Impact of Covid-19 on Child Education
Friday, 03/07/2020SurveyMETERSetyo Pujiastuti, S.Sos., M.Si.
At present the world is stirred by the Corona Virus outbreak or COvid-19, Indonesia is no exception. The Indonesian government has taken a number of policies to break the chain of transmission of Covid-19. Its main policy is to prioritize people's health and safety. Work, worship and study from home.
UNESCO said that Pandemic Covid-19 threatened 577,305,660 students from pre-primary to high school education and 86,034,287 students from tertiary education worldwide. Like the policies adopted by various countries affected by Covid-19 disease, Indonesia closed all education activities. This makes the government and related institutions present alternative educational processes for students by learning from distance or study from home with the assistance of parents.
The implementation of long-distance teaching and learning policies from home or online learning does not seem to be a problem for some universities that already have online-based academic systems. It became a problem for some other universities that do not have the system.
At the level of primary, secondary and higher education technically the distance learning process also experiences many obstacles. Students from families who do not have internet access or even do not have mobile phones would likely miss learning when learning assignments are delivered through the WhatsApp application or others. Preparing for such conditions, the school should provide policy, for example by giving assignments in the form of working papers.
Another impacts felt by students from learning from home is too much learning burden. At the same time students are required to be able to examine and learn the material themselves quickly. Even if given a time to ask the teacher through the message via WhatshApp application it was still felt not enough time. And, the most easily observed by students' parents, teaching and learning from home also makes students easily bored because they cannot interact directly with the teacher and their friends.
Therefore, by learning from home, parents are required to maximize their role in accompanying their children. Especially if they are still in elementary preschool and elementary school. Because at their age, their nature is unique, energetic, active, spoiled and ego-centric (ego is high). This is where parents should be able to explore the character of their children so that the learning process from home takes place well and fun.
Learning from home allows some parents to experience stress in accompanying children if they do not understand the child's character. Parents feel that children are difficult to manage, just want to play, and lazy. In addition to dealing with children's behavior in accompanying learning at home, parents are also demanded to be able to explain many things related to the subject matter, while not all parents are ready for it. Not to mention if they have many children and parents have to work to make a living, parents become more dizzy.
It is not uncommon to find parents providing assistance to their sons and daughters by means of a hard, threatening, forced will, or even by hitting if the child does not comply. If this happens every day then it will be a scourge for children in learning, even though the parents' goals are good so that the child is disciplined and smart. Such parenting will shape children to be timid, shy, quiet, fond of breaking rules, vindictive and lacking in initiative.
Therefore parents must be careful in approaching when accompanying study at home. Parents should be able to treat children with affection, patience, accept children as they are, do not judge, do not force the will, give freedom and respect, and tolerance of their children. Thus the frightening specter of education will not be found otherwise it will create a pleasant learning atmosphere while studying at home.
The article was first published in Bahasa, in the rubric "INSPIRATION FOR POLICY" SKH Kedaulatan Rakyat, Friday Edition July 03, 2020.