Unstable Net connection among home-based learning challenges

KUALA LUMPUR: Parents are saying their children have to wait until night-time for a stable Internet connection to do homework and catch up with lessons posted online.

Shamsiah Abdul Rahman said her youngest child, aged 12, had been doing homework late at night as the Internet connection would be more stable then.

She said an unstable Internet connection and lack of proper gadgets to participate in online class were among the challenges that children had to endure during home-based learning.

“My children sometimes have to resort to online hotspots from other family members when faced with spotty connection, especially at peak hours often during the day, despite having Internet data for their studies.

“For those without a gadget to access the Internet, they have to wait for their parents to come home from work,” said Shamsiah, who is also the Sekolah Kebangsaan Desa Amanpuri Parent-Teacher Association president.

She also stressed the importance of parents joining teachers in helping their children out in the home-based learning phase.

“Many children are feeling the cabin fever effect and cannot wait to go back to school. But this is not possible due to the high number of Covid-19 cases of late.

“Parents must help teachers to make learning fun and palatable for their children,” she said.

On educational television programmes, Shamsiah urged the government to look at improving and updating the content of such programmes. She said when educational TV programmes were aired daily on free-to-view TV Okey in the early phase of the Movement Control Order, they had been informative.

“Now, they have become repetitive. There is a need to improve content,” she said.

She also urged the Education Ministry to look at alternatives for students without good Internet access, including having a newspaper weekly pullout on various subjects.

SMK Shah Alam Parent-Teacher Association president Mohdan Amran said online learning would not have the same impact as physical learning, especially for those who would take national examinations such as Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia and Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia.

“I’m concerned for students who do not finish the syllabus and then they have to take examinations,” he said, adding that not all students had stable access to the Internet.

He said families from the B40 group would find it tough to access learning materials online since it would not be cheap to have Internet access.

On top of that, he said, it was not easy for parents who were not tech-savvy to help their children maximise the benefits of online learning.

On conducting online tests or examinations, Mohdan questioned the validity of the answers given.

“How do we know the answers given are actually from the students?”

He said there were many concerns that had to be addressed, which the Education Ministry should look into by coming up with a win-win solution for all.