Vaccinate all educators to ensure continuation of learning
Online
learning was touted right from the beginning by the Perikatan Nasional (PN)
government as the way forward for Malaysian education. But, of course, there
has been a wide chasm between promise and delivery.
Little,
for example, is now said about the 150,000 laptops Education Minister Radzi Md
Jidin promised last year to distribute to students in 500 schools nationwide by
February this year.
What
has now been revealed is that by April this year, only 13,000 (8.7%) of those
laptops have been distributed.
Gerak
is appalled at this outcome. The various movement-control orders
notwithstanding, the ministry should have assessed the situation and worked out
a strategy to get the devices to the needy students. If not the Education
Ministry, with its body of experts and departments, who else?
And
what is happening now? Let us be clear about the consequences if this is
treated lightly. Without the hardware, and the supporting online connections,
the extended lockdown will have extremely negative impacts on our children,
especially the marginalised.
The
current haphazard decisions being made to simply close schools with little
reflection, planning and, most importantly, the implementation of these plans
in a systematic way, expose these children to higher risks of being mentally,
physically and, indeed, educationally deprived.
School
closures, while convenient for ministry officials in their air-conditioned
offices in Putrajaya, put tremendous pressure on parents who are already
struggling to put food on the table.
School
closures compromise the quality of learning and more than likely will
negatively affect the education and possible future of poor urban and rural
children who do not have the advantages of their middle-class cousins.
In
this regard, and for education to be provided for in a planned, organised
manner, Gerak urges the government to prioritise teachers and other educators
for immediate Covid-19 vaccination.
It
is evident that the online education ‘plan’, such as it is, has been a
failure. We need to re-examine the situation and enable the reopening of
all schools and education-related institutions as soon as possible.
We
must treat all teachers – all educators – as front liners.
At the international level, one in four teachers is prioritised in the first phase
of national rollout plans in 139 countries globally. Malaysia is nowhere on
this list.
The
PN government promised to include teachers as part of the priority groups in
the second phase of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme in April 2021
which, to us, is already rather late and rather tame.
Indeed,
there is a lack of transparency in terms of the regime’s priorities and
execution of the programme at the second phase.
Gerak
is appalled to know that, up until today, not all the teachers and educators
are prioritised to receive any of the Covid-19 vaccines.
The
government is reportedly going to distribute more than 14 million doses of
vaccine to all states in July. This provides the perfect opportunity for this
government to right a wrong by prioritising education workers in this
programme.
We
believe that education institutions, teachers, educators and students must be
viewed as a priority by the government. Vaccinating all of them now must
be an essential strategy to combat the unnecessary unilateral closure of all
schools.
Not
all Malaysians can afford the luxury of sending their children to study in
boarding schools overseas. The longer we close all our schools, the higher the
probability that our children, especially those in the B40 category, will not
be able to return to formal education.
This
would reflect the failure of this government in safeguarding the future of the
next generation in a pandemic.
Hence,
in line with the urging of Unesco, Gerak calls upon this government, first, to
vaccinate all the teachers and educators immediately “to protect teachers and
students in an effort to ensure the continuation of learning and a safe return
to in-person teaching”.
Second,
there must be a concrete, well-thought-out plan devised to open all educational
institutions for face-to-face teaching and learning after all teachers and
staff have been fully vaccinated.
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