Solutions for Education

KOMPAS/AGNES BENEDIKTA SWETTA BR PANDIA

A “pod” of grade 5 and 6 students of SDN 040484 state elementary school in Payung village of Payung district in Karo regency, North Sumatra, follow their online learning assignments on Tuesday (25/8/2020). The students attend two-hour online classes on Mondays and Tuesdays.

The online learning policy that has been implemented since the Covid-19 outbreak in Indonesia is still being hampered by the lack of mobile devices and laptops, internet access and expensive mobile data packages.

We should welcome the Education and Culture Ministry’s decision to allocate Rp 7.2 trillion for a mobile data subsidy scheme to support online learning for students, teachers and lecturers over the next four months. The aid program will at least allay the problem of the prohibitive costs of mobile data until the end of this year.

Two points should be highlighted regarding this policy.

Also read: Internet Cost Burdens Students

One, the subsidy must reach the target recipients. Not all of more than 55.7 million teachers, lecturers and students in the country will, of course, need the mobile data subsidy. Some are financially capable of maintaining their own mobile data subscription, while others do not need it because they don\'t have a mobile device, whereas the internet network is not yet available in some regions.

Two, the policy is intended to support online learning, just like the earlier initiatives that provided online education platforms and school operational fund assistance (BOS), so it must be used to help teachers and students purchase data packages.

Many students still attend offline classes at school because they don’t have mobile devices or live in remote areas that do not have network coverage.

ARSIP WILDA MUSKITA

Eleventh-grader Wilda Muskita, 15, of SMA Siwalima high school studies online on Tuesday (25/8/2020) at her home in Ambon, Maluku. Online learning incurs high costs from mobile data packages.

No data is yet available on how many students are following offline learning, whether at school or through home visits from their teachers. According to the ministry, 40,779 primary and secondary schools – or 18 percent – do not have internet access, and 7,552 schools (3 percent) do not have electricity. Data from the national digitalization program shows that 7,904 villages and subdistricts do not have internet coverage.

In fact, a Wahana Visi Indonesia survey has found that some students cannot participate in either online or offline learning.

Offline learning is not without its obstacles, and it is not always easy for teachers to make house visits. Aside from health and safety issues, some areas are not easily accessible because of the local geography. In fact, a Wahana Visi Indonesia survey has found that some students cannot participate in either online or offline learning.

Also read: Students are Vulnerable to Contagion

However, it must be acknowledged that attention is being given only to online learning. The use of the phrase “online learning”, whether we realize it or not, has lent us to automatically refer to learning activities that use digital technology.

We seem to have forgotten the real meaning of learning: students gaining knowledge under the guidance of their teacher. The Home Study Program broadcast by public station TVRI and national radio station RRI does indeed help students access learning materials. However, students do not actually learn, because they still need guidance from a teacher to process the information in the materials into knowledge.

How to maintain the learning process, even though it is conducted remotely, should be the cornerstone of the online learning policy during this health crisis, particularly to ensure that vulnerable children are not left behind. There is no one solution to this problem, given the diverse societal and geographical conditions, as well as the vast area of the country. The solution must also be fair for all groups.