The Covid-19 pandemic has wrecked havoc around the world and here in Malaysia it’s no different. If you think things have changed immensely for us adults, the same has to be said for those who’ve had to attend school during the MCO. You’d think that in 2020, e-learning wouldn’t be that big of a deal to implement, right? Well, you’d be wrong.

According to education minister Radzi Jidin, it turns out that a mere 15 percent of students had personal computers to access the home based learning modules during the entirety the movement control orders.

A recent survey of 670,118 parents of 893,331 students between the months of March and April came with some pretty shocking results, among which were the fact that only 5.8 percent of students possessed a tablet computer and that 46.5 percent had to rely on their smartphones to access e-learning modules.

It gets even worse. 36.9 percent of students didn’t even possess any means of accessing online lessons. Radzi, who was replying to Teo Nie Ching’s (PH-Kulai) inquiry on the effectiveness of home-based learning and its effects on students when schools were ordered closed explained that the lack of devices meant a significant portion of students could not effectively participate in the online classes.

On top of that, shoddy internet access or none at all also played a factor. It just goes to show that while technology has advanced leaps and bounds in recent years, the basic groundwork has yet to be laid properly. E-learning may have been around for years now, but in Malaysia, we’re still not there yet.

Radzi also stated that issues such as the diversity of students in terms of demographics and socio-economic standing were broad based issues that must be addressed in order to optimise the efficacy of online learning.

That being said, he reiterated that the ministry of education would continue efforts to enhance the entire online learning and teaching experience and will develop a comprehensive implementation strategy for digital classes.