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Mkhululi Ncube, Chronicle Reporter
ONLY 19 percent of children in urban areas in the country accessed online learning when schools closed due Covid-19, with Cabinet this week moving in to address the problem by approving the National e-Learning Strategy for Schools.

The e-Learning Strategy for Schools is part of Government’s priority programmes.

The 8th Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVAC) urban livelihoods assessment which was conducted in December last year, shows how serious Covid-19 affected urban families, including schoolchildren.

The report provides updates on pertinent urban household livelihoods issues such as demographics, housing, education, health, nutrition, WASH, energy, social protection, food consumption patterns, food and income sources, income levels, expenditure patterns, debts, coping strategies, Covid-19, shocks and food security.

It was carried out under the overall co-ordination of the Government working with development partners such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) and food and civic society organisations.

The purpose of the Zimvac assessment is to provide an annual update on the livelihoods in Zimbabwe’s urban areas for the purpose of informing policy formulation and the programming of appropriate interventions.

The report looked at children between the ages of four years and 17 years across the country and found out that the majority did not access online learning.

It challenged the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to come up with proper interventions.

“Only 19 percent of the urban children were accessing online schooling during the nationwide lockdown in 2020. The disparity in access to education services could lead to future inequalities in the education sector. The ministry responsible for education should take up innovations and scale up context-specific interventions to ensure universal access to education by all deserving children during the pandemic,” reads the report.

Masvingo Province had the highest number of pupils doing online lessons at 35 percent while Matabeleland North had the least at 11 percent.

According to the report, Bulawayo had 24 percent while Matabeleland South is at 28 percent and Midlands at 14 percent.

The report says children that where at school before the Covid-19-induced lockdown started were at 86 percent nationally.

Masvingo Province had the highest with 94 percent followed by Matabeleland North Province at 93 percent, Midlands at 90 percent, Matabeleland South at 89 percent while Bulawayo was at 87 percent.

Harare had 76 percent of pupils attending school before the advent of Covid-19 with only 24 percent managing to do online learning during the lockdown period.

On Tuesday, Cabinet approved the National e-Learning Strategy for Schools in Zimbabwe which will see more learning institutions having Internet connection before year end and 3 000 teachers receiving information communication technology (ICT) training by June.

The National e-Learning Strategy for Schools in Zimbabwe will run from this year until 2025 and is part of Government’s priority programmes on Innovation, Science and Technology Development to industrialise the country using ICTs.

Government said it is implementing a smart education programme whose aim is to complement traditional forms of learning.

E-learning has become a necessity in the country due to disruptions to the education sector caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa told a post-Cabinet media briefing on Tuesday night that the strategy will result in 1 500 schools being connected with broadband before the end of the year and 3 000 teachers.

She said the strategy also seeks to ensure that schools in remote areas of the country get access to online learning equipment.

“The success of the online learning initiative for rural communities will be premised on the expansion and upgrading of the broadband infrastructure; the acquisition of standardised gadgets for schools; the development and delivery of content, a federated content hosting approach to optimize and cut down on the cost of access; the importing of basic digital skills to educators (capacity building) and the availability of resources for the roll-out of the programme,” she said.

Minister Mutsvangwa said parastatals such as the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Potraz) are key in the implementation of the National e-Leaning Strategy. — @themkhust.