SOPs help students adjust to new norms

IPOH: STANDARD operating procedures put in place by the Education Ministry have given students and teachers a sense of safety and assurance that they can continue learning at school safely.

“I feel very safe at college as the college has been following all the guidelines and SOPs set by the ministries ,” said Kolej Tingkatan Enam Seri Ipoh student leader Muhammad Aniq Haikal Zamri.

Muhammad Aniq, 19, said with these SOPs in place, the learning process should proceed smoothly in classrooms during the pandemic.

“It is fun to attend college. I feel safe because our college has been observing the SOPs religiously. Before school starts, our teachers will give us updates on the Covid-19 situation and the dos and don’ts to ensure that we remember the SOPs.

“As the student leader, I need to remind my friends on the SOP since this is part of my responsibility to ensure that they follow every guideline. In fact, not much can be done at home and it is better to come to school,” he said at the college yesterday.

Visual art student K. Malar Mathy, 19, said she could not attend school for almost three months due to the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) and she had felt left out during her online learning sessions.

“I could not keep up with the topics during online learning. It was hard to understand because my course requires me to have a physical interaction with my teachers so that it is easier for me to understand.

“I can’t ask my teachers what my mistakes are and what corrections need to be done on an online platform. For me, I believe the best way of learning a subject is by going to the school,” she said.

College principal, Raja Yusoff Raja Baniamin said as long as a vaccine had not been developed, everyone including students and teachers, needed to adjust to the ‘new normal’, a new way of learning and interacting with each other.

“At the same time, parents who are anxious about sending their children to school amid the Covid-19 pandemic should work to ensure that their concerns are not passed to their children.

“In this college, we have 237 students and 39 teachers and they have been told to embrace the new normal as the war against Covid-19 is far from over.

“We have been following the guidelines, not only on the first day when the school was reopened, but throughout this period. This includes SOPs, such as students are required to scan a QR code upon entering the school and have their temperatures checked at the school gate.

“Our lives may not be the same anymore for the next few months or years. We must live according to the new normal,” he said, adding that the school had achieved its students attendance target of 93.6 per cent. The rate increased by 0.6 per cent compared with last year even during this pandemic.

He said the school had come out with an initiative to install at least 10 sinks near classrooms for the convenience of students so that they can wash their hands often.

Economics teacher Rahayu Mat Rashid said by embracing the new normal, the learning and teaching process had also undergone an abrupt change from a physical classroom to online platforms at scale.

Rahayu said teachers had adopted e-teaching modes, from web-conferencing via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, Google Hangouts Meets and Google Classroom to using WhatsApp and Telegram.

“While learning and teaching are adjusting to remote instruction, there are elements that cannot be replicated at home. We usually will have a lot of hands-on activities in the classroom.

“Although teachers can always deliver lessons and learning materials online, learning needs interaction with the physical world such as drawing charts.”

Source: NST