And then, suddenly, John was no longer in class. Like millions of other American schoolchildren, he was pushed into remote learning from home when the coronavirus pandemic hit in the spring.
It's a truly humbling moment when your child asks you to help diagram a sentence or solve a grade-level math problem and you, a functioning adult with a diploma and years of experience, draw a complete blank. Anyone with school-aged children can probably relate. And as many schools start the year with virtual learning, parents are trying to summon even more of that long-forgotten knowledge. Helping your child navigate Zoom tech support can be daunting. So can balancing work and household duties with making sure your children are engaged and learning. But the single biggest challenge, many parents say, are the math topics taught through Common Core -- a standardized teaching method rolled out in 2010......
Human Rights Watch respectfully submits this written presentation to contribute testimony from children to the discussion on the impact of Covid-19 on children at the 35th Ordinary Session of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.
Between April and August 2020, Human Rights Watch conducted 57 remote interviews with students, parents, teachers, and education officials across Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Madagascar, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zambia to learn about the effects of the pandemic on children’s education. Our research shows that school closures caused by the pandemic exacerbated previously existing inequalities, and that children who were already most at risk of being excluded from a quality education have been most affected. ...
It was January 24 and just before the four-day Chinese New Year festival – Hong Kong’s biggest annual break. The territory should have been gearing up for the holidays, but instead found itself bracing for COVID-19.
The virus had already stricken neighboring mainland China, and the number of local infections had started to mount.
Amid rumors that a lockdown, including school closures, might be imminent, Ben Chan – who leads Microsoft’s education business in Hong Kong – reached out to scores of teachers and school leaders on social media.
“They were worried that the next semester would not go ahead,” he recalls. “I started seeing a lot of really troubled discussions among some (social media) groups.”
School leaders were confused and uncertain. They were calling out for reliable and secure solutions to empower teachers and students so lessons could go on at home......
With the current coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, many higher education institutions in most countries, including in East Asia, have transitioned to online learning. However it has been challenging for students without access to the internet, and these digital inequalities persist across all countries. Only Singapore, Brunei, and Malaysia have over 80 percent internet penetration. In Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia, less than 60 percent of the population has access to the internet, while only around 40 percent have access in Myanmar and Vietnam.
The digital divide is about more than internet access, however. It is also about the reliability, speed, and affordability of internet and data access, as well as having access to electronic devices conducive to learning. The most vulnerable often face more than one disadvantage, which magnifies the impact. Many institutions or governments have introduced a loan system to provide students in need with appropriate devices.