Lesson in inequality
When online learning abruptly becomes a requirement in a country that isn’t ready for it, glaring disparities emerge. Children suffer. Schools remain indefinitely closed. Many educational institutions countrywide have started e-learning. From lessons shared on WhatsApp to Zoom and Microsoft Teams classes, teachers and students are struggling to fit into the new normal.
But in a country like Sri Lanka, how many families benefit and how many are left behind? A survey by LIRNEasia, a regional ICT policy thinktank, this week revealed that only 48 percent of households with children under the age of 18 have a smartphone or computer. And even fewer—just 34 percent—had internet access.
There are challenges everywhere. A Grade 8 English teacher of a Talawakelle school said his 48 students were from families of estate workers. The authorities directed him to share lessons via WhatsApp. He gathered the telephone numbers of all his charges but could not create a group because they were not available on the platform.
“When I questioned them, I found that most students did not have access to a smartphone,” he said. The few families that did have such phones didn’t know what WhatsApp was. “Can you do it on your phone and send it, Sir?” some asked him, when he told them to download the app.
Like others interviewed for this article, he did not wish to be named or his institution identified. Hundreds of kilometres away in Jaffna, another Government school teacher told of her troubles. She is mother to an eight-yearold and a one- year- old. The older one needs help with the classes, especially the devices. So, she sits there with the younger one on her knee till the lessons are done.
She is worried about the impact of increased screen time on her child’s health. Also, fixed lines were required to participate in ongoing Zoom classes. “This is a difficult expense for many families in my area,” she pointed out.
Teachers send too much material and insist on printouts. "We were told that paper can also transmit COVID- 19 so I have to hold it back for 10 days before I can give it to my children,” she said. This was problematic when teachers wanted quick feedback.
The Sunday Times spoke with a Grade 11 student in Gothatuwa who has started sleeping by day and staying up at night because data was cheaper then. A garment factory worker, her mother has not received a salary this month. Food is a priority. As she can’t participate in the live classes, she browses the lessons by night on YouTube.
With online tests growing in popularity, tuition teachers have started coming online at the same time to assist selected students with their papers. And power failures during exams have placed stress on parents who “already have the whole world on our shoulders”.
Families also worry about leaving vulnerable young children unsupervised on the internet. Meanwhile, students sitting the Grade 5 scholarship exam this year have found that the syllabus is not even close to being covered.
“I don't think they'll postpone it,” one parent said. “And what happens to the children who cannot afford these facilities?"
Zoom classes have a 500-person limit. The Provincial Departments of Education organize them. The classes start at 6 a,m. “We go online at 5.30 a.m. and sometimes we can’t enter the class because it says it is full,” the teacher in Jaffna said. "If I'm not mistaken, the Northern Province has about 10,000. Say I log in earlier and get a seat for my son. I will be taking it away from another child. What about them?
Approximately 13mn people have data access, said Oshada Senanayake, Director General of the Telecommunication Re gulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL). Sri Lanka’s population is around 22mn.
The access is categorized into segments, like 3G and 4G and between 91 and 93 percent of users have access to the latter. To ensure 100 percent true connectivity— 4G connections for all of Sri Lanka—the TRCSL conducted surveys in 4,800 Grama Niladhari divisions.
“We now have the statistics we need to ensure proper coverage, regardless of whether or not providing internet access to those areas makes corporate sense,” Mr Senanayake said. This was part of a programme called“Ga mata Sanniwedanaya.” A Telecommunication Development Levy was also introduced to incentivize the provision of 4G internet throughout Sri Lanka.
“LEARN” and “E- Thakshilawa”, national online study platforms for university students and K- 12 students, respectively, were made available free of charge in a collaboration between the Education Ministry and mobile service providers. Access is free but the Ministry is responsible for content.
But many students just cannot afford the data. The answer could be special data packages that fit new capacity requirements at reasonable rates, Mr Senananayake said. Existing networks were meant for one- tenth of current traffic.
“In a situation where giants like YouTube reduced their bandwidth to cater to demand, we have handled the surge in demand for data relatively well while working with finite networks,” he said. Where special packages tailored to data requirements do exist, the public lacked awareness to use them.
But access to the right technology is just the tip of an iceberg of challenges.
“People shouldn’t be penalized for not having access or a skill we didn’t give them,” said Prabha Manuratne, Head of the English Department at the University of Kelaniya. Sri Lankan education culture lacked technology and training for this sudden introduction into online learning techniques. Some lecturers have started Zoom lessons but their success depends on the nature and size of the class.
State universities have used the Online Learning Management Systems (LMS) for five years. Even so, lectures are not sufficiently trained for online teaching. Monolingual teachers and students faced other issues, Dr Manuratne said. The distribution of content in Sinhala and Tamil required teachers to type in those languages, something they had no training or technology for.
Most lecturers have begun recording for students who cannot participate in the lessons. “Every student has a right to be in a lecture,” she said, noting that the education system must ensure no student is left behind.
“Entitlement and resentment amongst children on the two sides of the fence and the reproduction of a whole generation of inequality will lead to terrible socio-economic repercussions,” Dr Manuratne warned. “When you consider this, it would be better to wait it out and begin schooling for everyone at the same time.”
“Nonetheless, this is an opportunity for the education system to improve,” she observed. “We just need to make sure we don’t carry the baggage of the old system into it. Moving away from conventional whiteboard/notebook-based learning is vital.”
Many families were having to choose between food and education, said Mahendran Thiruvarangan, Lecturer (Probationary) in English Literature at the University of Jaffna. Those families that did have devices could afford only one. That meant that the needs of multiple children clashed also with parents’ work-from-home schedules.
“As education moves from the classrooms to homes, the inequalities become starker,” Dr Thiruvarangan said. “It becomes obvious that independent learning space and data are luxuries in a country like ours.”