Since the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) on 18th March 2020, students across the nation were impacted by school closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
During a virtual talk organised by Sarawak Development Institute (SDI) on 30th March, Associate Professor Dr. Johari Abdullah noted that due to the implementation of online teaching/learning, school children are missing out on real-life school experience and social interaction.
Taking the example of the Japan education system, the students are exempted from taking any exams for the first three years if their school life but are instead taught on character building and social interactions while socialising with other people.
Noting these as some of the important experiences in life for school children that will probably be impacting them later in life, Dr. Johari said these are the things that online teaching and learning cannot emulate.
Hence, if online school learning and teaching has to go on for a few more years due to the pandemic, this might present itself to be one of the challenges for students.
During the talk, Dr. Johari, who stated that among the challenges of online teaching/learning during the pandemic lies in the availability of four main components: infrastructures, equipment, content and instructors.
He said that infrastructure especially on connectivity is probably the biggest challenge especially for those living in the rural areas as it relates to both time and can be costly.
“If you map this to the current Sarawak digital blueprint imitative and also the Sarawak Economic Action Council (SEAC) 2023, this (connectivity) is probably the fundamental challenge when you want to embark on digital economy and online teaching/learning,” said Dr. Johari.
Giving an example, he noted that to erect one tower in Sarawak, it can take approximately half a million to RM1 million.
Apart from that, other things that are considered when setting up the tower includes land acquisition, getting telco company to get involved and the number of populations within the area.
As for equipment, Dr. Johari pointed out that the availability of devices to households with more than one child is proves to a challenge itself.
Children from the same household are unable to share one device as they might belong to different classes or study.
He added that there are some students that miss their classes due to unavailability of devices.
Noting that there are various online platforms that can educators can use to share their content to students, Dr. Johari said that engaging the content through online medium is a new experience for most teachers and students.
“It is a challenge for teachers to translate the content into a form that is easily shared and accessible to the online platform,” he said.
Aside from that, he also noted that teacher need to take consideration on copyrights and violation of privacy when sharing their content online with students.
As for instructor, he noted that the level of readiness to adapt technology into teaching varies from different level of education.
While noting that educators from the higher learning institution may be more ready as some have been adopting online teaching for years before the occurrence of the pandemic, it is not the same with educators teaching in schools.
“Of course, this is not the teachers’ fault and this is not about blaming any parties, but to shift to a new medium of teaching in a short amount of time is a big challenge,” he said.
