Turning adversity into advantage
TDT | Manama
Bahrain’s educational system is fast adapting to the unique predicament of diving headlong into the world of online learning in a bid to prevent the spread of COVID-19 from disrupting the education of students here.
According to the United Nations, school closures in 13 countries to contain the spread of Covid-19 are disrupting the education of 290 million stu- dents globally, “a figure without precedent.” Teachers, all across the globe, including in Bahrain, were forced to take up online learning, regarding of whether they fell confident or whether they believe the platforms and tools are a productive way to learn, said Century Tech, an AI-driven learning platform for schools in its report.
But they pointed out that “Teachers are trying and adjust- ing and sharing at warp speed what works and what doesn’t.”
“There’s massive energy about how to do this incredibly differ- ent and difficult thing as well as we possibly can.”
The latest report of Bahrain’s education ministry confirms these observations in all re- spects.
In the past two weeks, the ed- ucation ministry here has gen- erated a tremendous amount of online content which now is being used by students all across Bahrain through various platforms including YouTube channels.
As of now, authorities pre- pared and uploaded 333 e-les- sons, including 66 for special education, 37 for technical and vocational education, as well as 62 electronic enrichment materials.
These contents can be accessed through the ministry’s website and education portal, said Assistant Undersecretary for Curricula and Educational Supervision, Ahlam Ahmed Al-Amer.
The move, Ahlam Ahmed Al-Amer said, will benefit stu- dents of all stages and serves to enrich the educational por- tal’s digital content.
She further revealed that work is ongoing to generate more digital content to meet the needs of various levels of students with the newly formed 45 specialised teams.
The ministry, according to Al Amer, is also producing vid- eo lessons to broadcast them on Bahrain TV, in cooperation with the Information Affairs Ministry.
This content will be available on YouTube channels also to give greater access and choice for students.
The digital contents were designed by the ministry af- ter scaling down the school curricula and focusing on the most important basic lessons of all subjects and grades.
The Royal University for Woman, in a recent statement, confirmed that it has moved its undergraduate and postgraduate classes online. The university said it is holding live sessions as per its normal class schedule, where faculty stream their class- es live and students interact with them from their homes using a shared screen.
Other establishments including Bahrain Indian School, NMS-DPS have also announced launching online classes for their students
As Priya Lakhani, founder of Century Tech, observes, in a re- port by qz, educators are dedi- cated to making sure that teaching and learning are happening that they will try anything, including using tech that might not have appealed before. “Some of those educators and teachers, who you can imagine in a normal teaching environment might have a level of scepticism, or a lack of confidence [about tech], they are running with it,” she says. “People are in survival mode,” and doing everything they can to “make sure they continue teaching and learning.”
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