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SINGAPORE – With schools closed and online learning at its peak, flaws in the digital space have begun to emerge in light of the pandemic.
Since April 8, as part of circuit interruption measures to curb the spread of Covid-19, students in Singapore have been engaged in full-time home learning (HBL), which requires the use of laptops or tablets.
Government, schools, community groups, and stores have seen a corresponding increase in demand for electronic devices.
According to figures provided by the Ministry of Education, around 12,500 laptops or tablets, as well as 1,200 internet-enabled devices, such as dongles, have been loaned to students who don’t have enough home devices for HBL.
HBL, which applies to students in all schools and colleges of higher education, comprises a combination of online and offline learning.
This typically includes e-learning through the Student Learning Space (SLS) platform and completing books and worksheets. A small number of students, who cannot stay home because of HBL, can go to school.
However, observers say the gap between rich and poor highlighted by Covid-19 goes beyond the digital gap.
They fear that inequality in Singapore may worsen as the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc on the global economy.
In addition to device availability, there are other factors that determine the degree to which children can reap the benefits of HBL.
These include the physical environment, parenting skills and connectivity issues, says Professor Lim Sun Sun, who teaches communication and technology at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).
For example, a child who has their own room may find it easier to focus on HBL, while three children who share a laptop in the living room may have a harder time concentrating on homework.
Additionally, parents who work from home “should be available to help their children solve technical problems,” says Professor Lim, a nominated member of parliament who heads SUTD’s department of humanities, arts and social sciences. E-learning requires negotiating passwords, working on different interfaces, and loading completed tasks, for example.
Additionally, wealthier parents have the option to pay tuition online, which could increase the HBL for their children.
Dr. Stephanie Chok, assistant director of research and program development at Beyond Social Services, a charity serving low-income households, notes that Covid-19 disproportionately affects poor families.
Free volunteer-led enrollment sessions for needy families have been halted under the circuit breaker.
Dr. Chok says: “Inequalities are likely to widen as work in underpaid sectors, such as the service sector, has been severely affected.
“There is more competition for these jobs but instability also increases. Many of the people we support also tend to be part-time or casual workers, who are often the first to be laid off, or are asked to take vacations without pay. “
Without social-scale intervention, the inequalities that have emerged are likely to worsen, says sociologist Teo You Yenn, whose best seller, This Is What Inequality Looks Like (2018), helped drive inequality at the forefront of discussions. on policies.
Associate Professor Teo, Head of Sociology at Nanyang University of Technology (NTU), says: “Some of these flaws are on socioeconomic lines. The issue of equipment and Internet access is perhaps the easiest to solve (since the devices are supplied by various groups.) But beyond this, children have unequal access to space, to technical support, to help with school work.
“The longer this goes on, the more the gap will widen because when children return to school, those who are already behind may have fallen further behind.”
“Furthermore, the global economic impact of the crisis is likely to have long-term consequences for inequalities between families … We can see an increase in the number of young people who need to drop out of school and start working sooner to support their families.” . on the contrary, young people whose family income allows it, may decide to stay in school longer, instead of entering a poor labor market. “
In the long term, he says, this could expand educational achievement and income inequalities within the same age cohort.
The Sunday Times examines how HBL has highlighted differences in study settings across three families from different economic backgrounds. From families with enough resources to study the ability to impart other life skills during this period, to those struggling to optimize study in a narrow flat, everyone is doing the best they can. – Venessa Lee
INTELLIGENT LIFE SKILLS DURING LEARNING AT HOME
With four children ages 3 to 13 at home, Ms. Zoe Chu says her family was “on the verge of a volcanic eruption” on April 8, when Complete Home Learning (HBL) began in earnest.
“All this while they were going to school, to be able to do my work from home in peace. Then I realized the first day (of full HBL) that I had to supervise,” says the 40-year-old man, who heads SG Supernanny, a infant and toddler sleep training consultant for the family’s 1,200-square-foot three-bedroom condo in Jurong East.
“I think that’s what we all didn’t expect, you know, there’s a lot of work.”
