Dear Editor,
I have a son in Grade 2. It is now almost three quarter way into this school term and he is yet to receive his workbooks for the term. The worksheets are online. But having my seven year old son access these workbooks via that medium is creating other issues which the Ministry of Education should be aware of.
For starters, it is already a phenomenal challenge to wean our children off of these electronic gadgets. It has become almost addictive to them. And it shows in their mood swings and petulance when we try to control the time they spend on these gadgets. Online worksheets create the perfect smokescreen for them to spend more time online doing things they shouldn’t be doing. Most of us are working parents who find it very difficult to control/monitor our child’s online activity while we are away at work. The Ministry of Education has now compounded that problem by forcing us parents to give our small children unfettered access to the internet.
Certainly the guardians of education in our country know of the many problems that exist with online learning. Why then put our children (and parents) in such situations? Our Minister of Education was on the ball during the first stage of online teaching. But recently things seem to have fallen away in terms of timely delivery of workbooks. Hopefully the Ministry of Education can provide some clarity on this change?
Sincerely,
M. Abraham
