By Chisomo Phiri

As one way of expanding access to education, the Ministry of Education ( MoE) says it has plans to establish National Education Radio Station where education programmes will be aired out.

Speaking in Lilongwe on Friday when reviewing the International Literacy Day commemorated on September 8, 2021,the Minister of Education Agness Nyalonje said the National Education Radio Station will enable learning to continue during emergencies such as the COVID pandemic that keep children way from school.

Nyalonje said the Ministry has also established a full directorate of Open, Distance and e-learning, whose major job is to create and manage a national platform for Open, Distance and e-learning that provides for relevant education for all from ECDE, Primary, Secondary, Technical, and Higher education through innovative, diverse, flexible modes of teaching and learning.
” My Ministry plans to soon establish a National Education Radio Station as one way to expand access to education. This will also enable learning to continue emergencies such as COVID pandemic that keep children away from home. Currently, the Ministry has established a full directorate of Open, Distance and e-learning, whose major job is to create and manage national platform for Open Distance and e-learning .
” It is our intention through such platform, to significantly increase access to education for all. This digitalization of education will enable to provide more inclusive literacy teaching and learning to more meaningful education for all”, said Njalonje.

She said the Ministry has also managed to achieve a 1:1 student-text book ratio that will help harnessing the reading gains and ensuring that the learners retain the reading proficiency levels as they transition into upper primary grades.
Nyalonje also thanked the United States Agency for International Development ( USAID) and the Department for International Development ( DFID) for their great contribution towards the implementation of the National Reading Program since 2015 saying this had helped the Ministry to have enough teaching and learning materials, most especially English and Chichewa books for standards 1 to 4 that are being distributed in public primary schools.
” Allow me to thank in a special way our partners USAID and DFID who have contributed greatly towards the implementation of our National Reading Program since 2015. We have travelled this road together from from curriculum review to the actual development and distribution of materials and textbooks for standards 1 to 4 and also the training of teachers of these classes”, She thanked.

Commenting on teachers’ living, Nyalonje said as a Minister, she is ready to support the teachers and ensure that the learning and teaching environment is conducive to them for meaningful education. She said despite the Ministry facing challenges, they are still thinking innovatively on how best to offer the best education for all children in the country.
On September 8 this year, the world was commemorating the International Literacy Day under the ” Literacy for a human-centred recovery: Narrowing the Digital divide”.