The teachers’ union has rejected requests for lessons to be livestreamed to students who are in quarantine after returning from a country impacted by the coronavirus outbreak.

With important exams round the corner, some students are worried about missing lessons.

One sixth-former, who is studying for his A levels, has been corresponding with his lecturers by email from his self-imposed quarantine.

When his family asked his school if they could video lessons live over the internet, possibly through Skype, they were told that the Malta Union of Teachers is against the practice.

MUT head Marco Bonnici told Times of Malta that livestreaming lessons was “unacceptable”.

Livestreaming a lesson would take it out of the classroom context and turn it into a lecture

The union has been against the practice in the past, when there were calls to livestream classes in Malta to Gozitan students. It has stuck to this stand when an independent school asked if teachers could make an exception and adopt it for quarantined students, he said.

Bonnici cited data protection and ethical issues raised by “exposing” the rest of the class online.

Besides, a classroom lesson could not be reduced to a skype call, he added. Livestreaming a lesson would take it out of the classroom context and turn it into a ‘lecture’.

A third-year secondary school student who is in quarantine, having just returned from north Italy, has suggested that teachers break the lesson down into bullet points and send it to students by email.

In the case of language lessons, teachers could also send a voice recording, she proposed.

“Even if I’m sick for three days I have a lot of work to do, let alone two whole weeks,” she said.

 Now into her second week at home, she is facing another challenge: boredom.

“I have cleared my room over and over. Even my mother is impressed. I would really like it if teachers recorded the main points of the lessons and send an email to everyone who has to stay at home,” she said.

“This way we won’t find it so difficult when we go back. I think skype is somewhat impractical because of the connection and so on, but receiving points by email would be good.”

People returning from countries and regions hit by a corona-virus outbreak have been asked to go into voluntary quarantine for 14 days. About 24 flights land in Malta from one of those areas – north Italy – every week.

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