Screened teachers start distributing learning materials to students in rural areas in Sabah

By Olivia Miwil - April 14, 2020 @ 3:59pm

KOTA KINABALU: Several teachers here have begun distributing learning materials to students, especially those in the interiors.

State education director Dr Mistrine Radin said the department found that about half of the students, whether in the urban, rural or interiors, had none or limited access to online learning.

“Based on our survey, half the students in Sabah have no smartphones, data, or both.

“Due to the movement control order (MCO), some (prepaid internet users) are unable to reload their account credits,” she said when met at Wisma Pendidikan here.

Mistrine said that after almost a month of the MCO, the department decided to bear the cost for teachers or staff to manually print materials, and send and collect work from students.

She said the department has also been working closely to get approval from district officers to allow teachers to move around for the next two weeks.

“Each (affected) school will have only one teacher to do the distribution as we want to reduce the risk of the virus being spread.

“Those assigned for the job will also have to go through health screening before the district officer gives permission,” she added.

Teachers in Nabawan, Tambunan and Ranau have since been mobilised to ensure students are also learning actively.

Mistrine said that some of the teachers in Sabah had in fact managed to take the same approach a day before the MCO was implemented on March 18.

She said district education officers and teachers had taken the initiative knowing that those students would not have access to online learning.

As for the overall online learning process, Mistrine said there was a hiccup among teachers and students as there were no fixed timetables and parents were being bombarded with tonnes of homework.

“The most popular application is Whatsapp where parents can send homework and teachers return the marked materials,” she said, adding the administration also keeps tabs of the process on a daily basis.

Mistrine added that the department would reward students who excelled in assignments.