THE closure of schools since the middle of November has raised concern, particularly among low-income families who are struggling to make ends meet. Not only do they have to meet their livelihood needs, but also have to see to the educational requirements of their children.
Even though many economic activities are allowed during the recovery movement control order period, anxieties among low-income families remain. Based on EMIR Research’s latest poll for the third quarter of this year, 80% of respondents worried about the quality of education received by their children due to the new norm of relying on online education.
As there is no sign of recovery from the continuous four-digit Covid-19 daily infections in Malaysia, there is an increasing fear that more children will become disinterested in studying, which might result in a higher school dropout rate compared with the pre-pandemic period.
According to a recent United Nations Children’s Fund study, one in five children in low-cost flats in Kuala Lumpur had lost interest in their studies since the implementation of the movement control order. When more children leave school, it would adversely affect their prospects of earning a living in the future, resulting in social unrest.
The government has taken measures under Budget 2021 to help B40 communities. These include free credit for B40 communities to access telecommunications services, getting government-linked companies to sponsor 150,000 laptops, and providing extra 1GB of mobile data daily.
However, the majority of children especially in low-income families are not disciplined, utilising data connection for entertainment instead of learning purposes.
Parents with low incomes are either not literate enough to teach their children due to lower educational attainment, or not able to monitor the learning progress of their children due to longer working hours.
Teachers also find it challenging to have close contact with their students as either the students have limited access to digital devices or choose to skip online lessons.
This can be seen from the 2015 OECD Pisa (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Programme for International Student Assessment) study, which showed that students from higher socio-economic backgrounds were more likely to surf the internet to access useful information or read the news.
Lower-income peers, on the other hand, tended to spend their time chatting online and playing games.
Therefore, there is no clear indication on whether the provision of data credit and laptops by the government, corporates and non-governmental organisations would effectively address the issue of education access among children from low-income families.
EMIR Research suggests that the Education Ministry should modify the education responses of other countries and adopt a mix of low-tech and high-tech interventions to ensure learning continuity during the Covid-19 crisis.
According to a survey done by OECD and Harvard Graduate School of Education during the Covid-19 pandemic this year, the following are some of the education responses of other countries to ensure continuity in education:
0 New South Wales and Australia lent laptops to students.
0 Great Britain and Japan relied on more traditional practices by printing and delivering additional work booklets.
0 Education ministries from Japan and the Republic of Korea partnered with private providers of educational content and Edtechs to provide students with free access to a rich catalogue of online learning resources.
0 Austria, Australia, Brazil, Estonia and Portugal allowed free online reading of their material.
0 Universities in the United Kingdom, Norway and Estonia collaborated with schools by sharing online virtual learning environments and offering a large catalogue of online activities.
0 Aside from establishing a co-operation committee, the Ministry of Education Iceland also organised online meetings with community leaders, head teachers and principals, all member organisations of the Icelandic Teachers’ Union, local educational authorities and government institutions to formulate a strategy for remote learning.
Even though 25-30% of students had limited or no access to remote learning devices, the Education Department in Gujarat, India managed to overcome the barriers by providing learning support at the local levels (i.e. villages, hamlets and habitats), pairing students with and without devices, promoting peer learning, creating a mobile bank, offline learning, home-visits by teachers and field staff, providing access to online classes at citizen service centres or village offices, as well mobile learning vehicles.
Although the government promised to strengthen the functions of community internet centres and extend broadcasting hours of TV Pendidikan, former education minister Maszlee Malik warned continuous school closures could put the future generation at risk if the government and stakeholders fail to make efforts to prevent disruption to the education system.
Therefore, the Education Ministry should take a lead by introducing comprehensive education measures by modifying the education responses of other countries – encouraging teachers to have close contact with their students from underprivileged families by distributing physical learning materials and organising regular home visits.
This would ensure all children in Malaysia are able to follow the education syllabus despite learning barriers during school closure.
Amanda Yeo is Research Analyst at EMIR Research, an independent think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research. Comments:letters@thesundaily.com