Her husband, dentist Justin Stewart Saga, 43, “was still happily exercising” that morning, thinking that her children could handle HBL independently.
She says, “I thought, I don’t think this is going to work. We need to monitor them a lot more than just leaving them on their own devices.”
While her 13-year-old twins, Brayden and Dylan, handled their school work independently as they are in Secondary 2, she had to make sure they didn’t play too much during breaks.
Callum, eight, who is in Primary 3, needed more supervision since she is easily distracted, and Alyssa, three, also had to complete her preschool’s HBL worksheets.
“And they’re constantly asking for snacks too, in the middle. It’s like I just fed you,” he jokes.
Since then, she has put together detailed schedules for the children. Callum’s, for example, includes an hour of exercise and “creativity time” and 60 minutes of online educational activities, as well as the promise of a reward for playing games you like if you follow your schedule correctly.
Still, she admits, she spends her mornings “as a primary school teacher or a kindergarten teacher,” so she can’t start her own work with clients until the afternoon.
Older children do their school work at the dining room table. Brayden uses a Macbook, a requirement for his studies at the Singapore School of Science and Technology; Dylan works on his father’s HP laptop and Callum uses an old replacement laptop.
Ms. Chu helps children with English problems, while her husband handles math.
“It is not easy to teach our children,” he laments.
When her husband becomes frustrated that Callum still doesn’t understand the division, she waits until he calms down.
“Then we talked about how best to deal with this,” she says. “It’s about communicating with each other. I know a lot of families are probably stressed out, so I think it’s best for married couples not to add to each other’s stress by having arguments.”
Ms. Chu, who has a master’s degree in business and administration from Lincoln University in New Zealand, says she tells her children that “values are the most important thing, not about grades.”
Children are expected to do some housework on a daily basis, even though they have an internal assistant. The three boys, who share a room, tidy their beds, empty the garbage and vacuum a little. Alyssa does her part cleaning up after her activities.
Along the same lines, Ms. Chu also had her teens use their online subscription to Mentorbox “to increase their mindset by learning how to be a better person.” The subscription service provides, among other things, brief summaries by book authors on topics such as entrepreneurship and self-development.
“After they see it, I want them to come back and inform me, and tell me what they have learned, so that I too can learn from them,” she says. Dylan, for example, shared tips she learned on how to improve the Instagram bio, which she quickly used.
The social media savvy mother even used the music-based Tiktok platform to teach her offspring how to get along better while staying home.
She asked them to take on the Blinding Lights challenge, forcing them to dance in sync with The Weeknd’s eponymous song.
“It’s not perfect, but at least they tried to work together, and I think I can continue to get them to do these thematic challenges.” – Stephanie Yeo
WORKING ON LOAN DEVICES ON A RENTAL APARTMENT
A 14-year-old boy is sitting cross-legged on the floor, looking at his borrowed tablet from school. A nine-year-old boy is lying on his stomach, doing his homework on the floor.
Her two other siblings, a 12-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, are sitting at a small table against the wall in the two-bedroom rental apartment, doing their home learning (HBL).
The four children share three devices with each other for HBL. The family has a laptop that they bought at a subsidized price through a government scheme for low-income households. There is a laptop and a tablet, both borrowed from the school for HBL.
While all three devices are enough for children’s HBL needs, including print worksheets and online homework, the family, who doesn’t have a home Wi-Fi subscription, is having connectivity issues.
The children’s mother, Madame Salmiah Salam, 37, uses a dongle, donated by a charity, to turn her smartphone into a Wi-Fi hotspot, but it doesn’t work properly. Irregular internet access means that working online for HBL slows down from time to time.
The housewife, who dropped out of school after her N levels, finds HBL stressful.
She says, “I have to teach my children. If they don’t understand the job, I have to explain it to them. But sometimes I don’t understand the concept myself. I go to YouTube for more information.”
She has been brushing up on her knowledge of factors and multiples alongside her youngest son, Muhammad Hadiputra Hashim, who is in Primary 4.
She says: “I wish my children had a more conducive study environment. So, at least, they can be more committed learners. But we lack space, so we do what we have.”
