The Amalipe Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance(link is external) conducted an online survey on ‘Distant learning: an opportunity for the development of education or a prerequisite for deepening educational inequalities’. Nearly 200 schools have been included in the survey, half of which have between 80% and 100% of students from vulnerable groups, and in almost 19% of which, 60–80% of the students are from vulnerable families. Nearly 9% of the schools do not have a concentration of vulnerable groups, in other words the proportion is below 20%.
The main findings of the study are:
1. The proportion of students enrolled in distance learning is promisingly high: Over 36% of the schools enrolled in the survey successfully covered between 75% and 100% of their students in various forms of distance learning during the first 3 days.
2. There are also schools where the enrollment rate for students in the first three days was low: in 6 schools 10–25% of students participated, and in 7 others, less than 10% were enrolled.
3. Two-thirds of schools combine internet-based techniques (‘from assigning tasks via Skype, Messenger, etc., through the use of electronic lessons, to conducting synchronous online lessons’) with printing assignments and lessons that are sent to students’ homes.
4. Non-synchronous forms of distance learning categorically outweigh synchronous ones: Almost two-thirds of schools (63%) said they use online lessons. At the same time, only 7.6% answered that 76–100% of the students participated in these lessons.
5. One of the main obstacles to the introduction of online learning is the lack of appropriate devices among many students: Only in 22.34% of schools did more than 90% of the students have appropriate devices.
6. The lack of internet in some neighborhoods is also an obstacle, although not as pressing as the inability of some families to afford an appropriate plan to use online education effectively.
7. The educational mediator stands out as an important and frequently used teacher’s assistant in the introduction of distance learning: 68% of the directors who completed the survey indicated that they had used the educational mediator to introduce distance learning since the early days of this process.
8. In the first days of introducing distance learning, half the schools were still hesitant about using this opportunity to teach new knowledge: 19% used the time only to consolidate and practice that which had already been learned.
A detailed overview of the survey results can be found in English at Amalipe Center’s website.
Picture: pixabay.com
