During COVID-19, distance learning has become synonymous with technological learning, but the disparities in access will greatly contribute to economic and educational inequalities.
By: Farahana Cajuste, Deanna Fanelli, Declan Cetta, Amanya Emmanuel, Cecily Coors, and Ornella Musinguzi.
Background on Uganda and Education
Uganda considers education to be a powerful tool for social growth, economic development, and sustaining democracy.
COVID-19 is posing significant challenges to educational access throughout the country.
School enrollment and quality of education greatly differs between urban and rural areas, and these inequalities are heightened by the pandemic.
Uganda Covid-19 Government Response
Overall shift from learning face-to-face in the classroom to adopting distance learning and virtual teaching methods as of March 2020.
COVID-19 response plan involves the distribution of home study kits and broadcasting lessons on both radio and television directly to learners at home.
Government needs to spend 336.8b ugx to purchase 9 million radios for students around the country.
Legislators have yet to approve purchase of radios.
Technology Access
Of households with internet access:
70.9% of all individuals owned a mobile phone
99.1% used their mobile phones to access the Internet.
Solution to Address the Digital Divide
Low-Tech Education Intervention in Botswana:
Young 1ove (NGO) collected 10,000 students’ mobile numbers to provide text-messages based instruction and established hotlines to answer questions.
