The Covid-19 epidemic: teachers’ responses to school closure in developing countries

Palestinian Mothers’ Perceptions about Online Learning at Public and Private Elementary Schools during COVID-19: Challenges and Recommendations

“…As reflected in other research (Greenhow, Lewin, &Willet, 2020), the disparities between the affluent and the poor were further elaborated, as parents in low SES contexts experienced significant issues; in many cases, teachers could not reach 15% of such parents, resulting in children being left behind during this process. Khlaif et al (2020) also confirmed that children from lower SES suffered more because parents in these contexts were more unlikely to have the time to spend monitoring their children's learning and noted that these students often received extra academic supports on weekends and holidays which quarantines now prohibited Mothers noted how children were easily distracted when using cell phones, which is supported by research. Hadad, Meishar-Tal, and Blau (2020) observed several kinds of resistance: social, environmental, pedagogical, and economic noting that technological devices without sufficient monitoring can distract students and that students find multitasking on such devices difficult, resulting in problems in controlling digital learning as opposed to face-to-face instruction.…”

“…While these parents believed that online education could make students independent learners, they noted that this depended on the teacher. Khlaif et al (2020) observed that virtual teaching diminished scaffolding present in such instruction. This was painfully apparent in the discussions between the teacher and several students, presented earlier in this research.…”

“…In their research of three developing countries including Palestine, Afghanistan, and Libya, however, Khlaif et al (2020) observed that the pandemic not only deprived children from important social-emotional interaction with peers normally present in face-to-face schooling, but also diminished scaffolding present in such instruction. Results further confirmed that children from lower SES suffered more because parents in these contexts were more unlikely to have the time to spend monitoring their children's learning and noted that these students often received extra academic supports on weekends and holidays which quarantines now prohibited.…”

Special issue: Covid-19 and the role of technology and pedagogy on school education during a pandemic

“…High-tech homes had fast broadband and access to interactive learning activities through computers, and mid-tech homes had slow or unreliable Internet, shared devices or only mobile phones to access materials and interact with their teacher and other students. Digital inequities were identified in most of the articles in this special issue and were correlated with rural-urban divides (for example, Bokayev et al, 2021;Scully et al, 2021), socio-economic context of households (for example, Greenhow et al, 2020;Scully et al, 2021) and the cultural context such as restrictions on girls' access to the Internet (Khlaif et al, 2020). The level of technology available and the educational context influenced the pedagogical practices as students learnt through prerecorded instructional videos, interactive online lessons, educational television and printed resources.…”

“…Emergency and difficult policy contexts are not new to all teachers. Middle school teachers from three countries that have faced years of conflict prior to Covid-19 provide insight into how the teachers and communities in Libya, Palestine and Afghanistan adapted to support students to keep them learning when schools closed (Khlaif et al, 2020). This article highlights how some teachers, no matter what the context, find creative solutions to try to engage students in learning to minimise disruption to their education.…”