Safaricom PLC has partnered with education content providers to give primary and high school students free access to educational content.
Two weeks ago, the president ordered the closure of all schools to curb the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic days after the first patient was diagnosed with the virus. Since then, learning has been paralysed. Safaricom will be partnering with Eneza Education, Longhorn Publishers and Viusasa to allow students to access learning materials while at home.
“These are difficult times for our country and the world at large and as a company. We are constantly looking at ways of being present for our customers. Through this initiative, we want to ensure that all students can access educational content. Whether through feature phones or smartphones. And keep up with their studies for the time they will be at home,” said Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom CEO.
The students will access material for free on Shupavu Web, Viusasa E-learning. They will also access through the Longhorn E-learning portal and through the Safaricom network at no data cost, up to 250MB per day. This will go on for the next 60 days. At the moment the platforms will be available for students from grade 4 to form 4 only.
Students who don’t have access to smartphones and computers will also benefit from the program. The Eneza education platform, Shupavu 291 is an SMS based platform. And students can access the content any time form any phone.
Alternatively, the students will also access learning material on the Safaricom website Shupavu web, Viusasa E-Learning platform and on the Longhorn E-Learning platform.
“Eneza Education is excited to partner with Safaricom to make the Shupavu291 learning platform available for free to learners across the country via USSD *291# and the shortcode 20851. This ease of access has seen more than 5.3 million students use the platform,” said Wambura Kimunyu, Eneza Education CEO.
” And more than 1 million questions asked on the Ask-A-Teacher learning platform,” said Wambura.