Some parents experienced technical issues while trying to help their children with their first day of Home-Based Learning this morning (Apr. 1).

Education Minister Ong Ye Kung announced on Mar. 27 that starting April, Singapore schools will carry out Home-Based Learning once a week in order to stem the spread of Covid-19.

Primary school students started their first Home-Based Learning session today and it seems that some met with technical issues.

Virtual learning system was down for some parents & students

According to a Facebook post by Benjamin Tay, a parent who was helping his child with Home-Based Learning, the Ministry of Education's online-learning portal (called the Singapore Student Learning Space) was temporarily unavailable.

Tay told Mothership that this was what he saw when he tried to access the virtual learning system with his daughter, who is in Primary 1:

He experienced the same issue with the Mandarin online learning portal, eZhishi, as seen in this photo:

According to his daughter's schedule, her Chinese language class was scheduled for 8.00am to 9.30am, but the server was accessible only after noon.

Other comments on the Ministry of Education's Facebook page expressed similar technical issues with the Home-Based Learning system:

Tay hopes that technical issues won't allow efforts of teachers to go to waste

In his Facebook post, Tay sympathised with teachers as he hoped that the time and effort teachers have put into developing resources for Home-Based Learning will not go to waste due to technical capacity issues.

As an ex-educator, Tay told Mothership that he understands what teachers go through.

Ong Ye Kung address glitches in learning portal

In a Facebook post today (Apr. 1), Education Minister Ong Ye Kung said that he was aware of the technical issues plaguing the Home-Based Learning.

He mentioned:

"Please bear with us as we iron out the tech glitches."

In his post, Ong mentioned that he visited Sembawang Primary School which hosted around 20 students who could not use Home-Based Learning for various reasons:

"A few were there because they did not have WiFi at home, others had parents who had to work. Several of the children were ushered to computer labs to do some online learning. Others were in classrooms doing offline reading and assignments."

Ong ended his post by thanking parents, teachers and students for stepping up to help implement Home-Based Learning.

"It’s not easy, and it’s not perfect, but we are tapping on our collective efforts to get this to work during such exceptional times," he wrote.

You can check out his full post here:

MOE's statement

A spokesperson from the Educational Technology Division of MOE, Aaron Loh, told Mothership that:

While most students and teachers were able to access the Singapore Student Learning Space (SLS) for their lessons, the higher number of users concurrently logging into SLS resulted in some users experiencing intermittent availability with the system, especially between 8.00am and 9.50am. These issues were resolved by a series of technical measures to better manage the increased user numbers.

MOE will continue to ensure that the system remains accessible to users. In addition to SLS, schools can employ different tools and modes like the other online tools and resources for lessons, or assign learning through offline modes, such as issuing assignments to students using textbooks and workbooks.

While Home-Based Learning (HBL) has been practised by schools for a while, it has been largely school-based. This is the first time we have implemented a national level HBL programme. We seek the understanding of students and parents as we iron out these teething issues.

Top photos by Benjamin Tay and via MOE's Student Learning Space