Policy Dialogue: Early Childhood Education

June 29th, 2020 · Posted By Yureshya Perera · Leave a Comment

The video of the session can be accessed here. Early Childhood is defined as period between 0-5 years 0-2 is home-based care and the Ministry of Health has on-going  programs using Public Health Nurses, Public Health Midwives and the Medical Officers of Health 3 to 5 years is the period that ECE usually operates Golden 1000 Days in a child’s life is critical, because brain growth is maximum during this period. About 85% of brain growth of an entire life happens during early childhood. Maximum neuroplasticity, myelination, connectivity through synaptogenesis and differentiation of brain cells occur best in the Golden 1000 day…

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Policy Dialogue: Reforming National Examinations in Sri Lanka

June 16th, 2020 · Posted By Yureshya Perera · Leave a Comment

EFSL held a Policy Dialogue on Reforming the National Examination System with educationists, school administrators, university academics, and teachers on June 13th. [Link to Zoom recording here]. Dr. Sujata Gamage presented  “An Assessment Framework with Built-in Accountability for Reforming the National Examination System in Sri Lanka”.  The framework included the progression of a child form early childhood education, primary and secondary education, to further education leading to tertiary certificates, diplomas, advanced diplomas, and degrees.  She noted that students dropout and go  ‘off-the-radar’ of the policymakers and the public at various stages of education. After age 18, only 7% of a given youth cohort will gain access to higher education,…

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Distance education in Indonesia in the time of Corona

May 21st, 2020 · Posted By Sujata Gamage · Leave a Comment

In Sri Lanka, with a population of 22 million, 11,000 schools closed on March 12th affecting 4.5 million students. The situation in Indonesia parallels Sri Lanka though Indonesia’s population at 268 million is ten times that of Sri Lanka. According to a World Bank blog, in Indonesia, over 530,000 schools closed affecting 65 million students. The situation is forcing a very fast and broad increase in the country’s use of EdTech, which is expected to have lasting effects on the market. An earlier report based on the world Bank’s  EdTech landscape survey for Indonesia notes the growth of local platforms, such…

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Policy Dialogue: Access to Distance Education.

May 19th, 2020 · Posted By Yureshya Perera · Leave a Comment

May 16, 2020, via zoom. Video of the Dialogue available at – https://lirneasia.net/2020/05/e-learning-opportunities-in-the-asian-global-south-presentation/ INTRODUCTION Since school closure on March 12, education delivery to students has been through a mix of lessons delivered through television (Grades 5, O’level & A’level), through, PDF via social apps on smartphones, online teaching through google classrooms, Microsoft teams, etc. The policy dialogue on May 2, 2020, addressed those issues. For details please see: https://www.facebook.com/EduForumLK/videos/726016001268499/ and  https://www.educationforum.lk/2020/05/an-overview-of-distant-education-for-school-children-in-sri-lanka-in-the-time-of-corona/ Policy dialogue of March 16th was on the “Percent of students who don’t have internet and How do we reach them?” PARTICIPANTS (34) 29% NGO 24% Corporate 24% Academics/Researchers 18% School Educators 6% …

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Re-opening Schools – Crucial Decision

May 18th, 2020 · Posted By Yureshya Perera · Leave a Comment

It is heartening to note that the decision to reopen schools on May 11th has been reconsidered positively. Exposing 4.3 million school children to a potential resurgence of the virus with no clear plan would have been dangerous, when we still haven’t had a straight 48-72 hours without a single Covid patient being reported. Sanitizing all schools effectively would need time and resources. Overcrowding of classrooms in urban/popular schools, inability to implement safe-distancing methods and lack of adequate facilities for hand-hygiene, are all reasons to consider before announcing re-opening. At a recent Webinar the Minister of Education explained some initiatives they…

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Can Sri Lanka switch to online learning?

