Mission continues
TEACHERS’ ROLE DURING PANDEMIC
THE extraordinary role played by teachers for continuing their mission to educate students during the challenging atmosphere of COVID-19 pandemic needs acknowledgement from every Fijian.
The role of teachers in building an educated society cannot be overlooked especially during the unusual situation such as the prevailing pandemic, when teachers have a larger role in ensuring that education of children continues despite the adversities encountered.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic brought life to a standstill all over the world with many countries reporting closure of educational institutions.
This pandemic time has brought into sharp focus how privileged some students are, and how others have been left behind. It has also shown how important teachers are and how they can succeed during a crisis with the right technology and support system.
The teaching profession has no doubt been at the forefront in adapting to changes with so many innovative means being followed to reach out to the students.
Be it the video lectures, video links online classes, tests and assignment submissions, the teaching fraternity hasn’t shied away from its responsibilities.
This could not have been possible without the active participation and adoption at students’ level. We also have to appreciate our students for their active participation. This is however limited to those who have access to internet.
There has never been a situation in Fiji where schools had such a long break and teachers have not been able to be in their classroom disseminating knowledge.
The 2020 outbreak of this pandemic had put teachers out of classrooms for about four months, with the re-opening of school providing time for teachers to catch up with the realigned curriculum.
Teachers were able to quickly get the students to the learning modes by employing various strategies, such as counselling, coaching, motivating, and even going an extra mile to individually assist student in school and after school through voluntary private tutorials. Multitasking teacher
Any teacher would agree with me that teaching from home is not an easy task.
While schools provide and foster formal structured learning setup and guide both the learners and teachers into a norm of educational interchange, learning and teaching from home, provide a wide range of variance.
Teaching from home requires multi-tasking and a teacher plays different roles at the same time.
Whatever the case, teachers have very quickly adapted to this transformation in education delivery and are now encouraging both students and their parents to take ownership of their learning.
They have started to implement guidelines and recommendations from Ministry of Education and have found themselves balancing educating and providing feedback to students remotely, filling administrative reports, and taking care of their families.
Majority of teachers are taking periodical classes with their students in various subjects, trying their best to put across the syllabus in the easiest way possible.
At a semi-rural school in Nausori, teachers of Baulevu High School had gone an extra mile by contacting students who have difficulty in accessing education, on a daily basis.
Concepts are discussed one on one basis either through phone calls or exchange of viber message.
They try to encourage children to either join the digital learning platform of the school or to collect their set of notes from school.
In many instances it is encouraging to note that many parents have now started to appreciate the enormous efforts that teachers put in to ensure good education delivery to students despite many obstacles.
There were criticisms from the general public on teachers not working as schools were closed.
However, little do these people know that teachers were working silently but competently executing instructions that they received.
Teacher as an administrator As earlier alluded to, teachers did not only teach while they were working from home. They were very actively and efficiently used in collection of various data that the Ministry of Education required.
At the point when schools were not operational as a result of restrictions due to COVID protocols - the education headquarters staff required data for important decision making teachers were the best point of contacts.
A lot of data was collated during the school lockdown period and teachers used their personal resources and finances to assist in this data collection exercises.
This act of loyal service and dedicated work needs huge acclamation from authorities, especially school communities and ministry officials.
It was the classroom teachers who came out of their primary roles to go an extra mile to assist in accurate data compilation, thus enabling right and timely decision making.
Teachers as front-liners
No one can debate on the ability of teachers to fit into so many various roles when need arises.
Locally this has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that teachers are very much capable individuals, who take up any challenge that come their way.
Ministry of Health and Medical Services rightly recognised the skills and abilities of teachers and made a swift move to seek assistance from them to assist them in their vaccination data verification process.
Those teachers who had participated in this massive exercise would agree with me that the task in front of them at that time was neither simple nor easy.
At this point, I acknowledge the work done by the health personnel’s in ensuring that every deserving Fijian got their jab on time to meet the national vaccination target.
These health personnel were swift in doing what they are good at doing, however, due to influx of people receiving the jab, data recording was cumbersome.
This is where teacher’s skills were aptly utilised. They were able to sort out the information as per the given guideline in a very strict timeline.
The end result was that Ministry of Health was able to correctly record the vaccination data and establish the national vaccination rate.
In addition to this teachers were recruited on a volunteer basis to be part of the moderna vaccination roll out for school children.
Having seen the effectiveness and efficiency of teachers in the vaccination data verification exercise, their services as registration and verification officers were sought and once again teachers lived up to the expectation.
This volunteering scheme continued until recently when teachers were assisting in the administration of Pfizer vaccination.
Teachers input in school reopening
In having schools ready for reopening after its closure for about eight months, a lot of ramifications were need.
A checklist sent to schools warranted strategic planning and massive labour to bring schools to the desired safety levels prior to opening. With tight budget, school heads used innovative measure and the teachers once again became the saviors.
Teachers assumed the roles of carpenters, plumbers, handyman, joiners and you name it to fulfil the requirements of the given checklist.
Secondary school teachers were pressed against time in preparing their school for Ministry of Health certification as years 12 and 13 were to begin earlier than all other grades.
As a result these teachers, even though so much stressed, did everything they could to give their respective school a facelift and assist in being certified.
The primary schoolteachers, having more time at their disposal — producing brilliant outcome in terms of preparedness for 2022 reopening.
Almost all schools around the country have received facelifts and the credit goes to the hardworking teachers.
Conclusion
Even though many people were aware of the immense work done by teachers during pandemic, some just preferred to join the bandwagon of others to criticise teachers for getting paid for doing nothing.
Therefore, people not associated with teaching should acknowledge the amount of sacrifice and hard work teachers put in as civil servants to get things back to normalcy.
Through this column, I wish to personally thank each teacher for their input during the school closure and in assisting school heads get schools ready for reopening.
I also thank the secondary teachers for completing Year 12 and 13 syllabuses and preparing students for their final examinations.
Special thanks to Minister for Education for personally visiting schools to thank teachers for their contribution during the pandemic.
Teachers are a group of individuals who continue to do their best in every situation and COVID has definitely not dampened that spirits.
They were the best and continue to be the best.
“Teacher affect eternity; they can never tell where their influence stops” - by Henry Brooks Adams.
VISHNU DEO SHARMA is a educational administrator and a contributor to this newspaper. The views expressed are his and not necessarily shared by this newspaper or his employer.