The current pandemic has forced a sudden change in the provision of certain services. This has required the service providers to think of, and start operating in, a new normality. Education is one of these services.
Educators, with the support of their school administration and the various departments at the Ministry for Education, had to shift overnight to online teaching and learning. This was an unprecedented change in the compulsory education sector, as online teaching and learning is more associated with further and higher education.
The novelty of the situation highlighted the unpreparedness of the system. Despite this greenness, the response was immediate through the setting up of working groups for remote teaching and the provision of a plethora of courses and seminars on the various digital tools freely available for teachers, students and parents, besides 24/7 support.
Schooling is a delicate field because the physical scenario cannot be simply imported into the digital arena. Even if this is the case, various challenges, amply outlined in the media and recent local and international research, have shown that effective teaching and learning does not depend only on the...
