Almost a fifth of teachers ended the scholastic year concerned about their students’ future after few of their pupils actually loggin in for online lessons during the COVID-19 outbreak.
A total of 17 per cent of teachers reported just a few students engaging in online learning and participating in remote learning regularly, according to a study into educators’ struggles during the partial lockdown.
A group of 1,910 educators from state, Church and independent schools were surveyed to gauge their sentiment after a unique scholastic year during which a pandemic forced all students and teachers to take education online.
The study was conducted in May by the education department, marking the end of a scholastic year.
The majority (714 respondents) said nearly all students were engaged in online learning and participated regularly; almost 500 teachers said more than half the students were engaging in lessons, while 371 teachers said less than half their pupils were present.
The participation problem was worst among the youngest pupils, especially those in kindergarten. This, however, was to be expected, sources said, as parents struggled to keep toddlers in front of a computer monitor or tablet for hours on end.
The sources said the education authorities were more worried about issues with older students, especially those in Year 9, 10 and 11, normally those aged between 13 and 16. In this age group, over 20 per cent of teachers said few of their students attended online classes.
Malta’s schools closed their gates for the remainder of the scholastic year in March, just days after the first coronavirus cases were registered in Malta.
However, within days, lessons resumed with students being taught remotely via platforms set up online, and students were assigned work in an attempt to keep their education going.
Teachers could only reach out to their students via online platforms, which proved to be a struggle, especially when children would not even acknowledge receiving learning material.
One of the teachers who participated in the study said that “not all students give feedback”, despite efforts to encourage them to engage in online schooling.
“Even though you send them material and ask many times how they are doing… even though you send reminders to their parents… it can still be hard to get some feedback,” the teacher said.
As the numbers of coronavirus infections started going down and measures relaxed, some teachers even went to knock on their students’ doors in an attempt to get them to attend lessons.
“Teachers were very concerned when they saw that some students simply stopped communicating with the school. Once restrictions started being lifted, some even went to their students’ homes in an attempt to get to the bottom of the issue, but the students still failed to turn up,” one source said.
Other teachers told Times of Malta about their repeated attempts to get in touch with students via their school’s online platforms.
“We would e-mail the same students over and over but we never received any replies. Such students would ignore our messages or homework assignments. When we did manage to get through to them, they would communicate with the school for a few days, then they would go back to ignoring us,” one teacher explained. Asked what they believed might have caused the unsettling trend, most of the teachers said that in the case of primary school, pupils would need adults’ help.
But some parents were either too busy, not cooperating or not committed. Some were also digitally illiterate and so could not help their children set up their devices to participate in online learning. Students’ lack of motivation and interest in learning was another issue that could have made matters worse, the teachers said. This was often the case with older students who did not require much adult supervision.
In April, the education authorities said the problem of truancy was expected to be exacerbated when schools reopen after the coronavirus outbreak was over.
If the COVID-19 situation remains stable during the summer, the schools are set to reopen normally in September.
Commenting on the matter last week, Education Minister Owen Bonnici confirmed there had been students who “disappeared” during the pandemic, and he described the issue as “very delicate”.
“Absenteeism hurts. There is no reason why a parent should not send their children to school and we need a very wide debate on this that goes beyond COVID-19,” Bonnici said.
According to the minister, the teachers and heads of schools know the identity of these children. They are now discussing the way forward with the authorities in order to ensure the children re-engage with the system and return to school in September.