COMMENT | We can't go on locked down like this any longer

COMMENT | My eldest daughter Athena is in Standard Four and just like most students in Malaysia, physical school has been something of an anomaly in this past one and a half years. Last year, when schools closed for the first time, everything was in chaos. The online lessons were not even lessons. It was mainly just the teachers asking students to do homework from their workbooks.

But this year, admittedly it has improved. Live classes actually happen involving teacher-student interactions and lessons are being taught with the students asking questions. The home-based teaching and learning (PdPR) system seems to be doing okay in adapting to online schooling during the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, last month, my daughter told my wife and I that her extracurricular activities are a little bit extraordinary. My daughter’s selected sport (or should I say the sport that she was assigned to) is cricket. The teacher informed them that their cricket sessions will be every Wednesday at 2pm, online!

So here I am racking my brain thinking about how cricket lessons and practice is going to take place online. Apparently, one hour is online and another is offline. We don’t know the details of what happens during the online and offline sessions yet because it will only start next week after the school holidays.

I’m not writing this to criticise the Education Ministry. I think the improvement of the PdPR from last year to this year is fairly commendable. Of course, there are many things that can be improved. Many! But you know what? I think that I would rather focus on how we can go back to normal instead of adapting to the "new normal"...