Timothy Van Zyl- 8201.b- Critique
Introduction
In 2019, educational institutes from around the world were thrown into chaos as they were forced into temporary closure to contain and slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus. According to UNESCO (2021) close to 1 billion students are at risk of falling behind in their learning due to schools having to close due to the outbreak. UNESCO predicts that almost 60% of the world’s student population has been affected by the outbreak and the continued outbreaks will have a profound impact in all aspects of life and the world will face long term social and economic consequences. Educational inequalities will be deepened as governments grapple with the fact than many students don’t have internet, digital devices, television or even a radio. In some of the poorest countries in the world nearly 40% of students have been unable to gain access to learning (UNESCO, 2020) and as a result many face the reality of never returning to school. In this critique I will explore some of the impacts on schools have been, what we can learn and what challenges we may facing going forward and whether the lockdown and time away from school effected student achievement.
New Zealand Perspective
The first case of COVID-19 was confirmed on the 28 February 2020 and the New Zealand government announced that NZ was to move to alert level 2 on Saturday 21 March and 2 days later we were ordered to move to level 3 and by the 25 March 2021, NZ was moved into level 4. This disruption meant that both schools and students had to adapt very quickly to new learning experiences, bubbles, home learning and an online environment. The Education Review Office (ERO’s) (2021) Impact of COVID-19 surveyed 10,106 students and 694 teachers from English-medium schools during lockdown and 1,777 principals, 686 teachers and 4,666 students post the lockdown. The report identified that student wellbeing was a key factor enabling student learning. The report highlighted that 86% of primary students and 79% of secondary student felt safe in their home bubbles during lockdown however for some the lockdown had been a very difficult time. Around 4% of students who were surveyed reported that within their home bubble that they were not doing well. The report showed that only a quarter of NCEA students stated they were coping with their schoolwork and that older students were less likely to report feeling positive about the school year than younger students.
It also showed nearly one in five schools reported Covid-19 had resulted in lower-than-expected attendance. By term 3 (2020), nearly half of schools reported ongoing concerns about attendance. This was most prevalent in low-decile schools.
One of the biggest challenges schools faced was changing and adapting to teaching digitally, via online classes. The digital divide became more evident and in the Ministry of Education (2020) Digital insights from the public response to Covid-19 report it was identified that devices and connectivity remain a barrier and that between 60,000 and 80,000 households where students lived in New Zealand had no connection to the internet. The lack of devices in homes also created a challenge for families. The MOE distributed 25,000 laptops, Chromebook, and iPads to prioritised students in Years 11 to 13 while schools issued a further 16,000 school owned devices to whanau according to the report. However, the MOE admits that affordability of devices and connections remains a barrier to digital inclusion and needs to be overcome. In response the MOE delivered hundreds of thousands of learning packs containing learning materials directly to households to encourage home learning.
Covid-19 also had an impact of the mental health of students and lockdown restrictions of not being able to socialise with their peers gave students a sense of isolation and may have increased stress, anxiety, and depression. Te Hiringa Hauora/Health Promotion Agency reported that students were missing everyday life and that the physical changes due to being lockdown directly related to higher levels of distress and many were concerned about living in toxic environment (2020). Another factor to consider are the homes that children are staying in, they may not always be safe for them, physically or mentally. They might not have enough healthy food or warmth to keep them well during the lockdown. Not only might their health be a risk at home, but also their safety too. With families being forced to remain at home during lock down there was an increase in domestic violence such as abuse towards women and children. In a survey conducted by the y the University of Otago found that around 9% of the students who completed the survey that had been directly affected by either sexual assault, threatening behaviour, harassment, or physical assault (Every-Palmer, Jenkins, Gendall, et al. 2020)
There are indications from schools that the pandemic will continue to be felt for some time and some teachers reported that that student would not catchup by the end of the school year and estimated that in total a terms worth of learning had been lost. However, the data says something completely different. Webber (2021) found when analysing literacy and maths e-asTTle data in years 4-10 that there had been no significant changes in data when comparing 2019 data against 2020 data and there had been no significant changes among low decile schools or ethnicity during 2020. The Manaiakalani trust supports 100 schools across New Zealand and have reported similar achievement outcomes (Manaiakalani Trust,2021). The trust reports that data from e-asTTLE and Progressive Achievement Tests shows students in 2020 students increased achievement in writing, however they did identify a small group of students who due to the lack of connectivity were unable to engage with online learning and had significantly declined in progress. Although the evidence does not support the falling off in achievement results there continues to be the need that schools still support student wellbeing, engagement and learning so that schools are prepared for any future lockdowns and that students and parents know what to do during and to continue their learning during lockdowns.
