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Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Reporter

GOVERNMENT will tomorrow roll out the fourth phase of radio lessons programme for secondary school classes as part of an alternative education platform to maximise on learning following the prolonged closure of schools due to Covid-19.

In July, Government with the assistance of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), distributed more than 200 000 radios to rural communities to ensure that children continued to learn during the closure of schools.

Starting today, schools will be operating full throttle, a week after examination classes resumed on August 30.

Learners were last in school on June 3 following a long break as the country battled to contain rising Covid-19 related deaths and infections.

The radio lessons programme is being spearheaded by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in partnership with the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. Zimpapers and UNICEF.

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education said the lessons will be aired on Star FM from today until September 17, 2021 under the second schedule of the fourth phase of the programme.

The Ministry’s director of communications and advocacy Mr Taungana Ndoro yesterday said radio lessons will continue to be aired despite the reopening of schools as they have proved to be an effective way in the country’s education delivery system.

“Tomorrow’s (today’s) reopening of schools will not stop us from continuing with radio lessons because our thrust is to provide quality education for all Zimbabweans. We don’t want leave any leaner behind and even that are not going to school should be benefit through those lessons so that they can catch up,” he said.

Mr Ndoro said they are working closely with teachers to produce the radio lessons.

“We want to build our nation and this is part of the country’s socio-economic development as promulgated by His Excellency, President Mnangagwa to achieve the NDS1 so that by 2030, we will be able to be a middle-income economy. The only way we can realise that vision is by ensuring that we have provided adequate education to everyone,” he said.

Mr Ndoro said Government is rolling out the programme as part of narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor in terms of access to education, particularly targeting poor children in the rural areas who have no access to technology and money to buy data bundles.

“These radio lessons will ensure that rural learners and those who are from poor backgrounds are not left behind in terms of access to education in line with the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1),” he said.

Under the fourth phase of the programme, which is targeting Form Two to Four classes, learners will be taught Geography, History, English, Family and Religious Studies, English Literature, IsiNdebele, ChiShona, Commerce and Business Enterprise.

The programme was officially launched by Primary and Secondary Education Minister Cain Mathema in June last year at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) Montrose Studios in Bulawayo.

When the radio lessons started last year soon after the launch, learners in early childhood development (ECD), primary and secondary school classes were taught indigenous languages. When schools closed for the better of last year, pupils, especially exam classes, had to resort to online learning which most rural pupils could not access. This has been blamed for the rural pupils’ poor performance in public examinations last year.

Government then decided to give rural communities radios so that pupils could access radio lessons.

-@mashnets