Online teaching Sabah’s future trend
KOTA KINABALU: Online learning is likely to be the trend moving forward, particularly for the teaching of theoretical knowledge, said Sabah Association of Institutions of Higher Learning (PIPTSS) president Datuk Seri Panglima Wong Khen Thau.
He said most private higher learning institutions (IPTS) or colleges in Sabah had been practising online teaching via Facebook, WhatsApp, Google Classroom, Zoom, Telegram or other applications due to the Movement Control Order (MCO) restrictions.
“If the students have weak WiFi signal strength, lecturers will use other means for online teaching so as not to deprive them from learning.
“Some lecturers have also resorted to sending lesson content through courier service.”
Hence, Wong believed that the government’s directive to public universities and IPTS to conduct all teaching and learning (PdP) programmes online until December 31 this year would not be a major issue.
He said the government banned face-to-face lessons to avoid having too many students in a class.
“Covid-19 is not going to be over so soon. It may stay around for another one to two years unless a vaccine has been found.”
He said ITPS in Sabah had practised online distance learning (ODL) in the past, and most IPTS had switched to online teaching during the MCO.
As such, he said online teaching for private colleges or higher learning institutions would not be a big problem.
In fact, Wong believed that online teaching could be a future trend, particularly in imparting theoretical knowledge.
Nevertheless, he said online approach to PdP had its set of challenges, such as the lack of access to high-speed Internet in certain parts of Sabah.
“The Internet infrastructure in Sabah is very much lagging behind that of Peninsular Malaysia,” he lamented.
Additionally, he said lecturers would also have difficulty evaluating or assessing their students’ performance without face to face contact.
“But whatever it is, we will overcome the challenges.”
Although face-to-face lessons are banned, Wong said the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) had granted exceptions to five cat e gories of
stu dents who needed to re turn to cam pus in or der to re sume PdP pro grammes.
It said per mis sion would be given to post-grad u ate stu dents in the ‘re search mode’ to re sume their re search im me di ately.
“This flex i bil ity is only al lowed to
stu dents who are re quired to phys i cally present at lab o ra tory, work shops, de sign stu dios or re quir ing spe cialised equip ment to con duct their re search,” the min istry said.
The re main ing four cat e gories of stu dents in clude the fi nal year or fi nal se mes ter stu dents un der the cer tifi cate, diploma and bach e lor’s de gree levels who are re quired to carry out clin i cal work, prac ti cal train ing, lab o ra tory, work shop, de sign stu dio, or in need of spe cialised equip ment, and they are al lowed to con duct PdP in their cam puses from July 1.
“This means that higher learning institutions are able to conduct tutorial, practical or hands on classes if required, but not with a big number of students.
“Classes with 20 students previously will need to be divided into two,” Wong said.
He said students who needed to meet with their lecturers for tutorial sessions could do so in small numbers.
“These are the new norms we have to practise.”
Wong stressed that learning institutions, students, parents and lecturers all play a part in ensuring the effectiveness of online PdP.