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The countries of the Arab world are trying to find alternatives to educate the millions of out-of-school students as a preventive measure against the emergence of the corona virus.
In #Libya, students continue their lessons on television, while children in the Gulf countries continue their studies using smart tablets, and many remain without lessons.
From Morocco to Qatar and Jordan, teachers, parents and students are struggling to keep up with the lessons and avoid losing the school year, but the ability to access the internet varies a lot. country to country.
In countries plagued by conflict and instability, such as Libya or Iraq, the task is much more difficult without adequate means of communication, which increases the risk that more students will be deprived. education.
In the Middle East and North Africa, one in five children does not receive an education. A recent report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicated that 63 percent of children in the Middle East cannot read or write simple text by the age of ten.
In addition, UNICEF says about three million children are deprived of school due to crises. More than 8,850 educational institutions have been destroyed in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen in recent years.
Libya is working, with schools closed due to the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, to find ways to limit the deterioration of an already poor education situation.
Based on this, the Ministry of Education and local TV stations reached an agreement that English lessons would be broadcast daily, along with statistics and science lessons for middle and high school students.
These courses, which are registered at the ministry’s headquarters, are “compulsory for all students and all levels” of education, according to the education ministry. The Minister of Education of the Libyan government of national agreement, Mohamed Amari Zayed, believes that following these recorded lessons, accessible via several platforms, “is like having a student in class with his colleagues and his teacher. ”
Mahdi al-Naami, a history and geography teacher at a secondary school in Tripoli, insisted that “the children are not on vacation”, adding: “They have to work at home and it is necessary to parents’ responsibility to make sure they do. ”
Salima Abdel Aziz, a bank employee in Tripoli, confirms that things do not go easy: “Mothers in general are the ones who teach at home”.
In Jordan, where a curfew has been imposed, a sports channel has started temporarily broadcasting lessons to students. Likewise, some educational institutions in a country where the majority of the population has access to the Internet send lessons to students via the “WhatsApp” telephone messaging application, and in return receive homework by the same means, and send corrected copies.
But “it’s not at all easy,” said Saif Hindawi, 40, a father of four, explaining that “it’s a new system, and it takes time to get used to it.” Saif notes that “it will never be the same as giving lessons at school where students can ask questions and interact with teachers.” He clarifies that he receives lessons from three of his daughters on his phone, “I share it with my wife, and we two try to explain it, but the subject is complicated because I do not always understand it. ”
In Iraq, where the authorities have announced the closure of schools, “the education ministry has asked us to find ways to teach online,” according to health professor Hanin Farouk.
“In the private institute where I teach, we use the Google Classroom app to download lessons every day as PDF documents,” she added.
Farouk believes that after months of anti-government protests, the virus is yet another blow to students in Iraq, noting that they are “not at all motivated”, and “there is a high probability that we will have to repeating everything in school open their doors. ”
At #Morocco, which has eight million students, the public channel broadcasts lessons through a website affiliated with the ministry. A source at the ministry confirms that “the content is promoted daily”, noting that “1.2 million students enter it every day”.
However, television “remains the main tool for distance education for families without a computer,” according to a teacher at a rural school near Marrakech in southern Morocco.
In # Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, half of which have Internet access, the education ministry has announced that it will soon turn to television to provide lessons.
Public education institutions in Egypt have 22 million students, according to the ministry, which opened an online education platform last week.
Teachers in the occupied West Bank use the “Zoom” video communication app to explain lessons to more than 100 students at one time.
In the Gulf countries, where the means of communication and the Internet are more advanced than others in the Arab world, distance education is already accessible to the majority of students, as well as in Qatar, where institutions of teaching have virtual platforms.
In the United Arab Emirates, distance education is also important. The UAE announced that UNESCO is considering its educational website, “Madrasa.org”, which was created by an Emirati institution, and has become “freely accessible to more than 50 million Arab students,” according to the ministry of Education.
In Algeria and Tunisia, the school closure coincided with the school holidays. So far, the two countries have not announced any distance education measures.
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