Letters | Why online learning becoming the ‘new normal’ harms children

Name: Covid-19: Hong Kong’s needy pupils sidelined by online learning one year since class suspension
Uploaded: 2021-04-27T22:30:16.000Z
Duration: 5 min 39 s
Description: Covid-19: Hong Kong’s needy pupils sidelined by online learning one year since class suspension

The digitisation of education may sound glamorous, but the reality of remote learning is no substitute for in-person schools that allow for interaction and the proper development of social skills

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Students in Hong Kong head to school on November 30 when school was reopened following a fall in the number of Covid-19 cases. Children need an environment in where they can communicate and interact with each other. Photo: Winson Wong

Letters

Published: 6:30am, 28 Apr 2021Updated: 6:30am, 28 Apr 2021

At a time at which the popular narrative seems to be inexplicably propagating digitalisation and doing more to “bridge digital gaps”, Melissa Stevens’ opinion article “Amid a rise in cyberbullying, we owe our children a digital detox as schools reopen” (April 23) is a refreshing voice of sanity.

Hong Kong’s children have endured the online learning “experience” since November 2019, on and off, initially due to the social unrest and then owing to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Seventeen months on, this paradigm shift in the educational journey of Hong Kong’s children has only gained momentum. The premature resignation of some who accept and even promote online learning as the new normal is as unfortunate as it is disconnected from children’s needs and well-being.

While terms such as “digital citizenship” lend unwarranted glamour to this situation, society and its empowered stakeholders must be sensitive to the obvious real-life issues of isolation and excessive strain on the eyes and the musculoskeletal system of young ones.

Adults have a moral and social obligation to facilitate an environment in which children can once again be “normally normal”, to communicate and interact with each other, develop their full range of emotions and capacity to express themselves, and learn basic social skills and playground etiquette. To recall Einstein: “I believe that the abominable deterioration of ethical standards stems primarily from the mechanisation and depersonalisation of our lives—a disastrous by-product of science and technology. Nostra culpa! (We are to blame!)”

05:39

Covid-19: Hong Kong’s needy pupils sidelined by online learning one year since class suspension

All these are fundamental necessities for tomorrow’s generation to be able to coexist as normal functional human beings. That is, of course, if the various experts and commentators are interested in taking on the responsibility of creating a functional society.

In all this hype, let’s also be mindful of and considerate towards the children from less fortunate socioeconomic backgrounds. As online learning is clearly a bridge too far for them, the longer this practice continues, the more serious their educational marginalisation.

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.css-sioo19{color:#c79a00;}Letters | Why online learning becoming the ‘new normal’ harms children

Letters | Why online learning becoming the ‘new normal’ harms children