For poor families, online learning is a drag

 

Most students need a laptop or smartphone for online learning but not everyone has one.

PETALING JAYA: With school children kept away from schools until at least Feb 4, children from low-income families and those in rural areas are hampered in trying to cope with online lessons because of lack of devices or an internet connection.

While the first MCO last March was a shock to many parents in terms of adapting to online learning, for Umadevi Satha Udaia Perasagam, “nothing has changed” during MCO 2.0.

“How can they study? We have no laptop computer and the kids just share my smartphone,” she said. “Teachers have to understand that not all families have a laptop or a smartphone,” said Umadevi, who lives near Bandar Sunway, Selangor.

A former part-time clinic assistant, Umadevi was let go by her employers last year during the first MCO. Her husband lost his warehouse job in December 2010 after undergoing bypass surgery, and the family now depends on the income Umadevi makes selling food at a roadside stall.

Umadevi said she spent almost RM200 last year on photocopying homework material for her children as required by their school. The lack of transport had prevented her from going to her children’s school to get learning material.

Prema Thiyagu, a volunteer at the Hope Selangor charitable society, says online learning “is not effective at all”.

Prema has been distributing packets of food every day to hundreds of people in Petaling Jaya, Subang, Shah Alam, Puchong and Ara Damansara since the first MCO last March. It gave her a first-hand view of the difficulties that the B40 group of low-income communities face in ensuring their children receive a proper education.

What it’s like inside the PPR areas

“We are on the ground (carrying out social work) and we see how it is like at the PPRs (People’s Housing Project) and other low-cost housing projects.

“First of all you need an internet connection and a device. These families can’t afford to buy laptops or smartphones for all their children, and most times, they just share one.”

For families who do have devices on which their children can access online learning platforms, connectivity becomes the next barrier.

“You can’t use a prepaid connection. You need a stable connection as you need to use applications such as Google Meet and Google Classroom, so you need WiFi,” said Prema.

“Mostly from what we see, they (B40 families) don’t have this kind of internet access. We have heard the government is giving packages (for internet access), but we don’t know how accessible that is.”

For others like a Penang factory worker who wanted to be known as Rashid, jittery video feeds and unclear audio feeds have prevented his children from maintaining an interest in online learning.

Rashid, from Bayan Baru, said teachers would connect with students through a WhatsApp video call – but connectivity remains a constant problem.

“While it is good that their teachers send homework through WhatsApp, the video call system is not good. I live in an apartment and I don’t have broadband. We use our data plan and the line is not clear,” he said.

Using phones instead of computers

Rashid, 34, who earns about RM2,500 a month, said he could not afford to buy the children laptop computers but had bought them phones instead to cope with online learning during the pandemic.

“At least if we are given a computer and proper internet, my children can study easily,” he said.

Internet access is an even worse problem for rural folk like Diana Dennis Oh, a mother of two from Keningau, Sabah.

She said she has had to take her children 6km from home just to get a stable internet connection for the past two days, since the new school year started, and she also has had to find time to balance their studies with her responsibilities at work.

Saying her children were still in the “adaptation phase” of the new school year, Oh hoped for flexibility and empathy from the school authorities in terms of students’ attendance – and for them to understand the difficulties parents faced with online learning.

She said MCO 2.0 was “a bit better” as her children’s teachers did not ask for as many photos of them doing their schoolwork, with some teachers giving leeway in terms of allowing the children to send their work in at night.

“If anything happens to my kids (when out looking for a stable internet connection), I only have one question. “Will they (school) be responsible (if her children are infected)? ” she asked. - FMT