Safety First in Education

KOMPAS/ISMAIL ZAKARIA

Teachers and students of SMAN 1 Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, participate in face-to-face learning simulations, September 14, 2020.

The decision of Banten province to delay face-to-face school instruction due to start in January 2021 deserves appreciation.

The incidence of Covid-19 in Banten is still high. The effort to overcome the negative impact of the pandemic on education is inseparable from the attempt to secure the safety of students from exposure to Covid-19.

Also read: Students’ Safety Top Priority

School reopenings are indeed the best solution to surmount the pandemic’s negative impact on education. Distance learning cannot replace in-class learning because the effectiveness of online learning requires teachers and students to have a command of new skills. Furthermore, a lot of students are constrained in their learning by the lack of gadgets and access to the internet, and also due to geographical factors.

However, the reopening of schools amid the prevalence of Covid-19 poses a very high risk to the safety of students and also teachers, educational personnel as well as students’ parents. Some evidence has shown that Covid-19 transmission occurred in several schools with dormitories and affected a number of teachers who during online learning were teaching from school.

Also read: Not Safe Yet to Reopen Schools

Kompas/Priyombodo

Nanik, Teacher of Religious Education, provides online distance learning with sign language for deaf students from classrooms at SLB B-C Sumber Budi, Pesanggrahan, South Jakarta, September 11, 2020.

Covid-19 incidence among children is in fact not as high as that among adults, reaching 11.3 percent. But the rate of child Covid-19 cases in Indonesia is high in comparison with the global average of 8 percent. Various studies have indicated that children have the same potential as adults for getting infected and spreading the new coronavirus.

In some countries, schools were reopened when Covid-19 cases decreased, nearing zero. Although school reopenings had applied tight health protocols and restricted the number of students per class, there was still risk of spawning new Covid-19 cases and schools again had to be closed like those in South Korea and Australia.

Also read: Boosting Indonesian Education

The government has made various attempts to support online learning, ranging from providing programs for learning from home via television and radio, supplying package books, simplifying the curriculum to allocating an internet quota. Yet a lot more endeavors are still needed to minimize the impact of the pandemic on education. Therefore, any delay of school reopenings should also go along with steps to optimize online learning. Expanding the access of students to digital technology and the internet will help students who have faced distance-learning constraints.

In some countries, schools were reopened when Covid-19 cases decreased, nearing zero.

Gadget donations and Wi-Fi access arrangements can be replicated. Village administrations can also be involved to support this effort. The Villages, Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration Ministry has stated that the village fund can be utilized to aid children’s education.

Teachers should also be assisted so as to contribute to more effective online learning, besides giving support to roving teachers who serve students in remote areas with no internet access. Schools should also be really prepared to undertake education under new normal conditions.