Programme Background
Across the world the COVID-19 novel coronavirus has disrupted schooling and education – affecting hundreds of millions of students. Similar to most countries, all education institutions in Bangladesh are closed, presenting an unprecedented challenge to learners, parents, teachers and caregivers.
The Government of Bangladesh is committed to ensuring continuity of learning despite the nation-wide lockdown measures. For students enrolled in primary, lower secondary, and secondary education (Grade 1-10), the Government of Bangladesh has started broadcasting educational programmes on television. However, only about 56 % of households in Bangladesh have access to a television.
In an effort to reach the 44 % who do currently not have access to the educational content broadcasted on TV, the UNESCO Office in Dhaka, in collaboration with the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education (MoPME) and the Ministry of Education (MoE), as well as the Government’s a2i programme, is preparing educational audio lessons for primary level education that will be broadcasted through the radio nationwide.
Programme Activities
1. Audio lessons content development
With funding support from UNESCO’s global Capacity Building for Education (CapED) programme, UNESCO, MoPME, MoE, as well as the Government’s a2i program, are preparing 170 engaging audio lessons in the core subjects Bangla language, English language, Math, and Social Science, that will be aired on daily education radio programmes on FM radio throughout the country over the coming months. In order to prevent the further spread of COVID-19 and to inform learners about symptoms of the virus, audio lessons include frequent awareness raising messages about COVID-19.
The audio lessons, which are 7-10 minutes per subject, are competency-based as well as follow the official school textbooks in order to ensure continuity of students’ formal education. The lessons are prepared by a group of 40 teachers who receive special online training and guiding support from pedagogy experts on how to produce compelling and efficient audio content, as well as are edited by a professional audio editing firm.
The project further leverages the radio expertise of a group 35 radio station managers who support the development of the audio lessons, ensuring that produced lessons are compelling, engaging and interesting to students.
2. Audio lessons broadcast, interaction and assessment
Lessons will be broadcasted daily from Saturday through Thursday on (i) commercial FM radio stations, (ii) community radio stations, as well as (iii) through Bangladesh’s state-owned radio public broadcaster National Betar, starting in early June.
Further, in an effort to provide students with an avenue to seek answers to questions about aired lesson content, a toll free hotline will be established. A group of 5 rotating primary school teachers will be answering incoming calls around the clock, providing students with answers to their questions, as well as recording received lesson feedback.
To monitor the efficiency and efficacy of provided audio lessons and to refine educational content and pedagogy throughout the project implementation period, student feedback is frequently collected and learning progress is assessed at multiple stages of the project implementation, including through a quick review, a formative assessment, as well as a comprehensive user analysis at end of project implementation.
Updated News
To ensure the continuity of learning, with the support from UNESCO Capacity Building for Education (CapED) programme, the Bangladesh Government is going to broadcast lessons ‘Ghore bose shikhi’ for primary education school students through radio, from 12 August 2020.
Directorate of Primary Education (DPE) has issued office order that broadcasting lessons will be through AM-693 Megahertz, FM Band of Bangladesh Betar and Community Radios from 12 August. The lessons will be broadcasted from 4:05 pm to 4:55 pm from Sunday to Thursday every week. The lessons will be available both radio sets and all types of mobile phones. Area-wise information for connecting with radio to listen to the lessons are as follow:
The broadcasting of audio contents will cover four core subjects (i) Bangla; (ii) English; (iii) Math; and (v) Social Science, in line with National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) and National Academy for Primary Education (NAPE).