On this year’s International Day of Education, the UNESCO Office for Southern Africa is launching the Handbook for Interactive Audio Instruction: Planning and implementing radio lessons in sub-Saharan Africa.
Following a massive closure of schools due to pandemics such as Ebola and COVID, governments in Africa have been looking for solutions to reach out to learners with different technologies to ensure that #Learningneverstops.
Interactive Audio Instruction has experienced a resurgence of interest particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa where many learners are still without easy and affordable access to the internet while radio remains the only cost effective means of reaching large numbers of out of school children.
Even where broadband is available, it is a challenge to find educational solutions that work for the youngest learners who struggle to sit still through a webinar-style class. For these reasons, policy-makers are increasingly looking at IAI as a promising avenue for ensuring the continuity of learning, thus prompting the development of this handbook.
The handbook is designed for education policy-makers, curriculum developers, and those charged with the professional training of teachers and facilitators. It is also written for members of the education development community interested in learning about IAI’s myriad uses as a solution to the challenges they face in programme design and delivery.
IAI lessons are critical in guaranteeing the sustainability of education during crises such as COVID-19 which lead to school closures and interrupt education. In the period following the crisis, the programmes can be adjusted to serve as a complement, rather than an alternative, to classroom teaching. In addition to supporting core curriculum subjects, IAI programmes work particularly well when they focus on life skills, for instance related to health, safety and sexuality.
The launch of the Handbook coincides with the International Day of Education- a day set aside to celebrate the role of education for peace and development. The third International Day of Education is marked under the theme, ‘Recover and Revitalize Education for the COVID-19 Generation’. Now is the time to power education by stepping up collaboration and international solidarity to place education and lifelong learning at the centre of the recovery.
ROSA Education response to COVID-19
To support countries to ensure continuity of learning in the context of COVID, UNESCO ROSA and the SADC Secretariat launched a joint statement and Action Plan. In line with the joint statement and with #LearningNeverStops, the Regional Office supports SADC countries to build the capacity of teachers to deliver distance learning, to develop no-low-and high-tech solutions for distance learning to reach the marginalised learners, strengthen the evidence base on the impact and response of countries and learning institutions to COVID-19 and advise and support governments with the reopening of schools.
UNESCO ROSA has also reached out to 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa through the Our Rights, Our Lives, Our Future (03) program to ensure that children and young people understand basic, age-appropriate information about COVID-19, including its symptoms, complications, transmission and prevention. The Office has also developed a series of videos and animated products targeting young people and supporting them to cope with the COVID 19 school closures, continue to receive age-appropriate information on gender-based violence, early and unintended pregnancies, and on sexual and reproductive health information.