TEHRAN, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- The COVID-19 has created hardship for children in Iran, who struggle to cope the best they can with isolation at home and difficulties to benefit from school education.
After the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in Iran in February, schools were closed in April after the Iranian New Year, and they have remained closed until the new academic year in the beginning of September.
Half an academic year was therefore lost for the vast majority of kids, and many Iranian families have tried to stay at home. Many people told Xinhua that they either played video games, watched cartoons or, much less often, communicated with friends through messaging apps.
But for many children who are in their first and second years of schooling, staying at home for most of the time means they have not had the opportunity to even meet their first school friends.
Such is the case of Ava, 7 years old, living in Abbaskola village in the northern province of Mazandaran, who says she rarely sees family members either, other than her parents and a big cousin who takes care of her.
The 10-years-old Parham, from the old downtown neighborhood of Nezamabad in Tehran, misses going to the swimming-pool and the amusement park. Other than studying, he spends most of his time playing a kung-fu video game and other PlayStation 4 (PS4) features.
The coming back-to-school has not been easy. Iranian authorities developed a special app to facilitate the resumption of classes online, but in practice each school has dealt with the situation in its own way, according to local circumstances and means.
Padmira, in the southern city of Bushehr, explains her school tried to teach online classes through WhatsApp at the beginning, but they soon realized it did not provide an adequate environment, and have by now created their own software.
The 14-year-old girl said that the time previously spent in comings and goings is now saved, and neither her 11-year-old sister Parmisa, their mother and herself won't need to get up at 6 o'clock in the morning to rush to school.
However, the radical change COVID-19 has provoked, the impossibility to design new teaching methods for a whole country in a few months' time, and the difficulty of implementing those methods correctly in such a critical situation make the results of the tireless efforts of Iran's Ministry of Education dependent on local factors.
Ava from Mazandaran complains that she has had to learn basic arithmetic on her own and with her mother's help. "Once I sent a wrong file in an exam and she did not even notice!" She grumbles.
Distance education requires internet access and tablets, but a significant group of children do not have access to a smartphone, said Ahmad Maidari, Iranian deputy minister of social welfare.
"The number of children identified who dropped out of elementary school courses due to poverty is about 10,000, and we are returning them to schooling with the help of social support institutions", the official said in a recent workshop on public policy for children in Tehran.
It is not clear, Maidari further said, what these children are doing in the current situation, whether they have dropped out of school or are having part-time education, and the question arises as to what solution can be found so that families suffer less harm in these difficult circumstances. Enditem