May 14th, 2020 · Posted By Yureshya Perera · Leave a Comment

Capitalizing on the need to switch to distance learning (DL)  Sri Lanka like all countries had to find alternate methods of education when school closure became a necessity during Covid 19. Many countries in the West & East seamlessly switched  to e-learning & online education,  since their curricula & syllabuses were already posted on the education websites, and e-learning had been practiced interspersed with face-to-face learning in class,  even before Covid.  Good example is Singapore, where once a week, e-learning had been a practice for several grades. So an abrupt and total switch was effortless for them. What’s the story…

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කොරෝනා සමයේ ලංකාවේ පාසැල් දරුවන්ගේ දුරස්ථ අධ්‍යාපනය

May 13th, 2020 · Posted By Yureshya Perera · Leave a Comment

May 11, 2020 මාර්තු 12දා හදිසියේ පාසල් වසා දැමීමත් සමග ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ අධ්‍යාපන පද්ධතිය තුළ අර්බුදයක් නිර්මාණය විය. එක රැයින් තම ඉගැන්වීම් ක්‍රමය අන්තර්ජාලය පාදක කරගෙන දුරස්ථ ආකාරයට හැඩගස්වා ගැනීමට ගුරුවරුන්ට සිදු විය. අගෝස්තු මාසයේ සිට ඉදිරියට පැවැත්වෙන පහ ශ්‍රේණියේ ශිෂ්‍යත්ව විභාගය, අ.පො.ස. උසස් පෙළ හා සාමාන්‍ය පෙළ වැනි විභාගවලට සූදානම් වන සිසුන්ගේ ගැටලු කෙරෙහි වහා අවධානය යොමු කළ රජය රූපවාහිනී මාර්ගයෙන් පාඩම් ඉගැන්වීම ආරම්භ කරන ලදී. සංවර්ධිත රටවල මෙන් නොව, විද්‍යුත් ක්‍රමයට ඉගෙනීම හෝ දුරස්ථ අධ්‍යාපනය ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ අධ්‍යාපනික සංස්කෘතියේ කොටසක් වූයේ නැත. එබැවින් ඒ සම්බන්ධ නවෝත්පාදනයේ හදිසි අවශ්‍යතාවක් ඇති විය. ඊට අමතරව, මේ කොරෝනා වසංගතය අද  හෙටම සම්පූර්ණයෙන්…

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Distant Education for School Children in Sri Lanka in the Time of Corona

May 13th, 2020 · Posted By Yureshya Perera · 1 Comment

May 12, 2020 With the sudden closure of schools on March 12th, the Sri Lankan education system plunged into a crisis. Overnight teachers had to gear themselves for on-line teaching and other methods of distance education. The GOSL swiftly moved in to address the concerns of students preparing for Grade 5 Scholarship examination and Ordinary Level and Advanced level examinations, due to start from August, by telecasting lessons for those students. However, the schools were not at all prepared for a distance learning mode, and hence innovation became an urgent necessity to reach out to the full student population. Further,…

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Distance learning in Estonia

May 8th, 2020 · Posted By Yureshya Perera · Leave a Comment

The primary source of digital resources in Estonia is e-Koolikott (“e-Schoolbag”), a nationwide online library of more than 20,000 educational resources. Teachers, subject specialists, universities, and private publishers can all post resources to e-Schoolbag, and groups of subject-area experts are responsible for reviewing the resources for quality. Teachers can then use and adapt these resources for their lessons, including organizing and saving related resources into personal “learning kits.” Parents and guardians also have access to e-Schoolbag to support children’s learning at home, as was the case before school closures.  A second initiative is a list of online learning resources by subject, purpose, or grade span, including…

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Discussion with Yarl IT Hub

May 8th, 2020 · Posted By Yureshya Perera · Leave a Comment

As part of the on-going discussions on Home-Based-learning, the EFSL team had an informative discussion with Yarl IT Hub, Mr Balathasan Sayanthan on the innovations introduced through their digital learning platforms and the response from students during this Covid period. The platform has delivered content to large numbers of students for Tech Learning, Advanced level revision as well as for Grade 5 scholarship students. Yarl IT Hub is a not-for-profit social enterprise managed by a group of talented young tech-people, which also collaborates with the Northern Province Education Department on specific projects.

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