#manifestorakyat2021
Children's rights to education during the pandemic
Proposer:
Srividhya Ganapathy
Affiliations:
CRIB Foundation
Policy Code:
2e Child
Problem Statement / Issue:
School closures and online education in the past 2 years has resulted in children dropping out of school or failing to catch up with their peers around the country. We are seeing a generation of children with little or no access to education, who will be placed in higher grades without any assessment as to their real needs. Our current online education solution has just been to instruct teachers to carry on with their lessons online, without much thought or research given to the methodology of online teaching which of necessity must take into account the attention span of children, screen time and continuous engagement of all children - including children with learning disadvantages. The current education system will not be able to remedy the damage done to the children of Malaysia during the pandemic in terms of their education.
Value(s) and Belief(s):
Every child must be given the right to education, and this right must be exercised fairly and democratically for every child in Malaysia.
Proposal of Solution and Call to Action:
The education syllabus and teaching methodology must be relooked and revamped to cater for online learning. Government must be responsible to ensure that every child registered in school has the means or capacity to access online schools, and there must be a monitoring system in place to ensure that children are not dropping out of school or left behind. This would involve lesson plans designed for online learning, online learning methodology being put in place, teaching by sharing videos for example instead of the classic teacher delivery, shorter lessons, periods in the day when children can engage with their classmates online and develop friendships (which are essential to human wellbeing). Some thought and research (which can be done online as we are not the only country affected by the pandemic or whose children have been forced to online education) must be carried out and our methodology improved. Teachers too need to be better supported so that they understand that online learning methodology is different, and so that they can cope with online lessons.
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