The whole world continues to be shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic and Malawi has not been spared. The President of Malawi declared a state of emergency due to the rise in cases and ordered all schools to be closed for three weeks for learners’ safety and to control the spread of the virus.
In light of these closures, Link came up with a new home learning approach with support from the Ministry of Education. This will provide learners with preparatory learning that is normally covered in the first three weeks of our curriculum which they can complete at home suported by their community. The main goal is to keep the learners safe and engaged as they stay at home.
Differentiating learners based on the last class they attended, each subgroup is given tasks to do through small face to face group meetings with one teacher to four students. Recognising the importance of community engagement we have involved community members to collaborate and help children to develop their reading and writing skills. This includes by helping families to value their children’s education and ensure they have enough time at home to practice their reading and writing skills rather than being weighed down with chores or other responsibilities.
Our facilitators were given additional training on how they can support the new home learning approach. They are designing take home exercises, providing learning materials to students, conducting door to door visits to parents, distributing food to learners, and sharing virus prevention materials.
Together with our partners we continue to implement the TEAM Girl Project. As a way to ensure that girls are motivated, empowered and inspired, we recruited 160 new facilitators for the second cohort of learners, 73% of which are female to provide strong role models.
