Following the closure of schools in the country amid COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of children especially those in rural communities have little or no opportunity of distance learning due to lack of internet access in their homes.

But there has been a turning point as stakeholders in education have moved to rectify the situation with the introduction of the Ghana Radio Learning Programme.

Parents, after the launch of the programme, were asked to continue to support their children to carry out lesson instructions they are given on the radio.

At Kunguri in the Tolon District in the Northern Region of Ghana, some parents seem to be adhering to that call, by using stones, coloured bottle tops, and sticks to help their children carry out some of the instructions.

Madam Alimatu Mahama, a mother of four said, they usually gather around the radio with the children every Sunday evening to discuss and learn together.

“If it is mathematics lesson, I ensure I get stones as counting material and for colours, I use various colours of plastic bottle tops,” she said.

She stated that, the distance radio learning initiative was a progressive move and has kept her wards busy with homework.

Mr Yakubu Nabdow, the Circuit Supervisor at Kunguri in the Tolon district also said that, well-meaning organisations had come onboard to support the Ghana Learning Radio Programme introduced by the Ministry of Education, the Ghana Education Service, USAID, UNICEF, among other development partners.

He said that, in rural areas, households had no access or devices such as laptops, indicating that high-tech learning materials were not readily available to many children compare with their counterparts in the urban areas.

“Radio is a cheap and accessible medium of information, therefore, using the channel to broadcast lessons will make an impact especially in rural communities where there is no internet accessibility,” he said.

Mr. James Awuni, Deputy Country Director of Lively Minds, a Non-Governmental Organisation based in Tamale, agreed that the closure of schools should not impede smooth teaching and learning.

He said that parents and teachers should continue to be innovative, as more inclusive and accessible models were developed to help bridge the lesson gap created as schools were still on recess.

The interactive lessons are reaching over thousands of children in the Northern Region, and other parts of the country and are being broadcast in local dialects.

Source: Ghanaian Times