[ad_1]
No more distance learning, because the performance in the spring was insufficient: the government of St. Gallen rejects the request of the students of the canton
Due to the high crown numbers, a student from the Brühl canton school demanded that he return to distance education, and more than 9,000 people signed the petition. The St. Gallen government is clearly against it: By the close of spring, many students would have only partially or not at all achieved the learning goals.
Homeschooling is not a problem at the moment: St. Gallen Canton students continue to receive lessons at school, and not at home.
The risk of infection is too great for them at school: many Kanti students prefer to go back to studying from home in view of the high corona numbers. More than 9,000 people have signed a petition from David Rommel, a student at Kanti am Brühl in St. Gallen, which was addressed to Bruno Damann, Head of Health. The requirement: distance education for all secondary and vocational schools in the canton. In comments on the petition’s website, the government was charged with “gross negligence” in adhering to classroom teaching.
Now the government responds. Although he shows understanding for the problem, he sticks to his previous course: he wants to avoid going back to distance education for as long as possible, and he justifies it mainly with the experiences of the first confinement in the spring. The results were apparently sobering:
“Scientific studies and an extensive survey of all high school students in St. Gallen have shown that many students have only partially or completely achieved the learning goals in distance learning.”
Two-thirds performed worse than normal
Stefan Kölliker, director of education for St. Gallen.
Overall, only one-third of the students made the same progress in homeschooling as they did in classroom teaching. “A third of the students showed a worse performance and the last third fell massively,” the government said. In many subjects, teachers should have reduced the density of the material. Therefore, the government clearly says:
“It is feared that if distance learning is continued, the general training objectives can no longer be achieved.”
However, this jeopardizes the primary goal of middle schools, namely to make students fit for study.
“Some young people did not have an ideal environment to study at home”
Tina Cassidy, Director of the Canton of St. Gallen Middle School Office.
How is this mixed result produced? Tina Cassidy, director of the Middle Schools Office, emphasizes that teachers have been very involved in distance learning. And also on the part of the students, in no case can it be said that there is a general lack of commitment, motivation or will. But the panorama is very heterogeneous. One of the students was very happy with the distance learning and made significantly better learning progress than normal. ”With others the opposite happened, which was also related to the situation of the crown as a whole, as Cassidy says:“ Some young people did not have an ideal environment to learn at home, for example they had to take care of their younger siblings. Others had the best prerequisites: good technical equipment and parents who could help with any questions. ” Such differences would have contributed to a very different performance.
The government repeats its main argument against distance education: school is a social process and lives on direct physical exchange. “School children not only learn from books, scripts or online media, but also from the teacher and from each other.”
St. Gallen vocational school students would be at a disadvantage compared to other cantons
In vocational training, which is based on Swiss-wide guidelines, the government also fears that homeschooling will put St. Gallen students at a disadvantage compared to students from other cantons, where classes are still held. in person. Particularly for weaker students, career entry is made even more difficult due to knowledge gaps.
Don’t jeopardize certificates and qualifications in 2021
Another problem with distance learning is exams. “Valid exams are hardly possible in distance education. After the closure in the spring, there was also a lack of a solid grade base for performance evaluations in the summer, ”the government writes. High school students did not receive any certificates last summer and some final learning exams had to be avoided entirely. “A renewed order for distance learning would jeopardize the issuance of certificates in January 2021, as well as school and learning grades in the summer of 2021.”
Therefore, Tina Cassidy says: “If, contrary to expectations, we were to switch back to distance learning, we would assume that we can at least take students to school from time to time, for exams or lab lessons, for example”.
The government has a “clear conscience” when it comes to classroom teaching
Therefore, the government is clear: they will order a new homeschooling “not without great adversity.” She does not necessarily share the concerns of the students about the risk of infection: “The strict concepts of protection make it possible in the current pandemic situation to keep teaching in the classroom with a clear conscience.”
No assessment for elementary school
How well did primary school students achieve the learning objectives in distance education? There are no figures for the canton of St. Gallen, says Alexander Kummer, director of the elementary school office. “However, it can be said that the prerequisites for distance education are not optimal for the primary school as a whole, from kindergarten to upper third level. In the age of primary school children, face-to-face teaching is essential for learning. “This is the conclusion of an Oxford University study, which recently made headlines across Europe. Consequently, the progress of learning in Dutch primary school children were about 20 percent lower than in previous years. This 20 percent would roughly correspond to the duration of school closings. (AV)
