{"id":116029,"date":"2021-07-12T16:00:03","date_gmt":"2021-07-12T23:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=116029"},"modified":"2021-07-12T16:00:03","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T23:00:03","slug":"multiple-challenges-associated-with-online-education-too-many-cooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/07\/12\/multiple-challenges-associated-with-online-education-too-many-cooks\/","title":{"rendered":"Multiple challenges associated with online education; Too many Cooks?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Raj Gonsalkorale <\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Children\u2019s education is among the\nhardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the world. Prolonged school\nclosure and limited access to distant learning has deprived children of their\nuniversal right to education, particularly in poorer countries<\/em>\u201d\n-UNICEF <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The COVID pandemic has accentuated\na disparity that already exists between facilities that are available for\npoorer children in semi urban and rural areas, and those in more urban and\naffluent situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While standards of educational\ninstitutions are different to what they were some years ago, there are many\nschools amongst the nearly 12,000 schools in Sri Lanka which lack even basic\nteaching needs, and worse, even essential facilities like decent toilets, water,\nelectricity and other amenities. Often what is taken for granted in an urban\ncentral school, is a luxury in many rural schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opportunities for a quality school\neducation was never on a level playing in the country, and in a practical sense\nit has been a very challenging exercise to make it so. Over the years, the\ndisparities that exist between those who have or had opportunities for a\nquality education irrespective of where they lived, or their socio economic\nconditions, and those who did not, and still do not, have been bridged to some\ndegree. Yet, inequity does exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many school children who\ndo not have basic needs such as exercise books, pens, pencils and other basic\nrequisites they require for their education, although they receive text books\nfrom the State. Poverty levels, general socio economic conditions of parents or\nguardians of children, orphaned children or those with one parent without an\nadequate income to send every child to a school, is nothing unusual not just in\nrural settings, but even in urban settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this context, school closures\ndue to the pandemic and many children losing out on an education for extended\nperiods of time, unfortunately, is not a new phenomenon for some children who\nhave faced this situation with or without a pandemic on account of other socio\neconomic factors. The new manthra of online education for school children in\nSri Lanka is and has been foreign to many children, as the COVID pandemic\nitself. However, now, thanks in a way to COVID itself, an opportunity has\narisen to introduce a mechanism for the country which could act as the leveller\nof opportunity for all children irrespective of their socio economic status, and\nwhere they live, by way of online education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is of course easier said than\ndone to bring a degree of universality to the concept and practice of online\neducation to school children throughout the country. The very reasons that\nimpacted on a universality prior to COVID, plus many other reasons makes this\ndifficult, particularly in the short to medium term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Sri Lanka, and in almost all\ncountries in the world, online education for school children was not a priority\npolicy consideration until COVID struck the world. No doubt it may have been\nhappening to varying degrees in different countries and in different settings\ndictated to by a variety of reasons, including geography and physical access to\nschools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The COVID pandemic struck in this\nclimate and children at all stages of schooling got affected irrespective of\ntheir fortunes or the lack of it. This misfortune has not been confined to Sri\nLanka, and the BBC reckons that some 147 million children have got affected in\nSouth Asia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a report titled Coronavirus:\nHow the lockdown has changed schooling in South Asia by Shruti Menon<\/strong> in BBC Reality Check on the 21st<\/sup> September 2020 (https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-south-asia-54009306<\/a>), Menon says many South Asian\ncountries lack a reliable internet infrastructure and the cost of online access\ncan be prohibitive for poorer communities. The UN says at least 147 million\nchildren are unable to access online or remote learning. In India, only 24% of\nhouseholds have access to the internet, according to a 2019 government survey. In\nrural parts of India, the numbers are far lower with only 4% of households\nhaving access to the internet. Bangladesh has better overall connectivity than\nIndia. It’s estimated that 60% can get online, although the quality of\nbroadband internet is often very poor. Nepal’s\nlatest Economic Survey report says that of the nearly 30,000 government\nschools, fewer than 30% have access to a computer, and only 12% can offer\nonline learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Save the Children contends that children\nhave lost more than a third of their school year to the pandemic and they have also said there\nare huge discrepancies in access to learning in wealthier nations as well\nduring the pandemic- reliefweb.int\/report\/world\/children-have-lost-more-third-their-school-year-pandemic-save-children<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Save the Children\nsays that students in the U.S. for example are more disconnected from the\ninternet than students in other high-income countries, which likely also\nimpacted their access to remote learning. Only two EU countries have lower\nlevels of internet access than the U.S. \u2013 Bulgaria and Romania. At the\nstart of the pandemic, upwards of 15 million students from kindergarten through\nto high school in U.S. public schools lacked adequate internet for distance\nlearning at home. Other wealthier countries also struggled to provide equal\nonline alternatives for school-based learning. In Norway, while almost all\nyouth between 9 and 18 years old has access to a smartphone, 30 percent did not have access to a PC<\/a> at home. In the Netherlands, one in five\nchildren do not have a PC or tablet for home learning\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New analysis by Save the Children of data for 194 countries and different\nregions shows that children in Latin America and the Caribbean, and South Asia,\nmissed out on almost triple the education of children in Western Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Broken down at regional level, the difference in lost days of education\nbecomes painfully clear, Save the Children said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n