A spokesman for the Melaka Action Group for Parents in Education (Magpie) said his organisation was against the closure of all schools in the country, and Madeline Berma of the Malaysian Academy of Sciences said some closures seemed unnecessary.
Magpie chairman Mak Chee Kin said the nation could not afford a blanket closure because problems with online learning were still unresolved.
He told FMT most schools were not ready for home-based learning and the education ministry should have kept to its earlier decision to allow state education departments to decide on school closures.
“They’re in a state of denial if they feel that all is well with online and home-based learning,” he said. “The implications of the closure are serious.”
He claimed that teachers and students were losing the enthusiasm they had been regaining since schools reopened fully last July.
Berma said state or district education offices could be given the authority to decide on the closure of schools in consultation with the health ministry.
She told FMT teachers she had spoken to were worried over their students’ progress.
She said there appeared to be no need to close schools in areas with few Covid-19 cases or none at all.
However, she noted that rural areas lacked access to good medical facilities and said this gave some justification for the blanket order.
The difficulty of access to medical resources could make Covid-19 spread quickly in a rural area even if only one person were to catch the virus, she said.
“Of course, the education authorities have said they will do their best to ensure the gap between rural and urban students is not widened, but this is quite difficult.”
Berma said some forms of learning could be gained only in the classroom such as group learning, interaction among students and the development of respect for teachers.
She also said one might have to wait two or three years to see how badly affected education would be by government decisions forced by Covid-19.
She called for “heavy investments” for the benefit of students whose education would be greatly affected.
While investing in laptops for students and in industrial revolution 4.0 was good, she said, there were basic and crucial infrastructure some students were deprived of, such as access to electricity.
“There must also be incentives for teachers and parents. In East Malaysia, parents in longhouses totally leave education to teachers. So now, maybe, we need to engage them,” she said.