KUCHING: A comprehensive plan is needed to cater for students who are left behind in their studies due to the difficulties in joining online teaching and learning sessions, said Adam Prakash Abdullah.
The Sarawak Teachers’ Union (STU) president pointed out that teachers should already be aware of the challenges students face from home learning.
“We have been implementing home learning for more than a year now, so we should be well aware of the challenges and how to deal with them.
“We cannot come up with excuses anymore, but we must instead use our expertise as teachers to reach out to the weaker students while supporting the others at the same time.
“Schools must come up with a comprehensive plan to cater for the weaker students and remedial work should be carried out to help students who have lost their instruction hours.
“Teachers could prepare notes and activities that could promote and help weaker students,” he said.
Adam said improvements on facilities and infrastructures is needed if the Ministry of Education wishes to maintain online teaching and learning even after the Covid-19 pandemic is over.
“The government could provide as well as upgrade information and communication technology (ICT) facilities in all schools and put-up internet receivable stations for all communities in their respective living areas.
“Online learning has actually been practiced by institutions of higher learning prior to the pandemic. It suddenly became the talk of the town when every learning institution in the country was forced out of the classroom and into the students’ houses.
“This caused learning to be shifted from classroom-based to home-based. I believe home schooling is a mode of learning worth looking into as it encourages participation of all — teachers, students and parents. I believe we could actually produce better results,” he said.
He also noted that students nowadays are very inquisitive and fast learners thus there is no need to introduce specific subjects in school to provide them with exposure and platform to acquire better skills to benefit from online learning.
