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Government urged to improve remote learning as Omicron overshadows school reopening
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Desk ready: Pupils of SD 010 Batam Kota state elementary school in Batam, Riau Islands, attend in-class learning on Jan. 10. The local authorities have allowed schools to welcome back all their students following low rates of COVID-19 cases. (Antara/Teguh Prihatna)
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ducation experts have called on the government to improve the quality of remote learning, particularly by increasing investment in improving teachers’ skills in holding online classes, as a recent COVID-19 case surge in schools has revealed the current challenges faced by a return to in-class learning.
At least 43 schools in Jakarta – the country’s current hotspot of the Omicron variant – were temporarily closed this month, after some 72 students and teachers contracted COVID-19. More than half of the schools have since reopened again, at full capacity.
The temporary closure of the schools came not long after a joint decree signed by Education, Culture, Research and Technology Minister Nadiem Makariem and his counterparts from the Health Ministry, the Home Ministry and the Religious Affairs Ministry late last year, which mandated that schools in low-risk areas should transition back to the classroom in 2022.
The decree stipulates that schools with more than 80 percent of their faculty and staff inoculated and located in areas under level 1 or 2 of the public activity restrictions (PPKM) – the two lowest of the country’s four-tiered curbs – are allowed to open at full capacity.
Read also: Parents, teachers wary of 2022 'back to school' push amid rise in Omicron cases
Nadiem has long been a staunch proponent of school reopening, citing threats of cognitive learning loss and the ineffectiveness of remote learning and its unintended consequences on children’s development.
But with the Health Ministry’s projection that the country will face a third wave of infections in late February, experts have called on the government to improve the infrastructure necessary to facilitate remote learning, arguing that school reopening cannot be relied upon as the sole solution for students’ learning amid the uncertainties surrounding the pandemic.