Global perspective
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted not only some of the world’s vulnerabilities and challenges, but it also brought out some of the world’s strengths in humanity.
Covid-19 showed an accentuation of inequality and how unprepared the education system was for distant learning. This was clear in communities living in poverty who could not have access to online learning. An observation was how resourceful, dedicated, and creative teachers, parents and students became working collaboratively to create remarkable learning experiences. Another noticeable highlight was how parents and the community appreciated teachers more. The public realized the multiple role schools played in looking after student wellbeing, health and nutrition while also supporting their learning.
Shifting pedagogy to online learning
The Pandemic meant that the education system had to make a paradigm shift to deliver quality learning. Online learning and distance learning became a solution to continuing education. The transition from the classroom to using an online platform was forced on both teachers and students hastily and many were unprepared for the shift in practice (Subedi et al., 2020). Digital learning played a crucial role in helping schools facilitate learning however, there was no one-size fits all and many found this challenging to adapt to this new learning environment. The multitude of platforms and educational online learning tools and this in turn created several challenges. Challenges faced with e-learning have been identified as accessibility, flexibility, learning pedagogy affordability and education policy (Murgatrotd, 2020). Many countries around the world had issues with reliable internet connection while in developing countries many children faced the cost of devices extending the inequitable gap between those who can afford and those who cannot afford. Learning online also poses the risk of an increased screen time and highlighted the need for schools to think about off the grid learning opportunities, while another challenged was parental involvement and guidance as parents were forced back into work to provide for their families. Students who faced limited barriers to accessing online learning where far more at an advantage to students who encountered significant barriers. Academic learning was also predicted to drop as students had less contact learning hours and the opportunity to interact face to face to discuss learning (Sintema, 2020). Online assessments and examinations had varied success with a lot of trial and error, some confusion and even uncertainty with both students, teachers, and parents. Concerns were raised as many of the schools and institutions were not able to cope with the amount of student’s population or the appropriate measure to check for plagiarism. The prolonged lockdown in the United Kingdom not only effected internal exams (GCSE) but all A levels examinations have needed to be cancelled. There is a real possibility that in the United Kingdom that all exams could be postponed or even cancelled due to the loss of learning time. While in India all entrance examinations have either been postponed or rescheduled due to the prolonged lockdown period (United Nations, 2020).
While some students may be impacted due to their situation, other students may even benefit from the pandemic. In Norway it has been decided that all 10th grade students receive their high school degree, gaining the requirements to continue to further tertiary education. If we then look at the follow on from the 1968 education revolt where student protested over university reform and abandoned examinations leading more young people entering the labour market and in turn having a positive effect on the effected cohort (Maurin & McNally, 2008).
Educators have faced several challenges from the pandemic but at the same time there are several opportunities that have been created. Home-schooling required the support of parents both academically and on an emotional level. This has allowed teachers and parents to form stronger relationships.
Teachers have been forced to use different on-line learning platforms to engage students and this has strengthened teachers’ pedagogy and allowed teachers to explore these further and how these platforms can sit aside face to face teaching.
Teachers have supported one another not only within their own schools but also sharing knowledge and collaborating with local school in their area, Teachers have sought innovative and creative solutions and learn from each other as they attempted to overcome some of the limitations of virtual teaching. Many educational organisations came onboard by sharing ideas, resources and even learning tools for free to support teachers as they tried to engage students virtually. Online learning has provided opportunities for teachers to teach and learn in innovated ways unlike the teaching experiences in a normal classroom setting (Doucet et al., 2020).
