Expressing concern over this worrying trend, Anuar Ahmad, a senior lecturer at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s education faculty, said the government must make immediate improvements to online lessons to allow for better two-way communication between teachers and students.
He said this was especially needed since schools would most probably only reopen in September, when the nation transitions into Phase 3 of the national recovery plan.
“One of the main issues with home-based learning is students’ absence during online classes. Aside from unstable internet connection, many teachers also admit that some students become fatigued, causing a decline in their attendance.
“They’re getting more bored and no longer have the motivation to attend online lessons conducted by their teachers,” he told FMT, adding that this problem was particularly prevalent among students already not performing well in school.
After going through several rounds of experience with home-based learning since last year, Anuar said, the education ministry should have looked at what improvements could be made this time around to ensure the lessons were more effective.
“How do we boost students’ motivation to study again? What’s more worrying is that online learning over too long a period of time would affect students’ health and eyesight in the long-term.
“This phenomenon is described as ‘home-based learning fatigue’,” he said.
Anuar proposed three steps teachers could take to prevent fatigue among their students, including using offline materials such as educational videos or workbooks.
He also suggested that they split online classes to not more than 10 minutes for each session, and to improve communication with parents to get a better understanding of students’ behaviour in online learning.
Meanwhile, parents have admitted that this round of online learning might not be as effective as before, especially since some are too busy to to monitor their children’s lessons.
Nas Norziela Nasbah, who works in the private sector, said the implementation of home-based learning had not failed as a whole, although she was concerned whether her child was absorbing the lessons.
“Online classes are too brief and the activities are limited, so children get bored quickly and lose their focus. Imagine if they have to go through this process for months,” she said, admitting that she could only join her child in Standard 1 for home-based classes twice a week.
Housewife Hatina Shuib was in a predicament similar to many other Malaysian parents, with limited availability of devices making online learning a hassle for her two children.
She said the identification number prepared by the education ministry for each student was quite complicated, which makes things more challenging for parents with many children.
“Each student has to log into Google Meet through the ID prepared by the ministry. My child in Standard 1 has to take turns with his sister in Standard 3 to join online classes, because there’s only one laptop available.
“Handphones, on the other hand, cannot support the application that’s needed for online lessons,” she said, adding that even parents were starting to be fatigued by online lessons.