Education offers learners support during Lockdown
The Provincial Department of Education will roll out a wide range of support to learners, as well as guidance to parents during the lockdown period.
The support includes Radio Lessons which will be offered on Ligwalagwala FM, Ikwekwezi FM and in 16 Community Radio Stations within the province during weekdays which kicked off from 1st April 2020.
These will be on Radio Pulpit, Rise FM, Radio Kragbron, Radio Laerveld, Ikwekwezi and Ligwalagwala FM from Monday to Thursday.
A detailed schedule for all the radio programs will be issued daily to ensure that parents and learners prepare and take advantage of the platforms.
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The Departmental Curriculum e-learning platform provides recorded lessons, previous question papers, as well as a series of educational material that can benefit learners in a big way. This platform is being updated continuously and provides links to the DBE learning portal.
To maintain learner-teacher interaction, the Department will resuscitate a Dial a Tutor Programme to enable learners to directly engage a teacher who will be on standby in the event that the learner experiences a problem with the subject content.
The Department has also established a team of experts to assist from Mondays to Thursdays from 09H00 to 15H00.
The Dial a Tutor will come at no cost to the learner thus making it easy for them to take advantage of it.
It is expected that the Dial a Tutor Programme will be up and running on Monday, 6 April 2020.
To provide guidance to parents and learners, the Department has developed a booklet that details all the support that is on offer.
The department further requests communities to circulate the booklet widely through their social media platforms for the benefit of all learners.
The support is wholly inclusive as it caters for all learners from the General Education and Training Phase to Further Education and Training Phase.
The MEC for Education, Bonakele Majuba requests learners to take advantage of these platforms intended to enrich their learning experience.
“These are times that require progressive innovations, self motivation and support at all levels. We,therefore, request parents to support our children by providing them with tools to enable them to take advantage of the support offered during this lockdown period.
“We remain committed to explore any possible avenue to reach out to our learners while they study in the comfort of their homes. What is also encouraging is that most of these support platforms are monetary zero rated, thus rendering them widely accessible at no cost to the learners or parents.
“Let me implore parents to work together with the department as we all strive to educate the nation. It is in our hands, let’s do it,” said Majuba.
The Department appreciates the commitment of Old Mutual Foundation to support these programmes.
