The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MoPSE) in collaboration with UNESCO is set to host a two day workshop for validating educational materials for uploading on its premium Whatsapp Chatbot, Dzidzo Paden. The workshop follows a successful e-content development, a process that took two weeks.
Dzidzo Paden|Imfundwe’ndlini is a WhatsApp automated chatbot aimed at distributing premium academic resources to students with no access to the internet but who have access to WhatsApp. Currently, the chatbot is distributing curriculum-aligned resources (notes, past papers and mark schemes) for Grade 7s, Form 4s and Upper 6s.
The ministry has now targeted to cover 29 learning areas from junior to secondary education, having initially focused on examination classes only. The new learning areas include Guidance and Counselling and Life Skills Education, English, Mathematics, Geography, Information, Communication and Technology, History, Heritage and Social Studies, Family, Religion and Moral Education among others.
The validation meeting will bring together all the teachers who were involved in the e-content development for the selected learning areas, and specialist learning area resource personnel from the Curriculum Development and Technical Services (CDTS) for quality control and evaluation of the materials.
A minimum of 4000 learning objects is expected to be validated, and ready for uploading on the Dzidzo Paden chatbot and other ministry platforms. The developed content will be in line with the competency based curriculum. This content will aid self -paced, distance or remote anytime anywhere learning and even enable learners to learn from home. The platform is a low tech initiative which is expected to benefit more than 1 million learners throughout the country.