The shutdown of schools because of the pandemic has disrupted education worldwide, affecting more than 1.7 billion children, youth and their families.¹ Worse, at least 463 million pupils and university learners around the world have abandoned their learning or gone “off the grid”, becoming completely uncontactable – likely due to a range of compounding factors, such as difficult socioeconomic conditions and geographical and physical inaccessibility.²
Malaysia’s students have not been spared and the learning crisis that was already in place before the pandemic has been exacerbated. Some of the reasons for this include the digital divide, reduced effectiveness of interaction between teachers and students, and limited parental support. At the same time, educators also experienced difficulties adapting to new pedagogies brought upon by the shift to remote learning.
