More than half of region’s children can’t access e-learning

Nearly half of Eastern and Southern African school children are unable to access remote learning during the closure of schools.

According to the United Nations International Children’s Fund (Unicef), the situation is far worse in the region than that of the rest of the world, with on average, a third of children in the whole world being unable to access remote learning services.

A report by Unicef found that learners from the poorest households and those living in rural areas were by far the most likely to miss out on school work during the lockdown closure and that 49% of school-going children from Eastern and Southern Africa were unable to access remote learning. This was an approximate minimum of 69 million children, the report found.

The research was based on a global representative analysis on the availability of home-based technology and tools required for remote learning.

The report assessed remote learning among pre-primary, primary, lower-secondary and upper-secondary learners from 100 countries. The data included access to television, radio and internet and the availability of the curriculum delivered across these platforms during the closure of schools.

“The report highlights significant inequality across regions. School children in sub-Saharan Africa are the most affected, [as] half of all students cannot be reached with remote learning,” said Unicef.

Remote learning continues to pose a serious challenge for government, as public schools are often the ones highly affected by lack of connectivity in rural communities and townships, unlike children in suburban areas, said education activist Hendrick Makaneta.

“E-learning is a difficult challenge for mostly black children in poor communities, which are the majority. Government failed to address these things and it was made worse during Covid-19 as it caught us unaware. On paper, we can see there are good policies which government has put in place to make sure that they address these things,” he said.

“Government in Gauteng has tried to intervene when they provided tablets to learners in schools but they too posed to be a serious problem with issues like being stolen, not being, used as well as no commitment to ensure learners go through a thorough workshop of learning how to use them. If a child from the rural areas gets a tablet for the first time, they may use it for other things instead of learning and training.”

Government, on the other hand, is pleased with the progress they have made in closing the gap in remote learning challenges as they are in the process of trying to partner with telecommunication companies to improve remote learning, said department of basic education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga.

“The challenges are there. We have tried to get these companies to give zero-rate for websites and apps that have educational content. Schools and all departments of education have teaching platforms to try and make it accessible even to those who don’t have data. We are seeing that municipalities were able to make available Wi-Fi available to communities in rural areas. The gap is closing but we have a long way to go,” Mhlanga said.

“The challenges are there. We are making progress and trying to work with telecom companies, and the Minister of Communications and Telecommunications Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams has played a huge role in helping us to bridge the gap.”

Mlhanga is adamant that there has been a significant improvement, despite the late start.

“Covid-19 showed us something. In rural areas they even used WhatsApp to do learning. But the last two grades, Grade 5 and Grade 8 are returning to school next week.”

While the numbers in the report might be already concerning, Unicef warns that the situation is likely far worse due to other pressures at home.

“Even when children have the technology and tools at home, they may not be able to learn remotely through those platforms due to competing factors in the home including pressure to do chores, being forced to work, a poor environment for learning and lack of support in using the online or broadcast curriculum,” said Unicef.

rorisangk@citizen.co.za

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.