Half of students in Turkey don't attend any online education event

Photo: Yüksekova Haber

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Some 74 percent of the students in Turkey have difficulties in accessing technology for online education and about half of the students don't attend any online education event, according to a survey among teachers.

The Eğitim-Bir-Sen union's Strategic Research Center (EBSAM) conducted an online survey among 14,943 teachers working at public schools across Turkey to reveal the extent of education loss during the coronavirus pandemic.

Turkey switched to online education last March and partially resumed in-person classes in late January.

Two-thirds of the students can't follow online classes and among those who can, two-thirds attend classes via mobile phones, shows the survey.

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While 74 percent of the students have difficulties in accessing the technology for online education, 41 percent have a lack of equipment (PCs, webcams, etc.), according to teachers.

According to the 2020 data of the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat), 16.7 percent of the households in Turkey have a desktop computer, 36,4 percent have a notebook PC and 22.4 percent have a tablet PC.

Forty percent of the teacher said the online class infrastructure is inadequate and 39 percent of them said the students' digital literacy is insufficient.

Reasons for absence

One of every three teachers said at least half of their students didn't attend any remote education event.

According to the teachers, the reasons for students' failure to follow online education were: Students lost motivation due to the extension of the remote education period (57.5 percent), parents cannot help their children in the digital learning environment (44.6 percent), families do not give enough support to children (40.2 percent), lack of exams (38 percent), social and psychological adverse effects on students due to being away from their peers (36.6 percent), the lack of support because of working family members (29.9 percent), the lack of a silent studying and learning environment (26.7 percent).

Education loss

According to the survey, the highest education loss was observed in primary school first grade (69.1 percent), high school fourth grade (43.9 percent) and middle school four grade (43 percent).

Education loss was at the lowest level in primary school third grade (15.8 percent), middle school second grade (18.5 percent), high school second grade (20.2 percent) and middle school third grade (20.4 percent).

Fifty-two percent of the teachers said they taught every day, 31 percent said they taught a few days a week, five percent said they taught one day a week, three percent said they taught one day per a few weeks and nine percent said they didn't teach during the period when the schools were closed. (RT/VK)