Education invests in online education content
RUNDU - The ministry of education has provided about N$27 million to develop online teaching and learning material to counter the effects brought on by the coronavirus pandemic in the education sector. Executive director in the ministry Sanet Steenkamp in an interview with recently said the ministry has partnered with the Namibian College of Open Learning (Namcol) to develop online teaching and learning materials for grade 8 to grade 11 and the new advanced system. Steenkamp said the spending and development of the online material came about when the ministry was caught off guard by the pandemic early last year when it was forced to halt teaching and learning and look at ways to continue with education during the outbreak.
As part of ways and means to transform teaching and learning into an online format, Steenkamp said N$15 million was availed from the ministry’s 2020/2021 operational budget in order for Namcol to develop a full syllabus and transform the curriculum’s teaching and learning lessons into online content.
The transition comprised audiovisual materials, scripts and lessons for different types of online modes.
Some N$2 million was availed to acquire 250 laptops that were used for the training of all teachers that formed part of the project and developed the content.
Due to the influx of learners that failed grade 12 last year, the ministry availed N$4 million to Namcol for admission while N$6 million was provided to develop content for the advanced system as well as for the licensing and broadcast fees with the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) of the material on its educational channel.
Namcol director Heroldt Murangi also confirmed the project to noting that they approached the ministry during the first lockdown in 2020, in which discussions started on how it can assist with the development of the online content.
He noted that Namcol travelled to all 14 regions to train the teachers that assisted with producing the content, which will soon be available on Namcol’s notes master online platform.