EnglishKenyaPAL Network
Introduction:
It was on a fresh Monday morning, at the beginning of the last week of March 2020. The sky was clear, and the weather was warming up slightly as I set up my laptop ready to start working at my desk. It was not a usual working day because I was working from home due to COVID-19 safety restrictions.
I was still wondering – “What is this all about? When will this disaster end? What will happen if it does not end soon? How will the future look if it persists? How big will the loss be? How will the children continue to learn? What can we do now to address the crisis?”
If you had not experienced it within your family, you had to at least have heard about the catastrophic effect it was wreaking all over the country and indeed, the globe!
What did we experience?
Shock! Fear of the unknown! Despair! Agony! Loss of hope!
But later, some hope! Changes in teaching and learning practices!
The outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 has left a lasting impression and enduring memory globally. The effect of COVID-19 has not left anyone untouched.
“It was you, a friend, a family member, a neighbour, a co-worker, a child or a beloved spouse!”
By March 2020, many schools and learning institutions across the world were closed to prevent the spread of Coronavirus. Over 1.5 billion children were not in school because of the health threat posed by the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. In Tanzania, over 10 million children missed school during school closures from March to June 2020.
The mandatory closure of learning institutions, including primary and secondary schools in Tanzania, made it extremely difficult for many teachers to support children outside the classroom setting. For example, some of them tried to prepare homework for their pupils to access online but could not reach many children easily due to the digital divide challenges. Parents were charged with taking on the role of the teachers by helping their children learn at home. Yet, many parents were not prepared and lacked the capacity to support their children to continue learning at home. Some parents took advantage of school closures to engage their children to support family income-generating activities such as farming and small businesses. In other instances, others charged the children with minding their siblings.
Many children could not continue learning at the same pace as they were accustomed to while in school. According to GPE (2020), the low side of COVID-19 was children losing what they had learned, leading to a hike in the number of those whose learning was left behind. For example, children in grades 1 and 2 who had just started learning how to obtain basic literacy and numeracy skills were likely to lose the skills they gained before school the closures in March 2020.
The 2020 Uwezo rapid teachers’ survey revealed that over 86% of teachers reported that after schools opened, many of their students had forgotten what they learnt before COVID-19 forced the school closures. During the implementation of Uwezo Tanzania Jifunze learning camps that adapted the Teaching at The Right Level approach to improve literacy and numeracy skills, over 7700 Children from grades 3-6 were assessed on numeracy skills. Only 41% of the children in grade 3 passed the grade 2 numeracy tests. This was a huge drop compared with the performance of children of a similar grade assessed using similar numeracy tests in previous years. For example, the 2017 Uwezo assessment findings revealed that about 58.6% of grade 3 children and 65% of those in grade 6 passed the grade 2 numeracy test.
When the schools were closed, we witnessed a drastic change in the education system as the Government and other education stakeholders rapidly adapted digital technology to deliver learning content to children various mediums including TV, radio and mobile SMS. The Tanzania Institute of Education embarked on an initiative that provided learning programmes through radio and TV. This was a commendable response.
CSO actors and the private sector also invested a great deal of effort to help children and teachers access learning content online, on print media and various media channels made available to primary, and secondary schools. With COVID-19 raging, we sacrificed our valued cultural practices; the handshake, hugging, kissing, touching and mingling with loved ones at public events such as birthdays, weddings, funerals, traditional initiations and meetings.
What did we learn?
We learned that anything is possible when it comes to protecting life. The most surprising insight was when the global community faced both negative and positive life experiences due to the pandemic. One would expect that it was all devastating! But our experience of COVID-19 also yielded some positive experiences and responses that we could not have thought about before the pandemic. Many of us were faced with the painful loss of loved ones, orphans faced the agony of losing their parents, the disruption of businesses and employment and the loss of income. We lived in fear of contracting such a deadly virus without a cure in sight.
Once again, we learnt about the importance of personal hygiene through handwashing to prevent contamination through various germs and viruses. For the first time, citizens of the globe were united to address a common enemy through a common weapon. We learnt so much about inequality in various sectors and complied with the Government’s call to protect life.
We learned to care for each other. Governments closing all learning institutions at the right time was above all caring for the life and survival of the young generation. Asking staff in organisations to work from home was more than anything caring for human survival and wellbeing. We learned that if we don’t care about people and take serious preventative measures, the human race would perish.
Family incomes, especially among the poor, were re-allocated to buy resources for the survival of the family. These included masks, washing facilities and sanitisers. COVID-19 strengthened our resilience to cope with a crisis and never give up.
Within organisations, networks and communities, we learned that there is still more to learn from each other, and from others who were most experienced at devising strategies aimed to help children to continue learning from home. We shared children’s learning materials and advocacy posters for parents with organisations such as Shule Direct. Dhule Direct has an online platform with national coverage and thus, reaches countless learners and parents at the primary and secondary levels.
We discovered the importance of online communication platforms. We shared many insights online about COVID-19 and creative ways of addressing the pandemic. We teamed up to organise webinars to discuss the impact of the pandemic on our lives and the education sector. We became more connected through WhatsApp groups, Zoom and emails through which we could share our frustrations. This also enabled us to learn from each other how best to respond and act creatively to address the crisis.
In countries like Tanzania, when schools re-opened in June 2020, we learned to smile again, hoping for a better future. Despite the loss of our loved ones, we learned to respect God’s wish, but also to value and protect what we remained with! This is a truly unforgettable reality!
Conclusion and Recommendations:
The COVID -19 crisis has complicated our lives with much suffering and despair. However, it has created a unique opportunity for us all to reflect on how we build a resilient society and education system that will focus more on reaching every child regardless of location, individual or family status. We have been challenged to rethink the best way we educate the next generation, and how to prepare learners for an unpredictable future in a rapidly changing society.
The COVID-19 crisis has widened the inequalities and vulnerabilities of marginalised individuals. It challenged the traditional education delivery models and approaches, offering us space to think of more options of fostering and sustaining learning among all children e.g., through technology (TV, radio, mobile phones, tablets and various other online platforms). Supporting children to learn at a distance from school, delivering learning content through technology and online challenges, all highlight the need for a new normal.
It is high time our education system focused more on enhancing relevant skills such as critical thinking, creativity, problem solving and adaptability, all of which will be vital for coping and addressing learning crises in the future.
Addressing a national and global crisis requires a joint effort from all stakeholders. Let us work together, strengthen our partnerships to act collectively in building back a resilient society that cherishes equity, implements inclusive solutions and promotes continuous and quality learning for all. We should consider how education and training systems can be reoriented to become transformative and act as coping strategies in a crisis, to address equity and inequality to enhance and sustain better learning for all.
References:
Save The Children, National Safe Back to School Spotlight Cambodia (2021) published online:
https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/national-safe-back-school-spotlight-cambodia
UNESCO, Global Education Coalition: Learning Never Stopped (2021) https://en.unesco.org/covid19/educationresponse/globalcoalition
Uwezo Tanzania, Are Our Children Learning? (2019), Dares salaam
World Economic Forum, The Covid-19 has Changed Education forever (2021) https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-education-global-covid19-online-digital-learning/
