If there is one major impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought upon society the world over, it is the way it has gravely disrupted schooling. Millions of school-going children have had to suffer immense losses with the closure of schools and the truncation of lessons.

Education researchers have estimated that these affected children will likely continue to slide in their schooling year, which means that conventional annual progress that should be achieved will be delayed indefinitely. This has far-reaching effects on important educational milestones especially as it relates to literacy. For children in the margins who are locked out of literacy opportunities (e.g. not having book-rich homes, no access to public libraries or internet access and digital literacy), their loss will likely be doubled. How does any nation come together to resolve this?

In my book, Charting an Asian Trajectory for Literacy Education: Connecting Past, Present and Future Literacies (2021)*, I forward the idea of a Framework for Respect in Literacy Education (FRiLE) so that broader notions of literacy and reading can be laid out. Within FRiLE, I propose three broad overarching agendas that are important to be considered so that a nation can come together to address this loss. The agendas are the Stakeholder Agenda, National Agenda and Research Agenda.

Agenda #1: Stakeholder

The primary stakeholder in the literacy agenda is, in fact, the learner. Therefore, due respect must be accorded to the child who is at the centre of all the effort. This translates into added focus that must be accorded children who do not learn in mainstream spaces or through mainstream methods.

For example, if the conventional approach for reading via phonics may not immediately fit these children, innovative means of teaching must be designed to resolve this. Teachers, as the other primary stakeholder, must adopt unconventional but powerful approaches that use comics, picture books, cartoons and songs as innovative ways to teach reading and writing.

Secondary stakeholders like parents and community, vis-à-vis libraries or universities, should also innovate out-of-school approaches that can complement, enrich and support these children’s learning experience. In fact, universities and other higher learning institutions have immense capacity to bridge school and society because of their unique position as keeper of intellectual potential and property.

If the key concept of respect is placed at the centre of the framework, the stakeholders can work together to achieve this common goal to ensure that the educational gap can be narrowed in these challenging times.

An example of innovative thinking is for the stakeholders to breakdown walls that divide them so that partnerships can be formed within local communities.

Agenda #2: National

The second agenda revolves around national policy formation and national action. This agenda requires courageous citizens to question national policies that impact our education system. Critical and honest questions must be allowed to the powers-that-be so that pedagogy can be improved for the greater good.

Questions like “How does national policy shape individual linguistic and literacy experience?” or “How can any government exercise executive power and be purposefully inclusive and culturally sensitive in literacy education?” will go a long way to cement respect within the teaching of reading and writing in schools.

Again, this calls for innovative thinking within the walls of the corridors of power. Innovative thinking need not be hard to reach. But what it does require is for those within governmental agencies to have the courage to raise difficult but important questions like “Has meritocracy been systematically turned away and mediocrity embraced so much so that educational standards in the country have plunged?”

The mushrooming of private and international schools in Malaysia can no longer be ignored and must be acknowledged as the result of parents’ decision to move their children out of the national education system. If this is not checked, the gap between the haves and have-nots will grow, causing serious inequities in society.

Thus, with the value of respect deeply rooted at the centre of the framework, educational leaders must innovate their thinking to set aside parochial attitudes and, instead, embrace higher standards and expectations for themselves and then for others around them.

An example of innovative thinking is for officers to role-play so that they can position themselves in the main stakeholders’ shoes. To be able to imagine what it is like to be locked out of mainstream education can be a powerful experience. This will potentially allow for new thinking to occur and indigenous teaching designs to be formed.

Agenda #3: Research

Where research in reading and writing is carried out, critical questions like “From whose perspectives is this research conducted?”, “How involved are the human participants in this research?” and “How will this research change the lived experience of those involved?” ought to be thought about so that researchers remain aware of their influence in the research findings.

Often, educational researchers find themselves carrying out research only because it is a university requirement rather than for the genuine reason of wanting to make lives better.

Research in literacy education cannot benefit from such misplaced priorities because the complexities within social research require a combination of time, critical thinking and courage in order to unpack its issues. Here again, innovative thinking must be summoned so that difficult issues that may have been swept under the carpet will find their way out.

An example of innovative thinking is to see how our research can produce unconventional modules that can help with those whose learning opportunities have been lost in this time. This means that research is driven not solely by research perspectives but by giving respect to the community whose lives are being scrutinised.

Loyalty

As Malaysians, we must never lose sight of our loyalty to our country. This means being the best versions of ourselves so that our country can, in turn, be at her best. In facing the future that we now know will never be fully free from this or the next pandemic, it bears to reason that society should up its game to band together and resolve educational woes.

Perhaps, most importantly, we must embrace the fact that these educational woes are not new. Now is a good time for society to think seriously about innovative thinking, literacy education and living better lives.

-- BERNAMA

Dr Chong Su Li is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management and Humanities, Institute of Self Sustainable Building (ISB), and Head of University Social Responsibility (USR) Education Pillar, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP).