Keeping households engaged in learning during school closures: low tech learning support for children in Kano State, Nigeria

Before the outbreak of COVID-19 in March 2020, Kano State was taking measures to address the challenge of equipping children with literacy and numeracy skills. As part of their efforts to address this challenge, the Kano State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and the Federal Ministry of Education (FMoE) together with the British Council and Teaching at the Right Level (TaRL) Africa, and with support from the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, launched the Kano Literacy and Mathematics Accelerator (KaLMA) in October 2019 in Wudil and Dawakin Tofa with the aim of building foundational Maths, Hausa, and English literacy skills for 37,000 Primary 4 to Primary 6 girls and boys. Kano SUBEB and FMoE were eager to continue to support children’s learning despite school closures and COVID-19 social distancing restrictions. While there is research on the risks of lengthy school closures and implications on children’s learning, in April 2020 there was limited awareness and understanding locally of how to effectively support children’s learning remotely during global pandemics. A small, action-oriented tracking study suggests that a package of remote learning support can increase parental engagement. More research is required to understand how parents are engaging and how this engagement varies for different child and parent characteristics.