KUALA LUMPUR: The education system has been greatly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and experts are urging more aggressive measures this new year to prevent a lost generation of students and undergraduates.
National Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Movement chairman Professor Datuk Dr Noraini Idris said measures, from the government to district education level, were crucial to hasten recovery in schools and higher educational institutions.
"We should have plans for this new year. We are facing challenges that have resulted in a complex situation for education.
"For a start, not all students at some 10,000 schools have good access to the Internet, an important component in virtual learning.
"Even with the Internet, some students in suburban and rural areas, as well as those from the Bottom 40 per cent group in urban areas, have limited access to devices for learning, such as laptops and smartphones."
Noraini said district education offices should provide learning centres with facilities to help students and teachers.
Pusat Kegiatan Guru, or Teachers' Activity Centres, in districts could be revived for this purpose, she said.
"We have heard complaints about students without smartphones and they have to rely on their parents' devices. Learning is disrupted as they can use the devices only after their parents return home from work."
Noraini said virtual learning, while beneficial to a certain extent, could never replace the hands-on experience and peer-to-peer interaction in classrooms and laboratories.
To address this, she suggested allowing students to attend school once a week while adhering to new norms.
"For instance, Form Five students could be allowed to attend school on Monday, with the numbers spread out across the classrooms available.
"This would allow optimisation of school facilities, while ensuring only a small number of students in classrooms. Students from each form can take turns attending school on different days of the week.
"Some teachers I spoke to welcomed this idea and are willing to make it work."
She said besides the teaching-and-learning process, the pandemic had disrupted the implementation of programmes, such as the STEM Mentor-Mentee programme, launched nationwide in 2015 in collaboration with local universities, and the STEM mini-theatre project with the Selangor government since last year.
Enrolment at tertiary education institutions had also been impacted following the delay in sitting public examinations, she said.
Early Childhood Care and Education Council founding president Datuk Dr Chiam Heng Keng said learning was interrupted with schools being affected by movement restrictions.
"There are many factors affecting the quality of online lessons. Firstly, teachers do not have the knowledge or skills and had to acquire them overnight.
"Secondly, not all teachers are IT-savvy. A few of them know of applications that can make lessons interesting and interactive, but some do not even know how to use Zoom (an online conference software)."
Thirdly, she said, some students and teachers might not have devices.
The fourth factor was that the Education Ministry was not prepared for the partial lockdowns, Chiam said.
As a result, this affected the school curriculum.
Chiam said education officers did not have the skills to prepare online lessons, and the materials they prepared might not be of high quality.
An example would be of students unable to hear everything their teacher said.
"Internet interference and instability are prevalent in urban areas, while some home environments may not be conducive for online lessons."
Chiam said due to current circumstances, students learnt less, and this could lead to greater problems for them when they made their transitions from preschool to Year One, or from Year Six to Form One.
"Mental health is another problem.
"Studies show that some children are fearful of the virus, while others have insecurities due to their family's financial problems and tensions at home due to cramped conditions."
She said improvements must be made to help students in areas without a good Internet connection.
"In India, the Philippines, Bhutan and Vietnam, their teachers prepare the materials and deliver them to students.
"They also involve communities and use television to conduct lessons."