Don’t Worry about Learning-from-Home program
The covid-19 pandemic also affects education sector, since mid-March most students in Indonesia has applied learning from home.
Covid-19 pandemic is still in alarming status, do students still have to study from home?
Yes, true. Since March 16th, 2020, the DKI Jakarta government announced that school learning-teaching activity must be done from home. Several regions in Indonesia followed this policy later on.
Pikiran-rakyat.com writes, since March 23rd, 2020, 166 local governments has stopped activities in education units ( Pikiranrakyat.com ). Some regions have also announced that learning-from-home program is extended due to the increasing number of Covid-19 cases.
Online home-learning activities, is it optimal?
Indeed, this online learning is not yet considered as effective, especially for schools that are not used to with distance learning and for students living in area with limited technology facilities such as mobile phone, computer, and internet.
For example, a story from Aceh Jaya District, Mrs. Sabee Viza Suhanna, Principal of SMPN 1 Krueng, Sabee mentions that many of her students do not own mobile phones at all. Most of their parents are farmers with daily income.
Of course, this is one of the challenges. Interestingly, even though the parents are not familiar with WhatsApp application, they are used to using Facebook Messenger. The school then uses the Facebook Messenger group as a medium for delivering material and assignments. Students with technology facilities will inform their other friends who are less fortunate (Kompas.com).
Then, what the government has been done by now?
The Ministry of Education and Culture (Kemendikbud) of the Republic of Indonesia collaborates with private parties focusing on online learning models, namely, Google Indonesia, Smart Class, Microsoft, Quipper, Ruangguru, Sekolahmu, and Zenius. Some of these educational services are committed to provide free access for students throughout Indonesia (Kompas.com).
On April 9th, 2020, the Ministry of Education and Culture also launched the “Home-learning” program aired by TVRI. This program is an answer to the inaccessibility of internet or mobile phone facilities for certain areas during home-learning activities (Kemendikbud.go.id) .
How the Government support facilitating teachers’ skill during the home-learning period?
The Ministry of Education and Culture launched the Teacher Sharing page (Kompas.com). The page facilitates teachers to share knowledge and experiences related to learning methods that can be done from home. The page has three features, Lesson Plan (RPP), articles regarding learning material, and actions (containing training material, learning videos or how-to-operate-technology tutorials). It is expected that teachers can adopt an attractive learning method so that they will not feel left out with distance learning model.
What about the school principals who also have to perform their duties?
Until now, there has not been a special channel from the government to assist the school principals in performing their tasks during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, INSPIRASI Foundation has initiating several activities to support the principals’ work. First, the School Principal Festival aims to campaign school principals’ leadership activities that have to manage the school from home (#memimpindarirumah).
Second, INSPIRASI Storytelling Webinar encourage the School Principals to be familiar with challenges, policies, and opportunities to lead the school during Covid-19 crisis. It is expected that this activity will create innovations and strategies for school principals in keeping the learning process effective and ideal.
Author: Dyah Ayu Kusumaningrum
Editor: Masdar Fahmi