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Schools radio lessons will continue. The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education says for this month, the radio lessons will continue based on previous lessons while awaiting further developments for their continuation.

Radio and television lessons in Zimbabwe’s educational sector are an important step in bridging a potentially unequal development.

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education reintroduced schools radio programmes last year as part of broad measures responding to the exigencies of the educational sector brought about by the coronavirus infectious disease-19 (Covid-19).

The drivers of this initiative are the need to reach all students while ensuring continuity of education.

This week former Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Dr Fay Chung, who is also the Vice-Chancellor of Women’s University in Africa, called for the effective use of radio for lessons in schools.

Describing the difficult circumstances brought about by the advent of the pandemic, Dr Chung said: “What the rural areas have is radio and printed matter.

“The use of radio for education can play a very important role in ensuring that every child continues to receive a good education.”

Radio lessons, said Dr Chung, have a long and illustrious history in Zimbabwe.

“Almost every Zimbabwean family owns a radio and the radio can be used for educational purposes. Excellent radio programmes would assist every child,” explained Dr Chung, while encouraging parents to actively participate in the education of their children.

The nation-wide lockdown disrupted the learning schedule and radio and online lessons are among the immediate response measures.

Research by the United Nations, Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) shows that more than 50 percent of students out of the classroom as a result of Covid-19 do not have access to a computer at home.

It was this realisation that led UNESCO last year to engage national broadcasters in a bid to explore programmes and innovations, as well as assess lessons learnt on the use of radio and television-based remote learning since most governments around the world had closed educational institutions as part of the Covid-19 containment measures.

The nation-wide schools’ closures, affected almost two-thirds of the world’s student population. In the case of Zimbabwe, the conversations exploring delivery of education began last year and involved the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC). These have since been widened to include Zimbabwe Newspapers and AB Communications, because of their ownership of broadcasting stations.

Zimbabwe joins a growing number of African nations that are most active in efforts to extract greater benefits from delivery of education through the medium of radio and television.

Zimbabwe is fortunate not to be attempting this for the first time. Since the early1960s the country began implementing radio and television programmes for schools, while the Zimbabwe Open University has been running programmes, based on distance/remote learning since the turn of the New Millennium.

In the case of the national broadcaster, ZBC, radio lessons were last beamed nearly two decades ago. Essentially, therefore, this is familiar territory. What is needed is to take cognizance of developments that have taken place and lessons gained during the intervening period.

The majority of Zimbabwean households — even in the rural areas – have radio and television sets, ensuring that even children in some of the remotest areas can access education through these media in this era of the coronavirus pandemic.

Recourse to radio and television lessons is important as it will address the issues of disparities in resources that presently characterizes the divide between students mostly in urban areas, against their counterparts in rest of the country.

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education said the first phase of the radio and television schools lessons addressed the needs of pupils in primary schools, while programmes for secondary schools are being developed.

The beauty of radio and television lessons is that every child/student — wherever they are in Zimbabwe — will be exposed to the same lessons, thus levelling the divide that characterizes the current position in the educational sector.

Zimbabwe’s past experience with radio and television lessons shows that they were an effective tool in capturing the imagination of students. In non- mathematical lessons, radio and television were able to transport students into a different world, firing up their creative ability.

But the value of educational broadcasts through radio and television transcends the immediate requirements of students. They have become vehicles for promoting inclusivity through local languages.

It is this awareness that informs the decisions of the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to argue that while the initial introduction of this form of delivering education is targeting students, radio and television are going to play a critical role in giving greater acknowledgement and visibility to indigenous languages — Barwe, Chewa, Chikunda, Doma, Hwesa, Kalanga, Khoisan, Nambya, Ndebele, Shangani, Shona, Tonga, Venda, Tswana and Xhosa.

There are going to be other benefits in the process of rolling out the schools radio and television programmes. For example, there are a host of opportunities for content creators for the various educational programmes for different levels of students, who will require instruction in the different official languages.

Therefore collaboration between broadcasters, educational authorities, educators and content producers will be a key factor in the success of this initiative.

Radio and television are among the most effective and rapid solutions that have demonstrated viable alternatives.