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Online schooling: When parents find it “too much” |17 January 2022

Online schooling: When parents find it “too much”

Covid-19 pandemic has led to school closures around the world and we had to cope with an unprecedented experiment in the delivery of learning. In Seychelles also, we had to face the same situation where schools have been closing and moved to online classes. How efficient has it been? This is another debate!

In all articles you read, whenever we talk about online schooling, we also talk about the role of parents in that. As a full-time working mother of an only child, I am sorry to say that online classes do not work for me. The school is doing its best for our children to have the classes but my child is left alone at home with my laptop (with restrictions installed) and has to follow her classes all by herself. I am unable to attend to her worries when she is not yet admitted to the class or even if the internet or the computer has a problem! I basically blame myself for not being there but at the same time what can I do? My work does not allow me to work from home and this is the reality. With remote schooling, many parents feel like they are ‘failing’!

Should we relook at the current model or what next for our children as we are already in the third year of this pandemic?

Like me, thousands of my fellow sisters in Seychelles are facing the same problem. They contacted our newspaper to voice out their frustrations and here are some of their comments:

“We have had enough! Covid isn’t going anywhere, we cannot keep putting life on hold every time there is a surge. Homeschooling: we keep going back and forth with this and frankly I have had enough. Our children are suffering because of it. We are suffering because of it. I am a single working mum. I have a job I need to go to everyday, and I thank my lucky stars for it, because a lot of people don’t have a steady job to go to everyday, and don’t know how they are going to make ends meet – and through no fault of their own, but because the companies that used to employ them have had to scale back or close down due to all the restrictions. But I’m going off topic. I work. And I am one of the lucky few that have a certain amount of flexibility with work, where I can work from home or bring my child to the office with me. Not many people can do that. For them homeschooling is a nightmare simply from a standpoint of not knowing what to do with their children. There is just so much understanding from employers before they turn around and say you are more of a liability than an asset. But again I diverge. Even with the flexibility, I am against homeschooling. For one simple reason. My child’s education is being affected. I pay for private school. I make certain sacrifices so that my child can have a chance at a better future. And while the teachers are doing their very best to ensure that my child’s education continues, there is just so much they can achieve through zooms. The rest is up to the child and up to me. I am not a qualified teacher. As much as I want to help my child, I neither possess the patience, nor the skillset and tools that qualified teachers have to impart the knowledge required, add to that as mentioned above that I have a job and need to concentrate on my own work. So my investment in my child’s future is going down the drain. Who is going to refund me that? The school in question has been very good with its SOPs and keeping the children safe. They have procedures set out that they’re adhering to. So why can’t my child go back to school? Is it because other schools do not have their procedures well established together? How is that fair? When are we going to stop the nonsense of one shoe fits all and look at these institutes and entities from an individual standpoint? Give credit where credit is due and restrict where restriction is actually needed.”

 

“For working moms, homeschooling is tough. Also there are challenges with technology; especially since we live in a country where internet costs are so high.   We do understand that health and safety come first. However, life needs to go on. The closure of schools is not only impacting children and their education but also work.”

 

“I feel that the diligent people that have been vaccinated are still paying a hefty price (school closure, mask lack of basic freedom) due to a minority group that choose not to vaccinate. We are now in our third year of Covid, if you haven’t taken the necessary precautions to protect yourself, then it comes down to survival of the fittest. Things should be shuffled so that the vulnerable, the non-vaxcers have restrictions in place while others return to a normal life. Prior to Covid, I had always sent my kids to school knowingly that there was a ‘bad flu’ going around. But guess what? They got it and came home for a few days (built up their immunity) or simply fought it. Living with Covid doesn’t mean sitting at home hoping it will pass, we are denying basic human rights to our children which will in turn suffer in the long run. Of course, those that choose to keep their children at home have every right to do so.

If we look at it from a more simplistic point of view, our government has allowed tourists to enter as we need it for our economy. Yes, it has increased Covid cases but we are going forward and this has allowed us to start up financially once again. If we apply the same reasoning, kids return to school, some kids will get Covid and cases might increase but they will grow as educated citizens and hopefully limit mental health cases which have spiked worldwide due to Covid.”

 

“I believe being vaccinated or not remains a choice. To date these vaccines has proved not to be reliable as even the vaccinated has met their death with Covid. The vaccinated can also get Covid even if it diminishes the gravity of it but they still can pass it on to others. It’s not a protection to others it just protects one from adverse effect of the flu. Why impose on others to take it? And what happened to reaching herd immunity, we no longer hear anything about it!

Covid has caused chaos in all aspects of our lives, for everyone. But this issue of vaccinated and not being vaccinated is dividing us even more. As for the school there’s more they could do as we are working parents. It’s tough on us and our children. They are lacking and we need value for our money. It’s a lifetime investment that we chose for our kids to be in a private school thus we expect a little more commitment from some teachers as Covid is far from over and we need to find ways to live with it thus innovative ways to educate our kids.”

 

“I am tired of it as well. Let kids go to school and get sick to build their immune system. They used to get sick before Covid and parents need to go to work. Not everyone is free to sit at home with kids to do online classes. It's affecting business and work.”

 

Dear mothers/parents, we do understand your dilemma and we do hope nationally we have a proper debate on this topic. Not an easy one, but high time though!

 

Compiled by Vidya Gappy

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