By Yero S. Bah
Following the closure of all schools and other learning centers in the country due to the global outbreak of 2019 Coronavirus Disease, otherwise COVID-19 pandemic, the Gambia’s Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education (MoBSE) has devised new teaching and learning methods, to wit: the use of broadcast media outlets (both radio and Tv stations) to deliver essential lessons of core subjects such as English language, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies.
The new measures are taken to keep the lessons going and ultimately allow students to refresh their minds on the core subjects, so that they won’t be idling about during this Covid-19 pandemic, as the ministry indicated.
It’s slogan,’schools have closed but learning continues’, fittingly resonates with the new teaching and learning methods through online or distance learning in this digital era.
Pre-recorded lessons are distributed daily, to most of the media houses in countrywide, and broadcast of these of lessons commence at 10am to late evening, daily from Mondays to Fridays and beyond.
Since the introduction of the new e-Learning program using radios and televisions, a barrage of criticism had ensued, as some opinion that the new method is another form of wasting “monetary resources” by the MoBSE. Critics further claimed that numerous homes do not have access to TVs or radio sets, especially people in the rural Gambia.
Mr. Bakary Jassey, a radio journalist, argued that most villagers are not even aware of the new learning program put in place by the ministry. In his view, the disadvantages are more than the advantages since many Gambian students in rural Gambia are into other activities during the conduction of the lessons on the media.
In the radio journalist’s words: “Children in rural Gambia are mostly into firewood fetching or following animals, so the timing of delivering media lessons is not favorable to many rural students.”
Jassey alleged that the method is more of resource wastage than impact purpose, adding that most students are not used to such online learning or mostly, students are denied the luxury of raising questions to the presenters while lessons are ongoing on radios or TVs.
A veteran educationist, Mr. Jenieri Sagnia, said the ministry could have come up with a different or better method to the current style of teaching and learning. Gambian students are not used to such styles of online learning, and the time to introduce such a style was prompt as it was taken during an emergency, noted Sagnia. “I don’t buy this method of teaching and learning,” he pointedly, remarked.
The MoBSE had agreed with radio and television stations across the country to conduct lessons via media which started off on Monday, 23rd March 2020. The ministry argued that such measures were taken to keep students active so that teaching and learning continue in the coronavirus pandemic period.
“Parents and caregivers are urged to use this as an opportunity to keep children at home to make the best use of the days they are out of school, and also as a means to protect them from the deadly COVID-19,” it urged.
While many citizens are critical of the Basic and Secondary Ministry’s move, some people have applauded it for being able to come up with such innovative e-learning steps in such critical times that Gambians face amidst this deadly virus. They noted that living in the technology era offers people endless opportunities to teach and learn, at all times.
