Monrovia Liberia – Remote learning programmes have been crucial to reach populations in underserved communities. One of the most effective channels is the use of radio and audio lessons. An innovative partnership with the Ministry of Education and Street Child in Liberia, has enabled Bridge Liberia to use audio lessons to reach thousands of children across five counties in the country.
Street Child has been delivering radios to communities and has so far delivered 1,500 radios to 1,500 ‘households’; meaning a group of 4 children. The radios are distributed alongside timetables showing when parents and students should tune in to hear a daily lesson designed for each age group. In addition school members are constantly engaging the community to remind them of when the lessons are taking place and follow up to see how they go.
Bridge Liberia and the Ministry of Education’s teach by radio programme have collaborated to provide audio content in English, Maths, Social Studies and Science for primary school children. The lessons build upon each other and are 30 minutes long each. Based on the Liberian curriculum, the interactive lessons are designed to convey some of the material that children would be learning in the classroom if schools were open.
A partnership with radio stations across the counties for the provision of airtime and an ongoing community engagement programme has meant that children have been gathering – socially distanced! – to listen to the lessons at specific times each day.
This is in addition to the rest of the remote learning content that school teams are distributing in communities across the country. This audio content complements the age appropriate mobile friendly quizzes that children across the county children are accessing through a free to use SMS short code (send 0 to 1225) or in some cases via WhatsApp; which are fun and interactive for students; help parents test their children and enable educators to see what children are learning.
An added advantage of the remote programming is that not only students who are within the LEAP programmes are accessing the remote learning resources; children from across the communities have access enabling us to reach more children across Liberia than ever before. The Ministry of Education is reaching more children with resources and education resources as part of LEAP, than they were before the pandemic.
Supporting children to learn while schools remain closed has been important and the radio and audio partnership is just one of the examples of practical action from our dedicated educators.