Education remains uninterrupted with shift to virtual classrooms — Nuaimi

AMMAN — Education Minister Tayseer Nuaimi on Sunday said that the learning process in the Kingdom is continuing despite the suspension of classes at schools.

During a joint press briefing with Minister of State for Media Affairs Amjad Adaileh and Minister of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship Muthana Gharaibeh at the National Centre for Security and Crisis Management, Nuaimi announced the launch of online educational platform Darsak via www.darsak.gov.jo, which will provide services from 7am until 4pm.

The Darsak platform provides educational content for students from grade one to 12, he said, noting that access to the platform is free.

Calling on parents to follow up with their children during these “exceptional circumstances”, the minister highlighted that besides the Darsak platform, two TV channels — Jo Darsak 1 and 2 — are also dedicated to broadcasting lessons for all grades, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The minister stressed that students “must keep up with their lessons on a daily basis”, emphasising that they will be denied access to the platform if they miss a single day and do not log into the platform.

Regarding students in Tawjihi (General Secondary Education Certificate Examination), the minister urged them to make use of the newly launched platform and Jordan Sport TV, which has been designated as an educational channel, until exams are held according to the preannounced schedule.

Regarding students enrolled in international programmes, Nuaimi stressed that the ministry is following up with concerned bodies, including Cambridge, Oxford, Edexcel, the College Board and the International Baccalaureate, briefing them on the transition to distance learning through online education platforms and TV broadcastings, Petra reported.

The ministry called on these bodies to reschedule their exams until students return to their schools, he said.

The ministry will also offer a teachers training programme on employing technology in the educational process, covering content development and student performance evaluation, he announced.

During the briefing, Adaileh alluded to the possibility of the curfew extending for weeks, calling on students to keep up with their lessons “as if they were attending their schools”, according to Petra.

The government has taken a set of measures to address this crisis effectively, he added.

Gharaibeh, for his part, said that the Kingdom, through its human resources and start-ups in the ICT sector, "easily" managed to develop the online learning platform within less than one week.

About 70,000 students used the online platform on Sunday, he said, expressing pride in the move, which he said will be “a model” for other countries.

He also expressed thanks to the telecommunication companies that offered the students free access to the online education platform.

Gharaibeh highlighted that the Internet’s infrastructure is a “global challenge”, noting that to ensure that the Internet functions smoothly during the battle against the novel coronavirus, Europe has reduced the speed of streaming on YouTube.

To assist telecommunication companies, the government has provided additional frequencies to increase speeds amid these unusual circumstances, he said.

“The Kingdom's natural resources are limited, but our human resources are the most important ones,” he said, urging the public to give priority in Internet usage to educational purposes at this stage, Petra reported.