Why some Australian students are getting a better home learning education than others
Students around Australia are looking for a live teacher presence on their platform – but many are not getting it, and are being forced to use other alternatives.
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PARENTS are turning to live tutor support to fill in the gap where schools are not providing video teaching in a move that reveals a worrying gap between what is being provided by schools for home learning.
It comes as working parents are struggling to balance supervising schoolwork and work with some saying the live video element would make all the difference in allowing children to have an interactive school day with their teachers.
Educators say Australia should be better prepared to deal with a more interactive online learning platform and in most public schools it is in a static environment without a video interactive teacher element.
Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory returned to school last week and NSW and South Australian, Western Australia, Tasmania and ACT’s Term 2 starts this week but parents and carers across the country have experienced a range of issues, including in Queensland where the central platform collapsed in the first hour of the first day.
No state education department was able to provide accurate data on how many students were able to access their teacher in a video interactive environment but News Corp Australia understands with private schools the number is as high as 50 per cent.
News Corp Australia spoke to parents around the country who were struggling with the digital platforms that relied on parents to implement the school work.
One NSW mother described Google classroom as clumsy and said the only video interaction her daughter had was with her language teacher, outside the school environment. A Queensland parent said week one was a technological disaster and a Victorian mother said a live teacher on a zoom style video platform would at least give her some peace of mind that there was some school work being done – as well as some peace to get on with her own work.
Glenn Fahey, Research Fellow, Education Program at the Centre for Independent Studies said the digital evolution must extend to all schools and teachers.
“We have seen that other school systems around the world have been more responsive and we have seen in Australia that the non-government schools here have gotten on board much quicker, while bureaucracy-heavy government schools have been slower.
“It’s true that all teachers and schools are under the pump running the dual modes of online and in-person learning, but the general sluggishness in some respects has been pretty disappointing.”
He said the research had indicated Australian students were digitally savvy but that teachers don’t integrate it into lesson plans as effectively as in better performing countries
“There is a preparedness gap at the school level where teachers aren’t well trained in technology and using the resources available to them – and now is when that training would be paying dividends. Parents deserve to be somewhat frustrated by the slow, inconsistent, and unreliable way that home-based learning is being supported in some cases.”
Queensland’s Claire Cameron has three children and with school starting back this week she said the expectation on parents were too high.
“It is very much parent driven which I am finding impossible. They are learning and I am doing a lot of play based things and I do a lot of cooking so we will turn that into a lesson.”
Ms Cameron, who is a wellness consultant, said she is aware of some schools that are doing video style lessons which would make it much easier.
“It is almost like the teacher is there with them whereas this is you have to sit down and set it up.”
Dr Selina Samuels, Chief Learning Officer at Cluey Learning said their online video tutoring platform has seen a 25 to 30 per cent increase in enrolments with some weeks as high as a 50 per cent during the coronavirus crisis as parents seek a live teaching presence.
“What we’re hearing from many parents at Cluey is that it is sometimes not possible to keep an eye on all their children to make sure they get their school-allocated work done,” she said.
“So, some parents are booking their children in with us on days or at times when they know they can’t provide them with the necessary level of attention or just for the comfort that they will be receiving expert instruction and support.”