Parents are getting raw deal in virtual learning proposals

Faced with the daunting reality of empty accounts post-Covid-19, private schools have been forced to take control of their financial fate by reinventing their income streams at the expense of parents and learners.

With all the attention focused on the war against Covid-19, most schools have taken the opportunity to make outrageous demands in terms of school fees, safe in the knowledge that their actions might barely be noticed.

To be fair, the pandemic has forced some hard choices on schools, which were first to be closed on March 15 as they are considered high-risk areas because of the many learners they hold, and who come from different backgrounds.

The Daily Nation recently carried a story showing how fancy schools are struggling to stay afloat. Nevertheless, this doesn’t negate the fact that some of the decisions taken by schools — like rushing to charge them astronomical amounts for virtual learning — have harmed parents.

When Brookhouse School demanded a 90 per cent school fees payment from parents for online learning, they fought back by suing the school and the court compelled the institution to reduce the fees by half. Kudos to the parents.

While one can’t extrapolate too much on the case of the Brookhouse School parents, given that they are not a towering example of the average Kenyan parent, it’s still a valid example of the frustrations most parents are feeling with their children’s schools.

The proponents of the Competency-Based Curriculum, to which a majority of schools in Kenya subscribe, boast about the level of involvement from a parent that’s needed for the learner to succeed but the top-down approach to imposing supplementary virtual learning classes on parents is the antithesis of this.

Most parents will testify that nobody asked them what they needed and what would work for their children, schedules or homes.

The notion of synchronous virtual learning, which most schools have suggested to or imposed on parents, is as utopian as it is unreasonable, given the limited computer access in homes as well as spotty WiFi, among other obstacles like the expenses involved and the crazy work schedules that parents who work in essential services have been forced to adapt to because of the pandemic.

Kenya National Union of Teachers Secretary-General Wilson Sossion has pointed out that the practicability of virtual lessons is far from being a reality in Kenya, adding that supervision in a manner that’s useful to the students is also an issue.

Despite much hype by the government and private schools about virtual learning, one of the things they fail to acknowledge is that it will leave out a significant proportion of learners. It will be survival for the wealthiest, not the fittest.

Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) revealed that the digital divide in Kenya is still a reality, as only one in five Kenyans have access to the internet.

The income of the parents also determines whether their children will access virtual lessons or not.

The National ICT Survey Report (2018) by the Communication Authority and the KNBS indicated that employment and household size in many cases determine the household disposable income, which in turn determines whether individuals in households can afford radios, TVs, computers, internet and other ICT equipment.

What’s clear is that by offering blanket solutions for virtual learning, private schools are just combing a dry riverbed.

There is an opportunity here to respond to the abnormal times abnormally, to paraphrase Health Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe’s now-famous quote about Covid-19.

In their quest to keep afloat, private schools should not forget to fully involve parents in designing solutions that will accommodate different learner’s and parents’ needs.

Nobody will walk away from this pandemic unscathed, but as everything comes unglued after this, private schools can help lessen the impact by doing right by parents and learners.