Remote education has launched on 17 community radio stations for primary school students as schools shut due to coronavirus outbreak in Bangladesh.
All educational institutions of the country are closed due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. To involve the primary students in the regular educational activities, the program my school at my home/ Learn at home/ Ghore Bose Shikhi is being broadcasted simultaneously on 17 Community Radio stations in Bangladesh.
School broadcasting can often be of great assistance where the educational system has some particular deficiency, e.g. COVID-19. The program is being broadcasted daily from Sunday to Thursday from 4:05 pm to 4:55 pm.
The program has been started from last 12 August 2020 and a total of 33 episodes of my school at my home/ Learn at Home/Ghore Bose Shikhi program have been on aired. In each episode of the 50-minute program, lectures on various subjects from class one to class five are given in 10 minutes.
The number of parents and children listeners at the local level is gradually increasing as a result of the ‘Learn at home’ program broadcast on community radio. Parents in particular have shown a lot of interest because even though the educational institutions are closed, their children are getting the opportunity to take lessons directly from the teachers, getting various problems solved regularly. In this way, the students are maintaining practice and regular lessons at home.
Parents believe that educational institutions should be closed until the situation is normal of coronavirus infection and reduced significantly. The parents are expected that as long as the educational institutions are closed, the ‘Learning at home’ program should be continued at home through community radio.
However, the parents noticed some challenges in the program such as short duration of the program, lack of opportunity for a direct phone call during the program, no participation in the program, i.e. no student, teacher and parent presence or participation in the program at radio studio in line with interactive manner and spirit of Community Radio.