More than half of children in South Africa (60%) who switched to remote learning due to the pandemic prefer in-person education, according to a Kaspersky survey, “Digital education in Covid era”.
First and foremost, they complained about a lack of in-person communication with their peers between classes (noted by 52% of students).
Many respondents also dislike learning online because of having to spend so much time in front of a screen (62%) and frequent technical problems (57%).
For 33% of students, it is more difficult to understand educational materials with remote learning compared to offline classes.
However, more than a third of students (40%) still noted that they liked remote learning better.
“The required transition to remote learning during the pandemic has been a real challenge for children, parents and teachers, alike,” notes David Emm, principal security researcher at Kaspersky. “Most probably distance learning will stay with us as a substitution for the usual classes to one extent or another.
“Despite the fact that according to our research both – parents and children prefer offline learning rather than online, it’s important to introduce various digital and interactive elements into the educational process and improve digital literacy level of children and their parents, as well as teachers.”
The hardest subjects for children to learn remotely are the exact and natural sciences: mathematics (57%), chemistry (40%) and physics (29%).
As for parents, 65% stated they don’t want to continue this learning format after the pandemic, and 27% noted a general decline in the quality of education as its main drawback.