Even amongst the restrictions of the Covid-19 pandemic educators around the country have
managed to virtually unite. With the formation of teacher telegram groups, learner materials
have been shared amongst South African teachers and have fortunately reached the hands of
the Rhodes University Community Engagement team, Vulindlela.
The year 2020 did not only bring a deadly virus that has coerced us into sanitizing and
wearing masks, but it has also brought a rise into conducting most group activities online.
Zoom and Google Meet turned into a classroom environment in order to maintain safety
precautions as the pandemic demands. Life had to resume and so it did through the ‘virtual’
classroom. What better way to safely meet with loved ones and colleagues than through the
comfort of your home, on your smartphone or PC?
This shift from physical interactions to virtual interactions managed to bring a rise of heroes
for South African education. Shaakira Mia is an educator and lecturer born and bred in
Gqerbha, Eastern Cape, and has taught for close to fifteen years both in South Africa and
internationally. Mia realized that education should not stop due to the pandemic, the show
must go on. With the experience of online teaching before covid – 19, she had already been
exposed to numerous online sources.
Being part of numerous educational groups on Facebook and Twitter and knowing how to
work her way around the Department of Education's website, Mia could easily source out educational information that other educators did not have. "I'm in all education groups on Facebook and Twitter", Mia highlighted. With the spirit of sharing and collaborating during the Covid – 19 Pandemic, she decided to share these useful recourses with the rest of South African teachers.
As we all know how news spreads fast, especially on social media, Mia had only begun by
sharing these materials with her former colleagues. Due to the demand for these materials,
she created Whatsapp groups that broadened access to this information. That was still not
efficient as Whatsapp restricted the number of participants in the groups. That's where we saw the shift to Telegram groups. Telegram has managed to cater to thousands of South African educators. The groups are still existent till today with each grade having an
individual group and thousands of participants.
Three aspiring journalists from Rhodes University heard of these telegram groups. Tristan
Cooke, Dylan Coetzee, and Pfunzo Ralinana decided to make it their duty to expose the
information on the telegram groups to the learners in the community of Makhanda. They
believed that the information should not only be shared amongst educators. These telegram
groups and various online sources such as https://www.worksheetcloud.com/free-exam-
downloads/download-links/ assisted the three aspiring journalists in acquiring the relevant
materials. They managed to filter it into SD cards with the relevant grades and subjects for
the relevant learners. All that was left was to deliver these SD cards to the learners who were
part of the Vulindlela program. Deliveries of the SD cards were then conducted by Thandi
Nqowana, the coordinator of Vulindlela. You can read more about the SD card project and
Vulindlela on https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-07-27-students-free-e-learning-
project-challenges-the-need-for-multimillion-rand-tablets-in-eastern-cape/.
With Ms. Shaakira Mia continuously chanting how "collaboration is key", we see how bits ofinformation that were in the position of one individual managed to assist more than twenty thousand South African educators and high school learners from the community of
Makhanda. The learners do not even have to access the telegram groups and scroll through
various materials as the materials have already been compiled for them in the SD cards
according to their specific grades and subjects. With a cell phone that has an SD card slot,
they can easily access these materials and arm themselves with the information free of
charge. The learners can view past exam papers, watch practical videos, and get assisted by a Vulindlela mentor. Such information might not be in their textbooks and they cannot access it from school.
With these SD cards, the learners do not have to wait for the Department of Education to
equip them with additional recourses. These SD cards allow learners to conduct self–learning
activities without any extra cost. The internet and data are not required. They are highly user-
friendly and most importantly, they are updated yearly so that the learner's education cannot
be compromised in these terrific times of Covid – 19. Credit to Ms. Shaakira Mia and the
Vulindlela team for making this possible.
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