No time to moan
The Covid-19 pandemic opens up opportunities to learn new skills and perhaps a new language too.
I HAVE started learning Mandarin via an online learning portal. It is a five-week course and at the end of that period, hopefully, I would have learnt 150 words and according to the portal, be able to converse in basic Mandarin.
There is no catch to this, because the course is free. In fact, there are loads of free online classes out there offering a bewildering variety of specialist subjects, from language to cooking, carpentry to computer science.
Ironically, the movement control order (MCO) currently in force is the best time to learn or pick up a new skill.
We don’t know how long these restrictions will remain or for that matter how long the Covid-19 pandemic will be around.
Whatever it is, we will come back to some semblance of normalcy but we must start to think about how to deal with this new norm.
The “new normal” means Malaysians have two options, either moan and gripe about the MCO and lambast the government for enforcing it or make the best of this enforced period at home and choose to be productive.
The adage “A man’s home is his castle” will never ring more true after the MCO.
Now that companies recognise that employees can easily work from home, employers are likely to encourage this behaviour.
Cost savings are a big plus point but studies in the past have also shown that employees are actually more productive working from home.
Meeting, you say? Let’s do a video call instead. Imagine the amount of time and money you save from not getting stuck in an hour-long jam to travel to the office to meet your boss face-to-face for an hour.
But to me the biggest change will be in education.
Most governments around the world have temporarily closed educational institutions in an attempt to contain the spread of the pandemic.
According to Unesco, these nationwide closures are impacting over 91% of the world’s student population.
With schools closed, students, tertiary or otherwise, are all forced to learn from home.
The world, not just Malaysia, is in the midst of conducting the biggest test of online teaching and home schooling.
According to Forbes, once the glitches are worked out, online education will have proven to be a viable means of education.
While it currently exists, the usage will skyrocket. It will be used in conjunction with traditional in-person schooling.
College costs could decline tremendously as more students will learn via online methods.
Ironically, for the first time, Malaysian parents have to be completely involved in the teaching process and for the first time, they can appreciate what teachers have to go through.
There is no guarantee that schools or colleges will be reopened even after the MCO is lifted. For now, the virtual classroom is the “sekolah kebangsaan” for millions of students.
Zoom, Google Hangout and WhatsApp are now the main tools of teachers, parents and students. Homework and actual teaching time is via laptops, desktops, iPads and even smartphones.
It must be pointed out that homebased learning is not home schooling.
The difference is kids get to interact (though, not physically) with their schoolmates. This should be encouraged.
It is important that the Education Ministry learns from the mistakes of the past when it comes to online teaching.
Multi-billion ringgit fiascos involving the supply of laptops and broadband to schools cannot and should not be repeated.
Smart schools is a term used to denote schools that have been identified to have access to equipment/e-learning capabilities.
This term should be banned because all government schools, including those in rural Malaysia, should all be made smart schools now.
Unless the coronavirus is completely eradicated, I don’t see how students are able to get back into a physical classroom environment.
Heightened hygiene manners, temperature checks and social distancing have all been bandied about but the threat of contracting the virus will always remain.
Denmark became the first European country to reopen schools this week.
However classes are only resuming in about half of Denmark’s municipalities as other have requested more time to adjust to health protocols still in place.
All are expected to reopen by
April 20.
In Australia, it’s the government that wants to reopen schools but this has been flatly rejected by educationists.
“The education of our children hangs in the balance,” was the plea of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who repeated health advice that the risk of Covid-19 spreading among school-aged children was very low.
Our own Education Minister Dr Radzi Md Jidin announced the cancellation of important age-group examinations for this year, but stressed that when schools reopen, security, hygiene and social distancing would be prioritised.
Moving forward, the Education Ministry should now consider converting all or almost all their schools’ syllabus into webinars.
They can create a centralised digital learning resource for all government schools that can be used by parents, teachers and schoolchildren.
This will help to mitigate the immediate impact of school closures, particularly for more vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, and to facilitate the continuity of education for all through remote learning.
Even though the coronavirus started out as a health pandemic, the writer believes that the outbreak will create long-lasting changes in our education system, with e-learning becoming the norm, not the exception.