Switching To Distance & Elearning: Too Little, Too Late
Dr Tara de Mel
With
the sudden closure of schools on March 12th, the Sri Lankan education
system plunged into a crisis. Overnight teachers had to gear themselves
for on-line teaching and other methods of distance education. Meanwhile
many countries in the West & East seamlessly switched to e-learning
& online education, since their curricula & syllabuses were
already posted on the education websites, and e-learning had been
practiced interspersed with face-to-face learning in class, even before
Coved.
Good example is Singapore, where once a week, e-learning had been a
practice for several grades. So, an abrupt and total switch was
effortless.
What’s the story with Sri Lanka?
We had a smattering of syllabuses on the National Education of Education
website, but they were not available in an organized manner. Besides,
internet penetration, PC & laptop usage is still less than 40%, so
accessing education material through e-learning has always been very
challenging. Whilst pockets of socially more advantaged students were
able to access content and material through using the internet, the bulk
of the students were left high and dry.
Yet, distance learning through other methods could have been made
possible: for instance, using radio, TV, telephone and postal services
in innovative and creative methods. These could have started in early
March, no sooner the danger of Covid became visible and some countries
had already closed schools.
The Ministry of Education started telecasting lessons for O’Level,
A’Level and Grade 5 students. Not the others. Some schools were
selected for the Microsoft google-classroom programs, but again that’s a
small number. A significant number of teachers started using
WhatsApp/Viber to send bulk lesson-plans in PDF.
But those social media applications are not meant for education tutorials!
In all these scenarios, it was entirely a continuation of
teacher-centered education, where students are spoon-fed. There was no
opportunity for students to learn on their own, and to creatively put
their minds to work.
In the long run however, it is imperative to increase possibilities for
self-e-learning. Covid 19 I feel is a blessing in disguise to re-think
how educational material & content can be made available for
self-learning under any circumstance. Floods, rains, and other natural
disasters often cause school closure. In fact, the teacher-centered,
exam-driven, spoon-feeding that goes on in class needs to be replaced,
and fast.
