The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments to shut down learning institutions worldwide as a measure to observe social distancing in order to curb the spread of the virus. This has raised some issues about the capacity of the normal school systems being able to adapt to modern technology such as digital learning to ensure that learning does not stop when there is an emergency.
Disadvantaged children and their families have been mostly affected by this pandemic since most attend public schools or low cost private schools who do not have the capacity to offer zoom schools as seen in the developed world.
There have been calls by governments across the world to content providers, learning institutions and the private sector to come up with measures to ensure learning is ongoing while students are at home.
While addressing the nation on 22nd April via a radio broadcast, President Uhuru Kenyatta reiterated that the national exams, KCPE and KCSE will be held on the scheduled dates despite there being not a clear date on when schools will reopen this year from the Ministry of Education.
At Eneza, we are committed to ensuring that we can help each and every student in the country to be able to pick up from wherever they were with their studies before schools closed. In partnership with Safaricom Plc, we are providing free revision materials for learners in primary and secondary on SMS and Web. Students can access Shupavu291 which has the SMS curriculum aligned content by dialing *291# on a Safaricom line or on Shupavu Web at mwalimoo.com/m/start.
Once on the platform students are able to access revision lessons, revision papers, Wikipedia and even ask a live teacher any difficult questions through the Ask a Teacher feature.
In Ivory Coast, we are providing 2 weeks free access to learning materials to learners who subscribe to iEduk and have extended partnerships with MTN and the Ministry of Education in order to be able to reach more students.