Government of Malawi through the Ministry of Education has disclosed plans to roll out lessons to learners of standard 1-4 in public primary schools in the country in a bid to improve their numeracy and reading skills.
Through a six year program dubbed ‘Building Education Foundation Through Innovation and Technology’-BEFIT, learners will be able to access lessons through a calibrated teacher on the tablets.
Director of Open Distance and e-Learning in the Ministry, Associate Professor Joshua Valeta said the programe has been innovatively designed to help captivate learning process in the learners.
Valeta said the program which is expected to start in September this year has been designed to be implemented in phases and intends to reach out to 3,446,189 learners in 6,000 public primary Schools by the year 2029.
Valeta said Malawi is currently lagging behind in as far as numeracy and literacy levels is concerned for learners aged 10 years and below.
He said: ”In the Sub-Saharah Region, learning poverty is at 90 percent, and, Malawi is at 87 percent which represents a 13% gap in terms of learners who are able to read with comprehension.”
He emphasized that the tablets which have been fitted with specialized applications on Android system will definitely assist in captivating numeracy and literacy levels in the learners and also improving the learning process.
Meanwhile, education expert, Benedicto Kondowe has hailed the Government for the program, describing it as relevant and strategic in transforming the country’s education status.
He said: ”I believe that the use of technology in education is indissimisible especially in the 21st century.
”As a country, we really need to integrate the use of technology in education as the world is now revolving around technology. Offering lessons through the use of technology at foundation level is very critical.”
Befit will be implemented by the Government of Malawi with financial assistance from JBJ foundation and with technical support from VSO, Onebillion, Imagine world and other development partners.
