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Parents hunt for laptops, deal with distracted kids on first day of ongoing home-based learning

SINGAPORE — As the first day of ongoing home-based learning (HBL) kicked off on Wednesday (April 8), some parents told TODAY about their scramble to secure laptops and their struggles to manage more than one child at home.

Ms Iris Sim-Glasscoe's children Cameron James Glasscoe, 7 (left), a Primary 1 student at Catholic High School and Summer Rose Glasscoe, 10 (right) a Pri 4 student in St Nicholas Girls’ School. They are pictured taking part in home-based learning.

Ms Iris Sim-Glasscoe's children Cameron James Glasscoe, 7 (left), a Primary 1 student at Catholic High School and Summer Rose Glasscoe, 10 (right) a Pri 4 student in St Nicholas Girls’ School. They are pictured taking part in home-based learning.

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SINGAPORE — As the first day of ongoing home-based learning (HBL) kicked off on Wednesday (April 8), some parents told TODAY about their scramble to secure laptops and their struggles to manage more than one child at home.

Other parents were also unhappy that their children had to wear their uniforms although they were participating in lessons from home.

Last Friday, the Ministry of Education (MOE) announced that students of all schools and institutes of higher learning will shift to full HBL from Wednesday until May 4 amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Right after the announcement, father of four Mr Ragavan Nair said that he went to hunt for a laptop for his eldest daughter, who is a first-year human resource management student at Republic Polytechnic.

“I wanted to go to Sim Lim Square but I was told by IT specialists that here were a lot of people trying to buy laptops and notebooks and that the brands I wanted would be out of stock,” said the 47-year-old safety manager.

Sim Lim Square is a popular one-stop mall for electrical goods and services.

He has managed to place an order for a laptop with Republic Polytechnic’s IT vendor, but he has been told it will arrive only in two weeks’ time.

Until then, his daughter will have to print out and read notes provided by the polytechnic for her lessons, said Mr Ragavan.

Meanwhile, Ms Gangadevi Routan, 34, has been hunting for a webcam for her desktop computer for the last two days.

However, she has not had much luck, with webcams sold out in most shops here and online purchases from abroad quoting delivery times of up to a month.

While she has two laptops with attached webcams at home, her desktop computer does not have one.

Ms Gangadevi told TODAY that she was concerned as this could mean that one of her two daughters, aged eight and 10, and niece, who also lives with her, may be forced to miss their classes if all three have “live” classes scheduled at the same time.

As of last Friday, MOE said that it has provided about 3,300 devices such as tablets and laptops, as well as over 200 dongles for internet access to students who require them for HBL.

Other organisations are also distributing IT equipment to students. Self-help group Mendaki, for instance, said on Wednesday that it is distributing laptops to students temporarily so that they can carry out HBL without disruption.

SOME STUDENTS TOLD TO WEAR UNIFORM AT HOME

Ms Gangadevi, who works as a senior hazmat instructor at the Civil Defence Academy, also expressed unhappiness over the requirements by some schools for their students to wear their uniforms at home.

She said that her 15-year-old niece, who is in Secondary 3, was told to don her physical education (PE) attire while taking online attendance in the morning. Ms Gangadevi declined to disclose which school her niece attends.

“The whole purpose of HBL is for students to feel comfortable. So teachers’ concentration should be in the delivery of content and whether students are absorbing the lesson, instead of how they are dressed,” said Ms Gangadevi.

Nevertheless, other parents such as Ms Iris Sim-Glasscoe, 38, were less fussed by the requirement. The homemaker said that she understood that the advisory by some schools here is to help get students into the right frame of mind.

Ms Sim-Glasscoe’s two daughters, aged eight and 10, who both attend St Nicholas Girls’ School were encouraged to wear school-based attire during HBL hours. They complied, even though it is not compulsory. She also got her seven-year-old son who is a Pri 1 student at Catholic High School to wear the school’s PE T-shirt so as to put him in the frame of mind for school.

TODAY has asked MOE if it is up to schools to decide if its students should wear the school uniform during HBL.

STRUGGLING WITH MORE THAN ONE CHILD ON HBL

Parents also shared their struggles trying to manage more than one child on HBL.

Ms Vimala Vishnupalan, who has two sons in Primary 4 and Pri 6 and a five-year-old daughter, said that her children will bother each other while either one does their work.

She said that her sons also ate snacks or watched the television during the stipulated school hours.

“The concentration and focus is not there when they study at home. If you have one child, it is manageable but it is much harder with three,” said the 42-year-old homemaker.

Ms Sim-Glasscoe, also described the way that her 10-year-old daughter, who is in Pri 4, was distracted from her work when her eight-year-old daughter, in Pri 2, had to speak loudly for a voice recording as part of her Chinese oral assignment.

TECHNICAL GLITCHES MOSTLY SORTED

On the whole, parents said that the first day of full HBL went more smoothly than last week when HBL was tried out across schools here for the first time. At that time, parents had told TODAY that lessons had been marred by technical glitches.

Mr Winston Tay, 43, whose 12-year-old son had missed all his classes in the morning due to technical issues last Wednesday said that his son was able to log-in to the Student Learning Space (SLS) — an online learning portal by the MOE which contains learning resources — immediately this time round.

However, Ms Vimala said that the SLS portal for her 12-year-old son in Pri 6, went down three times while he was using it, likely due to the high volume of students using the portal at the same time.

 

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home-based learning Education parents schools

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