General News

Ghana’s e-learning initiative gains momentum

1st August 2020

The interest in e-learning educational platform meant to facilitate teaching and learning especially for senior high school (SHS) students following the closure of schools as a means to curb the spread the coronavirus (COVID-19) is increasingly gaining momentum across the country.

A recent study indicated that radio and free-to-air television channels, such as Joy Prime’s, Joy Learning, are better and preferred choice than online options.

Beyond its mass reach, the Joy Learning enable students the opportunity to take prescribed subjects including Mathematics, English, Science, Social studies and French for free in the comfort of their homes.

The Joy Learning, a free-to-air educational TV channel, designed as a result of a corporate social responsibility initiative undertaken by the Multimedia Group (MGL) through its Educare Foundation, in partnership with e-learning platform Wolo TV; service provider K-Net; and SES.

In this joint effort project, SES provides the satellite capacity and broadcast services; K-Net provides local backhaul and teleport services; Wolo creates and supplies the educational content; and MGL runs the channel.

Quality education
In an interview with the Daily Graphic on the impact of the e-learning platform, the General Manager (GM) in-charge of Media Platforms at SES Video in West Africa, Mr Theodore Asampong, said the Joy Learning was to provide quality education to SHS students no matter where they were in the country.

He said the initiative was also to provide students with the opportunity to continue the teacher-student contact and experience even when they were home either because of the double track system or COVID-19 school closures.

According to him, the channel is designed for all SHS students in the country who are part of the double-track system, and we believe that the majority of these pupils will have access to the channel.

“Students with access to Joy Learning TV are reporting positive feedback and confirmed that the channel has made positive changes to their learning experience,” he added.

Positive impact
Mr Asampong noted that the intention was to have a direct positive impact on the lives of millions of young people, thereby contributing to the future development of the country.

He explained that the impact of this channel has the potential to be far-reaching by ensuring that the millions of Ghanaian youth, even those in underserved impoverished communities have the same access to quality educational material all year round.

“These are the youth that will one day be the business leaders and innovators of Ghana,” he added.

Challenges
The General Manager stated that one of the main challenge that was brought about by the free senior high school education policy announced in September 2017 was a reduction in teacher student contact.

“Long breaks between school terms – during which most students (especially the financially disadvantaged) are unlikely to get any tutelage and could forget a lot of what was taught the previous term.

“The Joy Learning channel allows those at home to keep up with their studies by broadcasting well-organised, world-class educational content that they can access for free on a daily basis, no matter where they are in the country.”