Gaborone, Botswana (PANA) - The desire of Botswana’s ministry of basic education to roll out e-learning during the country’s on-going COVID-19 lockdown has been crippled by limited gadgets.
The minister of basic education, Fidelis Molao, Wednesday told the nation the biggest challenge to e-learning were connectivity and lack of ICT gadgets.
“There are a total of 525, 936 learners of which 20,805 received gadgets bought through an economic stimulus package (ESP) and donated by various partners,” said Molao.
The government has been reaching learners through radio lessons as part of efforts to close gaps in e-learning.
The minister said the ministry had also engaged the private sector to provide better bandwidth and eliminate connectivity cost to access the learning materials for free.
He further highlighted its commitment to continue working with partners, including Botswana Open University (BOU) and Commonwealth of Learning (COL), among others, to provide content, gadgets, connectivity and capacity building of teachers for e-Learning.
Meanwhile the minister has revealed that the Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) has committed to support school connectivity to facilitate ICT integration in teaching and learning.
-0- PANA DRW/RA 29Apr2020
