SOAP is part of the recently-formed Zimbabwe Diaspora Educational Support Initiative, with its primary mandate being to organise on-line lectures that can be broadcast to schools back home. Its distance education lecture proposals are currently being reviewed by officials in the Ministry of Education.
Most of the books cover science subjects and will be part of the library resources for the BUSA online distance education programme, tasked primarily with training under-qualified science
“The SOAP initiative is an exciting, challenging and innovative project whose basic premise lies in the objective reality that, despite calls to return home, most Zimbabweans in the Diaspora are unlikely to return any time soon, if ever. Zimbabwe has suffered a massive brain haemorrhage of professional skills. The project taps into these skills and makes them available in Zimbabwe through distance education technologies,” said Mukasa.
SOAP has proposed that the Diaspora lectures be distributed in DVD or other electronic format, until such time as government grants a license for educational broadcasting.
A number of Zimbabweans in the Diaspora, many of whom were once teachers in Zimbabwe, have expressed interest in participating in the project. SOAP is also a chapter of the newly -formed Zimbabwe Diaspora Network in North America (ZDNNA), coordinated by Norbert Mugwagwa of the World Bank. ZDNNA is partnered by the Zimbabwe Diaspora Home Interface coordinated by Ibbo Mandaza of SAPES Trust.
Post published in: Africa News