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The COVID-19 outbreak has changed our lives rather abruptly – alike a sudden grey cloud in the London sky that never goes away. Particularly, the paradigm shift of our education system from an orthodox, paperback-textbook lugging style to a more modern technology-centric system, is something worth pondering about. 

Admittedly this change was bound to happen, seeing that there were past efforts of the government attempting to incorporate information and communications technology (ICT) literacy into the national syllabus. However, due to the threat of COVID-19, this supposedly ‘gradual’ shift has become ‘instant’ and ‘definite’ overnight – forcing the Ministry of Education (MOE) to enforce e-Learning abruptly despite the lack of adequate preparation.

The implementation of online learning has caused quite a stir amongst society itself, with people questioning the capability of our country pioneering such an advancement – with limited access to technology being the utmost concern. This is unfortunately a common drawback faced by students who are living in remote areas where few up-to-date facilities and limited internet access exist. Recalling the account of a young Sabahan girl, Veveonah Mosibin, who had to climb up a tree to access a stable internet connection for her online examinations. Her great endeavour went viral on social media and had garnered extensive public attention – effectively broadcasting the gross inequality faced by students in rural areas. Veveonah’s hardships propelled the government to actively rectify the situation in her area, with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) now planning to build a telecommunication tower in the coming year. 

How else is the government responding currently?

Based on Budget 2021, the MOE will receive an allocation of RM50.4 billion, which is a 15.6% of total government expenditure. One of the Ministry’s plan of action is to alleviate internet issues by allocating RM50 million to improve internet connectivity in institutions of higher learning by upgrading the Malaysian Research and Education Network (MYREN) access line up to 10Gbps. Another RM500 million would be utilised to implement an initiative with National Digital Network (JENDELA) to ensure acceptable connectivity throughout the 430 schools across all states in Malaysia. At the same time, MCMC endeavours to allocate RM7.4 billion for the year 2021 and 2022 to build and upgrade broadband services to serve the new age of virtual learning in education. 

Challenges of Virtual Learning

The effectiveness of ‘Home-Based Learning’ is contested as there exists a total lack of physical interaction when compared to face-to-face teachings. Students are individually different and have different abilities from another. Hence, it is understandable that some students might need extra attention to make sure that they’re on the right track.

The transition to Home-Based Learning, although necessary in light of Covid-19, does make contacting teachers seem slightly more daunting. Over a computer screen, the physical distance to teachers potentially transforms into a lack of connection. This could eventually lead to shyness of students to approach teachers for extra guidance. Although admittedly teachers could still approach them independently, the lack of motivation or the introversion of some students could be of the biggest hindrance as they’ve gone from classrooms explicitly designed to support learning, to bedrooms and kitchen tables where distractions are plentiful. In instances where they do not actively seek for clarifications, students might have difficulties in achieving the minimum level of mastery in each subject – inevitably being left behind slowly but surely. 

According to a research sourced from the American Economic Review, it has been reviewed that students in online courses perform substantially worse than students in traditional in-person courses with all other aspects (teacher assignments, class size, syllabus, textbooks) being identical across online and in-person platforms. As students and teachers do not communicate physically but only interact through asynchronous written contact, students are likely to experience less oversight from their teachers and less pressure to participate actively and to respond to queries – inhibiting the full potential of lessons. Some students may not even complete their homework and would not feel obligated to attend classes in the virtual world. Recently, a teacher had painstakingly learned from scratch how to set up a proper virtual classroom but no student had bothered to attend in the end.

Having said that, while students struggle to cope with the new normal, teachers are similarly as disorientated as improvisation on new approaches such as adopting ICT to maximise student learning is now key. Teachers (especially the older generation) currently are being pressured and having a race against time to develop their skills in adopting new modes of teaching –  especially in terms of clear instructions, fair evaluations, and intelligible distributions of information all to be done virtually. 

Remote learning is very likely to be continuing for many moon’s ahead. The setbacks of e-Learning as aforementioned could exacerbate a student’s academic performance and possibly cause a strain in the economy as proper education is a crucial aspect in economic growth. In the labour market for example, education will assist individuals in accessing better job opportunities with higher incomes that will contribute to a higher quality of living, and eventually the country’s own economic strength. 

Despite the complications surrounding the implementation of e-learning in Malaysia, its enforcement cannot be trivialised considering the dire situation we are all in – ‘a done something is better than a perfect nothing’. This advancement albeit rushed is understandably predestined and truth be told, this is the only way the education sector could subsist with safety as the nation’s top priority. Students are the future and the future must be safeguarded.