Staring into a smartphone camera in an empty classroom in rebel-held northwest Syria, geography teacher Danielle Dbeis addresses students confined at home away from the 2019 novel coronavirus.
“Even if we are now doing distance learning ... you can still talk to me online,” says the 42-year-old, standing in front of a white board.
Like in much of the world, educators in Syria are taking classes online after the country’s various regions sent pupils home hoping to stem the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: AFP
But distance learning is no small feat in a country battered by nine years of war, where fighting has displaced millions and the electricity supply is sporadic at best.
Syria’s last major rebel bastion of Idlib has not yet recorded any case of the virus. But aid workers fear any outbreak would be catastrophic in the region, which is under a jihadist-dominated authority and home to at least 3 million people.
In the main city of Idlib, Dbeis points to a map of Syria she has drawn on the white board, her voice bouncing off the walls of the empty classroom.
Photo: AFP
Her school used to teach 1,000 girls before it closed last month, she says, but now only 650 have continued learning online as the others have no access to a smartphone or laptop.
Even those with the right equipment face difficulties, says the teacher, who uses WhatsApp to send her students videos. “Most students don’t have constant access to the internet,” she says.
And during long power cuts, she adds, they “are not able to charge their phones.”
Photo: AFP
LATEST OF MANY OBSTACLES
At home elsewhere in Idlib city, Nour Sermini spends her days with her eyes riveted on her mobile phone screen, books and notes scattered around her on her bed.
Switching from one WhatsApp group to another, the 17-year-old checks in with her various teachers.
“We’ll do anything not to miss out on our education,” she says.
The deadly virus is just the latest of many obstacles to learning in Idlib, she says, after years of air strikes on the surrounding region by Damascus and its ally Russia.
“The bombs didn’t manage to stop us from learning,” and neither will the virus, she says.
Since March, a fragile truce has held in northwest Syria. But months of bombardment before that disrupted the education of some 280,000 children, the UN Children’s Fund says.
Across the Idlib region, more than half of the 1,062 schools are now damaged, destroyed or in areas too dangerous for children to reach, according to Save the Children.
Displaced from their homes in the rounds of violence, hundreds of thousands of children live in overcrowded camps or temporary shelters, with little to no water or electricity.
In one of these camps, in the village of Kafr Yahmoul, Ahmed Rateb has just finished recording a math class in a tent.
“We’re trying as much as possible not to deprive the kids of an education,” says the 29-year-old teacher, who sends along his tutorials on Telegram and WhatsApp.
But some are now unable to follow for lack of a smart screen as well as long blackouts inside the camp, he admits.
INTERNET AND POWER ISSUES
As the civil war enters its tenth year, the Damascus regime controls around 70 percent of Syrian territory after successive victories against jihadists and rebels.
In these territories too, where Damascus has announced 19 cases of COVID-19 including two deaths, schools have closed their gates.
To make up for lost time, the education ministry has started beaming Arabic, English and science classes into homes via a special television channel.
But there too, power cuts can last up to 14 hours a day, and the government caps the size of Internet bundles allowed for each family.
In the northeast of the country, the semi-autonomous Kurdish authorities are looking to launch distance learning within days, education official Nureddin Mohammad says.
No case of the novel coronavirus has yet been announced in the region, where medical supplies are limited and there are no tests.
Teachers are filming classes to be broadcast on local television channels and on Youtube, and teachers will keep in touch with pupils via WhatsApp, he says.
Bandar Ismail, a 35-year-old father of three, says he cannot wait for the first episodes.
But he wonders whether the authorities will be “able to ensure sufficient power and Internet for the project to succeed.” Kurdish language teacher Hayat Abbas, meanwhile, says she already misses teaching students in person.
In distance learning, “it’s just a half-an-hour lecture or less, and we try to explain as much as possible,” the 43-year-old says.
“But you can’t answer pupils’ questions.”
Seven hundred job applications. One interview. Marco Mascaro arrived in Taiwan last year with a PhD in engineering physics and years of experience at a European research center. He thought his Gold Card would guarantee him a foothold in Taiwan’s job market. “It’s marketed as if Taiwan really needs you,” the 33-year-old Italian says. “The reality is that companies here don’t really need us.” The Employment Gold Card was designed to fix Taiwan’s labor shortage by offering foreign professionals a combined resident visa and open work permit valid for three years. But for many, like Mascaro, the welcome mat ends at the door. A
If China attacks, will Taiwanese be willing to fight? Analysts of certain types obsess over questions like this, especially military analysts and those with an ax to grind as to whether Taiwan is worth defending, or should be cut loose to appease Beijing. Fellow columnist Michael Turton in “Notes from Central Taiwan: Willing to fight for the homeland” (Nov. 6, page 12) provides a superb analysis of this topic, how it is used and manipulated to political ends and what the underlying data shows. The problem is that most analysis is centered around polling data, which as Turton observes, “many of these
Divadlo feels like your warm neighborhood slice of home — even if you’ve only ever spent a few days in Prague, like myself. A projector is screening retro animations by Czech director Karel Zeman, the shelves are lined with books and vinyl, and the owner will sit with you to share stories over a glass of pear brandy. The food is also fantastic, not just a new cultural experience but filled with nostalgia, recipes from home and laden with soul-warming carbs, perfect as the weather turns chilly. A Prague native, Kaio Picha has been in Taipei for 13 years and
Since Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) was elected Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chair on Oct. 18, she has become a polarizing figure. Her supporters see her as a firebrand critic of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), while others, including some in her own party, have charged that she is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) preferred candidate and that her election was possibly supported by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CPP) unit for political warfare and international influence, the “united front.” Indeed, Xi quickly congratulated Cheng upon her election. The 55-year-old former lawmaker and ex-talk show host, who was sworn in on Nov.
RSS