The sparsely furnished family rental flat in Redhill consists of a living room, kitchen, and bedroom. They usually dine together on the hall floor.
During this period, when schools are closed and evenings are lazily stretched, children have been taking more naps than usual on pillows scattered on the floor.
Another source of stress for Madame Salmiah and her husband of 56 years is that he does not have a job.
Mr. Hashim Kamid, the sole breadwinner, left his job as a cleaner in a condo in late February. She was afraid to bring the coronavirus into her home after a day of cleaning elevators and other surfaces.
A few years ago, after his operation for an infected stomach ulcer, his doctor had also advised the former garbage collector to work in a more sanitary environment.
I was making around $ 1,100 a month. Mrs. Salmiah has been bringing her few jewelry to the pawn shop for the past month.
“We did this before. Hashim was fired when the children were younger,” she says.
She was too “paiseh” (Hokkien to shame) to ask for help. But Beyond Social Services, which has supported the family previously, asked if he needed help during the Covid-19 outbreak.
The charity, which helps children and youth from less privileged backgrounds, has provided her with $ 150 for groceries and is processing more financial aid for the family.
The Solidarity Payment, a $ 600 cash payment for Singapore adults to deal with the pandemic, has also lightened their burden, she says.
The couple hopes that normalcy will return soon and that Hashim will find another job.
Meanwhile, they try to find some joy in the situation.
Hashim, who has been cooking more, is not used to being around his four children 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He recently asked his wife how he could tahan (Malay for tolerating) be with the children all day. – Venessa Lee
GLAD FOR A FREE LAPTOP UNDER THE IMDA ASSISTANCE SCHEME
Sheryl Shivani, 17, feared the beginning of Full-Time Home Learning (HBL).
Concerned about not being able to continue studying for her O levels this year, she recalls the disastrous development of a recent electronic assignment she made on her smartphone, a device that is not suitable for HBL.
It was tedious to open multiple tabs on your mobile phone, which could not support all the functions you needed for the lesson. She was unable to finish her story assignment in the end.
He decided to save for a laptop of his own by skipping lunch at school.
“I didn’t want to share my feelings because I was embarrassed and sad. I would spend lunch time relaxing with my friends and go home to eat,” says Sheryl, who is in Secondary 5.
He also didn’t want to ask his mother, a single mother, to buy the device from him.
“I know Mom’s situation and how much she needs to work for us. I saved a few years ago to buy my mobile phone. I am good at saving money,” she says.
Her mother, Cynthia Jyanthi, who declined to give her age, is a nurse in a nursing home.
She communicated her anxiety about Sheryl’s lack of a laptop to her teacher.
“I work long hours. While I can sit with them for a while, I cannot move on. I ask them if they need help and I have been interacting with their teachers,” says Ms. Cynthia, who also has two children.
Her youngest son, Secondary 1 student Gerald Giresh Raj, 13, is using a laptop on loan from her school to HBL, while her older son, 19, is waiting to enlist in national service.
Cynthia’s 68-year-old mother, who has had cardiac arrest in recent months and uses a wheelchair, also lives with her.
Fortunately, the help came when Sheryl’s teacher notified her about the NEU PC Plus program, which is administered by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA).
It offers low-income households and people with disabilities the opportunity to have a computer at a subsidized price. Selected applicants get a desktop or laptop computer and three years of free broadband subscription.
Ms Koh Li-Na, Deputy Executive Director of IMDA’s Digital Readiness Cluster, says: “Since the switch measures were announced on April 3, we have seen a more than five-fold increase in the number of inquiries.”
She attributes the growing interest to increased support for students under the Ministry of Education’s Financial Assistance Scheme (MOE).
Because Sheryl met the criteria for the MOE scheme, she received a free laptop last week.
HBL is very easy for her now and she spends less time working online.
“With this new laptop, I learned a few things, like how to use MS Word and how to submit assignments through Google Classroom. It’s much faster,” he says.
“I am amazed to have my own laptop to use. Finally, I can do something my friends have been doing all this time.” – Venessa Lee
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