dyton mupawaenda
Dedicated television and radio channels for education is now a practical possibility with the switch to digital output creating the electronic space for the channels and the near nationwide coverage of free-to-air transmitters ensuring that those who need the programmes can watch them.
It is only with the development of the television and radio systems that the opportunity for dedicated education channels now exists, and the Government is moving rapidly into the next stage of having such channels and creating the content.
Quite sensibly, the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education will be in charge of the channels, to make sure that the broadcasting times can be sensible for each level of the education system and that the content is what is needed and fits in with Zimbabwe’s heritage-based education system.
This will need some thought, as there will be around an hour each day at most for each grade or form, and the Ministry is most aware of where gaps exist and what sort of content would be most useful.
The channels are not replacing school teachers, but rather acting as a supplement and being able to extend their range and be able to fill gaps.
Some subjects may have very little television time, since they are not really visual and because teachers in the schools will not need much supplementary content.
Other subjects will benefit immensely by being able to have the extra content, and there will be programmes and output that will benefit a wide range of grades or forms.
To a degree, the more isolated schools will benefit the most as they are most likely to have to do everything in house, while a central urban school, for example, has opportunities to show pupils more outside events and the pupils can in any case access museums and other facilities without much problem.
The upgrade in syllabuses for more scientific and technical content will be made a great deal easier when some programming can show things that may very well not be available within the local community of a school, and that would include urban schools as well as rural schools.
This will give an opportunity for some innovative material from experts with a gift and training for teaching these sort of subjects, especially as so much teaching of a technical subject does require being able to show pupils what is going on, rather than just describing or relying on text books.
Again the television will be the supplement to the school teaching, but in some cases a very important supplement that makes the school teaching far more effective.
There has been some pre-school and infant radio programming, not much but some, for many decades.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting lockdowns saw a degree of emergency programming to help children who had to stay at home or where limited in how many days a week they could physically be in a school.
This showed us what was wanted and what was possible and that has no doubt been one of the practical reasons why the Education Ministry is so keen on the dedicated channels and why it has been pushing for them as the technology advances make these a practical proposition.
Content has been thought through, especially as some content may be fairly expensive.
The Ministry is not just looking at in-house content, but at sponsored programming and the contributions of many others.
So long as this content is accurate, so long as it can be fitted into the national syllabus that all schools have to follow, and so long as it is useful, it appears the Ministry will be happy for all contributions.
At the same time the Government has been steadily pushing ahead with other technology programmes, encouraging schools that can raise their own funds to have computer laboratories and implementing a programme that sees these being set up at schools that need them but who do not have the resources or a sponsor willing to help out.
The objective is that all schools and all children will have some internet access, and this will be added to the television channel, to ensure that everyone can benefit.
There has been a lot of talk about the rural-urban divide, largely built around the ease of establishing fairly cheap internet connections in urban areas and the higher price, sometimes much higher price if phone services are used, for a narrower band service in rural areas.
Satellite services, which are still significantly more expensive than the cable services now available in most urban areas, will help narrow the gap, and the television channel will reinforce this process.
All this technical advance we are now seeing will never replace ever better schools with ever better facilities, and of course the core of any educational system are motivated and able teachers who can bring their subjects to life.
But the technical advances also make life easier for teachers who can show pupils, as well as describe to pupils, a wide range of activities and images that make learning easier and in some cases even possible.
So while the Education Ministry appears to be moving forward with implementing the plans for its content and scheduling, we still need the assignment of the channel and the practical broadcasting of the content as we step up our education efforts with yet another link between children and the world they live in.
Online Reporter