KUALA LUMPUR, April 17 — The National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) today called on the Ministry of Education to pay proper attention to issues faced by teachers, parents and students when conducting the online teaching and learning (PdP) session during the movement control order (MCO).

Its secretary-general Harry Tan Huat Hock said one of the major issues was limited access to the Internet that was faced by teachers in the rural areas.

"The online PdP is to ensure that no students are left behind during the implementation of the MCO. However, there are various constraints faced by teachers and students when conducting the session.

"Feedback from teachers disclosed that not all students have access to the Internet while some of them have to share smartphones with their siblings and there are others who do not have computers at home,” he said in a statement.

He also listed unconducive environment at home as one of the issues.

Therefore, he urged the head of departments to take into account all of these challenges and not to focus on the key performance indicator alone.

The Ministry of Education had recently issued the PdP guidelines during the enforcement of the MCO including the MPE-DL learning platform which provides a link to Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams.

Since the implementation of the MCO on March 18, Malaysia emerged as among five countries in the world which recorded Google Classroom as one of their most searched sites. 

Four other countries are Serbia, Indonesia, Albania and Hungary. — Bernama