Rural child’s passport to modern learning

 

Ray Bande
Senior Reporter

BAREFOOT Shorai Mtetwa trudges three kilometres of undulating terrain of Nyanga North Constituency on a daily basis to Sachiwo Primary School where she is doing Grade Five.

In the midst of the natural beauty, simplicity, and slower pace of life, the horizon of lifetime dreams for Nyasha and her peers start and end in getting a sizable piece of land to practice tobacco farming, acquire a few herds of cattle and goats to eventually raise a family as an adult in the countryside.

Tucked in the thickets on Nyanga North, one drives from Nyanga, down past Regina Ceoli Mission to Mutigwa Village Turn-off, then almost 20km of dust road to Sachiwo Primary in Chinagana Village towards the Mozambican border.

Typical of children in rural areas, even here at Chinagana Village, let alone the underprivileged among the lot, their immediate dream is to get something to cover their feet, let alone a decent school uniform to evade the scorn and humiliation that comes with poverty among peers of their age.

Acquiring a phone, let alone a smart phone or a laptop, is Utopian!

In the midst of this quagmire, a new digital education device — the Learning Passport — has emerged as the emancipator, a redeemer that is affording learners in remote areas access to learning material similar to their urban counterparts.

Apparently, UNICEF announced that their award-winning digital education programme, the Learning Passport, has reached more than 10 million registered users, including children, young people and educators, across 47 countries.

With the use of a server, textbook material is uploaded and stored so that the teacher and his or her learners access any reading material that they want to use on any given day via gadgets such as laptops and tablets.

Thus, the problematic textbook-learner ration will soon be a thing of the past in schools, even those located in the remotest parts of the world.

No wonder Sachiwo Primary School head, Mr Joshua Kamombo highlighted the profound transformation at the school.

Mr Kamombo could not hide the unmistakable interest that Passport Learning has ignited among learners at his school, let alone the increasing levels of staff retention.

“There is no doubt that the Learning Passport, tied to the use of ICT gadgets, has ignited a lot of interest in learning for our rural learners. Each time when a certain class is coming to the lab for lessons, you can see the interest in keeping time. They are enjoying this development, and we can only pray that we get more laptops so that laptop-learner ratio improves.

“Availability of these ICT gadgets has also helped in staff retention. The introduction of solarised power and these gadgets has seen some teachers willing to stay here for longer periods unlike before.
“Previously, teachers would leave after just three months due to poor conditions, including lack of electricity and over-reliance on books. But now, with solar power and Learning Passport, the situation has drastically improved,” he said.

Solar equipment was installed at Sachiwo Primary School in 2023.

The installation of solarised power in rural schools, done by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education and UNICEF, with funding from the UK Government, has left learners staying near schools affording to carry out night studies just like their counterparts at boarding schools.

This has also improved pass-rates of these schools, thus bridging the rural-urban divide.

 

At Ndyarima Secondary School in Buhera District, the pass-rate has been on a steady increase.

Their acting headmaster, Mr Temptation Negandi said: “The learners are enjoying these gadgets and they are now coming to school daily. The solar power system has also helped, not only to provide power in the use of these gadgets, but also attendance levels have increased even during night studies.

“This has greatly improved our pass-rate. For example, in 2020, our past-rate was zero percent, and it went up to 7,7 percent the following year.

“In 2022, we realised 8,3 percent pass-rate, and it again went up to 14,2 in 2023. n 2024 we had a 17,3 pass-rate. This is clear sign that we are going on an upward trend because of the help of the digital learning gadgets.”

With over 251 million children worldwide, including 122 million girls, remaining out of school, and millions more facing barriers to accessing quality education, UNICEF is working with partners to scale innovative tech-solutions and empower future generations with equitable access to education.

Ideally, the Learning Passport is a UNICEF-developed programme, powered by Microsoft Community Training, which provides continuous access to digital early childhood education, primary and secondary education.

The Learning Passport offers both online and offline capabilities, making it a vital resource in regions with little or no internet connectivity, including in emergencies.

In crisis-affected contexts, the Learning Passport supports children to continue learning despite conflict, displacement, and disasters.

From refugee settings in Lebanon and Poland to conflict-affected regions in Myanmar and Sudan, the programme provides vital access to learning for children who need it most.

“The digital era has unlocked extraordinary opportunities for tackling the education crisis,” said Mr Pia Rebello Britto, Global Director, Education and Adolescent Development at UNICEF.

Such is the evolving state of life for a child in the backwoods of remote villages, not only at Sachiwo Primary School of Nyanga North Constituency or Ndyarima Primary School in Buhera District, but elsewhere around the country.