An important next step if educators wanted to create a future vision for education is that educators work together collaboratively with a shared purpose to ensure that we are all aiming towards the same goal. A shared vision of what teachers are aiming for and what success looks, educators will identify success markers and be able to measure and identify if they are meeting expectation. Creating a shared vision must incorporate both the students and family at the centre of education, overcoming the barriers to accessing education. Teachers and leaders need to upskill their pedagogy to ensure that future-focused learning is a priority to reach a goal of a sustainable education system.
CRP during COVID-19
Culture responsive practice is grounded in the belief that cultural practice occurs when students acknowledge and celebrate their own culture while learning to appreciate the cultures of others. Gay (2002, 2010) Define culturally responsive teaching as the intentional use of student’s background knowledge, cultural experiences, frames of reference and learning styles to make learning more relevant to them. Given the wide speed impact of COVID-19 on students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds educators need to work harder to counteract the practices that disadvantage students whose knowledge, language and communication styles differ from those students of the dominant culture within the school. As teachers, students and families adjust to the new norms of teaching in a COVID-19 world, schools need to find ways to accommodate the communities they serve. This will be different from school to school as communities that they are in are different. There are many lessons to be learned from schools worldwide being forced to close and move towards virtual classrooms. One of the biggest barriers to those that are disadvantaged was the access to the Internet and devices. In the United States of America many school districts recognizing that many students from disadvantaged homes would not be able to have continual access to learning, fitted out their school buses with Wi-Fi routers and Chromebooks to ensure that their students had access to the Internet and could continue learning (Hannon 2020).
Similarly, the New Zealand governments $87.7 million package to support students learning from home included two television programs, tens of thousands of Chromebooks and home Internet connections and hundreds of thousands of home learning packs, unfortunately by the time these packs reached those in need most were back at school. Many in New Zealand had a few days to prepare for the lockdown and schools who knew their families had limited or no access to online learning developed their own learning packs and delivered them to those families in need themselves.
Schools closing due to COVID-19, as educators we have a unique opportunity to employ initiative culturally responsive practice. Educators could build stronger relationships with their students and collaborate with families by connecting with families through email, text, social media platforms or even phone calls. Culturally competent teachers who were aware of families that may be struggling with hardships during the lockdown and were able to offer support and suggest some helpful resources to get through the pandemic.
It is important that learning experiences, including hard packs were structured that allowed students to succeed with minimal help from their caregivers as they may not be able to support their children at home as they are classed as essential workers.
Conclusion
In this critique about the impact that COVID-19 has had on New Zealand and the rest of the world we have established that students, families, and educators have all faced barriers when attempting to deliver quality education. Access to devices, poor internet connection and the cost of data have all hindered some students especially those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and in some cases widening the digital divide. At a policy level government’s need to invest in professional development for teachers especially in ICT and effective pedagogy. Online teaching needs to be innovative, creative, and interactive with tools and platforms that are user-friendly. The lack of social interaction between students has had a negative effect with students feeling isolated, depressed and in some case vulnerable to self-harm and violence. Educators and students have also benefited from the pandemic, stronger relationships have formed between the school and the home, exploration of unfamiliar or new learning platforms, collaborative and supportive networks have been created to share best practice and ideas and finally in some cases students have benefited from receiving extra credits, not having to sit exams or assessments or in some cases like Norway where students gained automatic pass grades.
The vision proposed in Shaping a Stronger Education System with New Zealanders is aspirational, universal and reflects both Te Ao Māori and Pākeha heritage. This vision statement has the potential to guide and direct all aspects of New Zealand’s education system.
The system vision, objectives and priorities outlined provide a good starting point for building a system focus on students’ experience and outcomes.
The vision is collaborative, involving all stakeholders. We must achieve this by deciding what matters, then developing the common language and shared understanding of what these are and how we can measure them (Korero Matauranga).
References
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Education Review Office. (2021). Covid-19 Learning in Lockdown. Retrieved from https://ero.govt.nz/our-research/covid-19-learning-in-lockdown
Education Review Office. (2021). Learning in a Covid-19 World: The Impact of Covid-19 on Schools. Retrieved from https://ero.govt.nz/our-research/learning-in-a-covid-19-world-the-impact-of-covid-19-on-schools.
Gay, G. (2002). Culturally responsive teaching in special education for ethnically diverse students: Setting the stage. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 15, 613–629. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/0951839022000014349
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