Gibraltar Parents For Education Expresses Concerns About Remote Learning
Gibraltar Parents for Education, a group of concerned parents who have come together over recent weeks as a result of their shared concerns about education in Gibraltar, has today expressed specific reservations about the “very short time” it has taken for certain students to be sent home at the start of the school year.
A spokesperson for GPFE suggested: “If this is the shape of things to come, we worry that the effect of this approach might be that the schools end up closed before the end of the month”. The group’s primary objectives in relation to the impact of Covid 19 on education are that:
- The use of remote learning must be a measure of absolute last resort and that all measures must be taken to ensure, as far as possible, the continuation of face to face, in-classroom teaching. Children have suffered enough in the last few months and our duty as parents is to ensure that the students have the tools and the support to undo the damage already done, to the extent that they can;
- Any remote learning facility MUST be based on face to face, virtual classroom teaching which is supplemented by technology platforms like Seesaw. Seesaw and other solutions cannot and MUST not replace face to face, supported and direct learning, in the event that children HAVE to learn from home; and
- The closure of schools should be one of the very last initiatives the Government should entertain in the event of an unavoidable progress towards lockdown. Schools cannot be allowed to close ahead of other sectors and institutions/businesses as occurred earlier this year. The science indicates that Covid simply does not spread in schools like it does in other social contexts. Beaches have been open, as have pubs and restaurants. It would be wrong to seek to close schools ahead of these other entities in the event of a second lockdown being required.
The group says that impact on parents and caregivers in the context of children sent home to self-isolate is a matter that must be given the consideration it warrants. It is not realistic, they say, to expect that parents and caregivers in Gibraltar are "universally qualified or able" to spend 6 hours a day teaching or directing children during their learning.
A spokesperson concluded by saying that: “The protection of the mental health of our children is now, clearly, directly linked to continuing and uninterrupted education in schools. Children need the direction, the structure and all the elements of social development that are part and parcel of a school-centric programme of education. GPFE is concerned that this is not being taken seriously enough and worries that, as a community, we are failing our children. Remote learning may be an option, but we cannot simply resign ourselves to sending large groups of students home in the event of there being limited infections, which we know are not readily transmitted in school. In fact, the identification of the two cases on Friday comes so soon into the academic year that neither of the two cases could have been contracted in the school.”
GPFE says it looks forward to working with all stakeholders in this context but, it says, it will not allow matters to develop in a way that “further harms our children” without taking whatever civic action may be required to protect the interests of the children, their families and the wider community as a whole.
