Sofia/Plovdiv/Montana, April 9 (Rositsa Ilieva of BTA) - Three weeks after schools switched to distance learning because of the COVID-19 state of emergency declared in Bulgaria on March 13, pupils approached by BTA are unanimous that grownups should get used to new technologies. Kids also agree that they want to return to their offline classrooms and it does not even occur to them to be happy that parent-teacher conferences are now impossible because of the lockdown. Family supervision is practically 24/7, as an increasing number of parents tend to be involved in home learning, whether they like it or not.

According to estimates of the Education and Science Ministry, the 700,000 or so pupils in 40,000 forms at 2,400 schools countrywide are taught by over 60,000 teachers. Nearly 2,000 teachers are technologically incapacitated to work online, some 70,000 pupils do not have devices, and some of them have no Internet access. Between 1 and 2 million leva under Operational Programme Science and Education for Smart Growth were budgeted to provide teachers with equipment. Education and Science Minister Krasimir Valchev said they had asked mobile operators to increase wi-fi locations in Roma neighborhoods and villages. Where pupils do not have devices at home, they will be instructed by phone, while mediators will carry printouts of lessons and tests to children at home. Each school was free to chose between synchronous or asynchronous distance learning, and the more readily available option: via e-mail or web application, setting assignments by phone, or channelling them through the parents, Valchev added.

Mobile phone operators then donated tablets, and the Ministry said that accounts for work in Microsoft Teams had been sent free of charge, although it is better to operate on platforms to which the schoolchildren are used.

Online schooling already covers 95 per cent of pupils, and the rest will be included in the Support to Succeed Project and will catch up with their peers after offline schools are reopened. Valchev recommended that teaching new knowledge and grading should alternate. Earlier this week, school principals and teachers were instructed to relax online instruction between April 13 and 16 so as to give pupils a respite.

Even before the pandemic crisis, many schools resorted to various digital platforms, virtual classrooms and digital attendance registers. Pupils routinely communicate on Viber, Messenger and Zoom but, unlike before, teachers now regularly join in the chats. The quality of Internet connectivity and technical skills vary, and this does not make teaching or learning easier.

Nevertheless, a positive attitude prevails, and form organizers, school principals, parents and children all appreciate their mutual efforts.

Predictably, the better equipped private schools seem best prepared for the transition to online learning: one private school in Sofia boasted that is already anticipating the Ministry's reactions and has a microsite with accessible information about the schedule, health and safety of pupils, parents and teachers. There, 11th graders were assigned to read Gustave Le Bon's "The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind" as a homework, and their teacher is pleased. He says the switch was seamless because they have been using Google tools for six years now and the existing virtual classrooms. Of all participants in the teaching process, the only ones who strongly resisted distance learning were those teaching the initial grades, but they, too, are already adjusting.

Vulnerable Pupils Try to Cope Against All Odds

Pupils of vulnerable groups, however, may found distance learning an insurmountable obstacle. Milko Stoyanov acts as an education mediator for a local elementary school in Stolipinovo (population 40,000-50,000, the largest of the country's 347 Roma neighbourhoods) in Plovdiv, South Central Bulgaria. He works under a Bulgarian-Swiss programme in the neigbourhoods where, as he says, 90 per cent of the residents identify themselves as ethnic Turks and 10 per cent as ethnic Roma. Basically, Stoyanov's mission is to prevent early school leaving, and since the state of emergency was declared he has been untiringly paying door to door visits to explain the measures that have to be observed in order to stop the contagion and to help children study from home. Since almost no pupils have the devices needed for online learning, mediators shuttle homeworks between pupils and teachers. At times, they have to explain the conditions of the problems, but at other times they encounter children who can barely speak Bulgarian, which adds methodological obstacles to the technical hurdles to distance learning. "Some kids do cope," Stoyanov says and starts his daily round of 35 to 50 households.

Bisser Andreev is the only education mediator in Montana (Northwestern Bulgaria). He takes care of 96 children and was quick to express his admiration for the local vocational school management and the teachers who have been sewing face masks in a charity initiative. Andreev appreciates the understanding shown by parents and teachers and singles out the lack of Internet connectivity in the neighbourhood rather than the lack of devices as the main problem in online teaching and learning. Thanks to his mediation, 8th grader Stefania, 14, says that she is studying hairdressing and this is her favourite subject. They have learned about the Middle Ages in Bulgarian language and literature classes, but she has difficulties with maths, her grades are good and very good. So far, there is no feedback from the results of the tests that the mediator has been sending after the suspension of the conventional teaching process. Stefania misses her classmates and teachers. She does not like studying "in this way from the sheets of paper," she would rather write down in the usual classroom and have someone explain things to her there.

Ivailo, a 12th-grader of a municipal school in a small regional capital in the westernmost parts of the country, says that skipping school in this situation is virtually impossible, since his phone is ringing from the morning. Camera? On, and the mike should better be on at the teacher's cue when the pupil answers. No classes are cancelled, but the periods are 30-minute long instead of the standard 45. Ivailo says they have a lot of homework to do, plus presentations, tests and reports. He rates himself is an average achiever and would rather attend school offline because he absorbs the material better "live".

High-school leavers have not lost all hope for their all-important proms, which traditionally take place around May 24. For the time being, the state of emergency has been extended until May 13.

As far as parents are concerned, distance learning may be more difficult, but it is not impossible, says Feride Yusein, mother of two: a 4th and a 7th grader. Every day the girls watch spots on Ucha.se, listen to recorded lessons, and fill in worksheets they send to their teachers via Viber or Messenger. Feride herself is studying to apply for a university and become a teacher, and relies on Zoom for her own studies while doing her regular fieldwork as a mediator for a Plovdiv-based kindergarten which, like the rest of the preschool establishments, has suspended operations. Yusein goes round the neighbourhoods daily, wearing a protective suit, mask and gloves, and says that people at first are anxious but when they calm down she tells them about the risks, encourages them to practise adequate hygiene, and the question they most often ask is "When the kindergarten will reopen?"

The kids on her beat want more online classes in visual arts, gym and music, and more exercises with pictures.

RI/BR
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Source: Sofia/Plovdiv/Montana