this model be run somewhere else?
Yes. Our programmes do not need a MakerSpace: they run in schools, at partner sites and online. A local partner that wants a dedicated space can set up a MakerSpace and run it as a social franchise, rather than as an unrelated space sharing a name. We provide the design of the unit, the brand, the operating standard and a licence to run our programmes there. Four things must stay the same everywhere: the completion standard, the stage definitions, the safety rules and the assessment method. The domains, language, timetable and problems worked on are decided locally.
How to ask a question that is not here
Send it to us directly. The questions on this page come from what people ask. If the answer is that something is not settled yet, we add the question here and say so.