In the face of Covid-19, children were affected by school closures and lockdowns. Children from vulnerable families who are unable to access reliable Internet or devices such as laptops are the most affected to support their virtual school learning programme.
That is why the Rwanda Education Board, with the help of the Building Learning Foundation (BLF) and UNICEF, has developed a home learning initiative to support remote learning for children by broadcasting lessons on national radio, offering a more inclusive and accessible model that helps build basic skills for all children. Radio learning is the cheapest and most accessible medium, especially for teaching pupils who are not at school.
Josiane Ingabire, a mathematics teacher at the GS Remera Catholique School for P2 and P3 children, presented classes on radio for learners. Luckily for her, BLF participated in the pilot process in 2018, trying out some of the tasks of the mathematics toolkit sample unit in 2018.
She records her lessons on Radio Rwanda every week, one lesson per grade, which is then broadcast on seven radio stations in Rwanda. Daily schedules are then shared via radio ads and social media. The art of radio teaching for her, however, is very difficult because it includes involving her unseen learners.
“As soon as schools closed in March,” she shares, “I was worried about my learners and how I would continue supporting them to learn. By chance, I was approached by BLF and they asked me to volunteer to teach children via radio. I was very happy and immediately agreed. However, since it was my first time producing a radio lesson, I was nervous when I recorded my first lesson.
It was a very strange environment for me the first time, having no classroom and no pupils. Just an empty room with computers and microphones, seen for the first time in my life.”
Originally, the scripts were produced by the BLF technical team and then broadcast every week from the national radio studio. At present, however, she is fully equipped with the skills to develop her own scripts to sustain her even after the students return to school.
Since her lessons include six to nine year-olds, Ingabire must ensure that her invisible learners are attentive. To do this, she ensures that her pupils follow instructions, when recording, and are engaged in responding to them.
“Depending on the lesson of the day,” she adds, “I also encourage them to have low cost learning materials available ahead of time, these include counting stones, bottle tops with or without numbers, flash cards and much more. I end every lesson by mentioning materials the learner will need for the next lesson. During the lessons, parents or guardians are encouraged to join in and support pupils in activities.
“They help children to listen to the instructions given during each lesson. For example, when I say, “now it is time for you to pick up your counting stones and place them on the table or the ground” parents or caregivers ensure that the children have the counting stones or sticks ready.”
Ingabire has been teaching for 10 years. Her home, when our team visited, was filled with recycled materials, from bottle tops, cards cut out of boxes, cut-out clothes for shapes, and sacks as charts.
She explains that her work involves a lot of creativity to help her students learn through visualization. As such, when she doesn’t record lessons, she uses the rest of the week to build learning materials that she can use in her class when her school is re-opened.
The mother of three also helps her children learn and follow radio lessons.
“I would like to encourage my colleagues to use their time at home productively by doing self-study as it improves our teaching skills. The lockdown and school closure should not prevent us from continuing to learn. It is an opportunity for us to grow our skills.
I also encourage parents, even if illiterate, to always support their children. The support does not require you to know how to read or write. For example, you can check if the child is doing what the radio teacher asked them to do. Check if they are writing or counting or reading numbers on flash cards as per the radio teacher instructions. Some activities also require the children to tell their parents the answers, or just to discuss something with them,” she says.
