DSN/Malezi targets one million children in Learn Over one million disadvantaged children in Nigeria are to benefit from the Learn At Ho...
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| DSN/Malezi targets one million children in Learn |
Over one
million disadvantaged children in Nigeria are to benefit from the Learn At Home
Project being championed by Data Science Nigeria, DSN/Malezi in conjunction
with MasterCard Foundation. The project is to bridge the gap created by
prolonged school closure brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic which has left
millions of children in Nigeria without any formal school learning over the
last six months.
Cut off from any instruction, feedback, or interaction with their teachers,
learners are now at risk of losing important learning gains and will need to
catch up on what they missed. This was disclosed by experts from DSN/Malezi and
MasterCard Foundation during the virtual launch of the project recently. The
project is to provide opportunities for continued learning while schools are
closed and build long-term resilience in the Nigerian education system to
withstand potential future disruptions to the school calendar. The initiative
will enable remote learning through multiple channels; namely, radio, mobile
and web, and aims to provide learning access for one million children in
Nigeria within the next 12 months. The initiative is made possible by the
MasterCard Foundation COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program. Speaking on the
occasion, Chidinma Lawanson, Country Head, Nigeria at the MasterCard
Foundation, said, “This pandemic continues to upend basic assumptions about
where, when, and how we learn and work. Right now, the priority, in terms of
education, is ensuring that children learn—no matter where they are or whether
they have access to the internet. Ensuring universal learning continuity is
critical if we are going to mitigate not just losses in learning, but the
overall inequality being perpetuated by this crisis.” Speaking on the five key
differentiators of this project, Toyin Adekanmbi, Executive Director of Data
Science Nigeria, said; “Our approach to tackling education for disadvantaged
kids rests on our understanding of the obstacles and we have worked to overcome
them head on. Learn At Home requires no internet connection to access, the
curriculum is localized per locations across Nigeria and based on the NERDC
curriculum, the highest quality standard of teachers have been engaged for
content delivery and each student will have a unique school registration number
that allows student-teacher engagement and regular opportunity to test learning
using simple mobile telephony services like USSD and SMS. “The ‘Learn at Home’
project will commence just in time for the back-to-school season in late
September/early October 2020 and will prove critical learning for children
across the country whether they have access to the internet or are offline. Due
to the COVID-19 restrictions, a return to in-person school delivery is yet to
be determined by many state governments, making this intervention by Data
Science Nigeria, Malezi and the MasterCard Foundation especially timely.”
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