Rethink online learning to ensure equity, quality

Since schools were closed mid last month, parents and teachers have been grappling with ways and means of supporting learners to cover the syllabus and avoid course backlog.

Matters are particularly vexing for Form Four and Standard Eight candidates, who, everything notwithstanding, will still have to sit the national examinations at the end of the year.

Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha has stated that no decision has been made to postpone the exams as some have suggested and the government is not in a hurry to do so.

National exams, therefore, remain on course and, perhaps, the only variation may be to push back the dates by a couple of weeks.

In the intervening period, the Ministry of Education, through the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), has upped school broadcast programmes on television and radio to support learners, who are at home. Arguably, that is important.

The programmes are not new though; they have always been there. But now, there is urgency to take them up in the absence of physical learning as schools are closed.

In the mix of this, multiple online learning programmes have mushroomed. All these are positive developments as learning is progressively shifting from face-to-face and classroom-based sessions to virtual interaction. Governments and educational institutions have to get ready for that and get on board.

Which brings us to the question, are we prepared for online learning? Would it expand access to education or accentuate inequalities? What about the quality of the programmes?

Broadcast and other digital programmes presuppose access to radios, TVs and computers or hand-held technology gadgets. Many households own radios, TV sets and smartphones.

But that does not mean everybody has the gadgets; thousands of households do not. Even where they exist, supportive infrastructure such as electricity and internet network are either not available or unaffordable. That brings out an access and equity challenge.

Second is quality of content, particularly consistency and relevance. Schools — and for that matter, learners — are at different stages of the syllabus, depending on their individual approach to it.

All may not benefit from a template lesson. Again, most of the content is static presentation that does not allow interactivity.

The lesson from Covid-19 is that online teaching is the next frontier; it must, thus, be thoroughly thought through.

The third concern is the possibility of dubious content being hawked online. Not every material being circulated online, including revision material, is useful to learners.

Overall, this is the time to rethink online teaching programmes in terms of access, relevance, equity, quality and interactivity.