National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC), the government body responsible for the development of educational curricula for primary, secondary and some tertiary institutions in Uganda has lauded MTN for its initiative to encourage learning from home by zero rating learning institution websites for students.
Gilbert Gift Siima, the curriculum specialist ICT at National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC) said the initiative enabled students who were studying from home to access learning materials during the lockdown.
This, he said was especially helpful for candidate students in the primary leaving examinations (PLE) and the O’level Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) who have recently received their results.
Following the closure of schools during the initial country lockdown, MTN in March last year allowed free access to 17 learning sites in partnership with NCDC to ensure students study from home while also enabling parents home school the children.
Some of the learning sites which can be accessed from https://www.mtn.co.ug/learnathome/ include:
http://www.classroommagazines.scholastic.com/
http://www.allinonehomeschool.com/
Some of the learning institutions include universities such as Makerere University, Uganda Christian University and Uganda Martyrs University among others.
Namubiru Agnes, a teacher and mother of two candidates from St Francis Education Center in Namawojjolo says her and her children benefitted a lot from reading materials on the zero rated websites.
“When they sent the children back home, they told us to access materials online and that is what I did. With the help of my sister who accessed the websites, I was able to homeschool my children. It helped us a lot to keep the children focused on education,” she recounts.
According to Siima, the sites have continuously recorded increased traffic signaling to the increased usage amongst the learners.
He lauded MTN for its efforts as a corporate citizen in enabling continuity of the education sector which has been hard hit by the covid-19 pandemic.
MTN Uganda General Manager Corporate services and legal, Enid Edroma said the telecom is glad to have partnered with NCDC to support the people of Uganda.
“MTN is dedicated to continuously supporting the people of Uganda. We understand the vitality of education especially to the youngsters in the country, and as such thought it necessary to ensure that they remain focused and studying at no cost to the parents whose incomes have also been affected by the pandemic,” Edroma noted.
This comes after the Ministry of education and sports released the PLE and UCE results last month.