KOTA KINABALU: "I travelled 40 km together with other teachers to the villages to get to my students' homes. We briefed their parents the timetable for each subject because after being away from school, the students tend to lose focus and it is important for parents to help us teachers."

Such was the grit and determination of school teacher, Anuthra Sirisena in ensuring that her students are not left behind when face-to-face teaching and learning could not be continued after schools were forced to close following the COVID-19 pandemic.

The initiative taken by Anuthra and her colleagues, is among the sacrifices and hard work made by teachers in the country to see to the smooth running of schooling via home-based teaching and learning (PDPR) although it was difficult to implement in the initial stages.

As PdPR or online learning is the way to go for now, when this approach is not running smoothly for some reason or other, teachers cannot give up easily but must instead attempt other offline approaches, such as taking the effort to go to their students' homes to deliver PdPR materials and brief them.

Anuthra, 40, a chemistry teacher at Sekolah Menengah Jenis Kebangsaan (SMJK) Chung Hwa, Tenom said to locate her students' houses she had to stop to ask the people living in Kampung Bamban and Kampung Batu 14, situated some 40 km from Tenom town.

"Usually the villages have no signboards so we have to ask around to get to the student's house. Before it was the parents who would come over to the school to deal with matters related to their children," she told Bernama.

Anuthra, who has been teaching at the school for 16 years, said during the Movement Control Order (MCO) there were no buses or public transport to go into the villages, making it difficult to send over the PdPR materials.

Anuthra who hails from Kuala Lumpur and loves local Sabah food such as tuhau and linopot, said she also sent the PdPR materials through WhatsApp and although there were constraints in internet access, this had to some extent helped her students.

She said despite the various challenges to teach her students during the pandemic, she was happy and thankful that 13 students from the school managed to get an A in Chemistry in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) 2020 examination.

Meanwhile, a teacher at Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) Beaufort II, Ag Alli Ag Omar, 50, said although there was always the fear of being infected with COVID-19 when sending the PdPR materials, this has to be put aside as teachers have a responsibility and obligation of encouraging their students a positive attitude towards learning.

Ag Alli who teaches Bahasa Melayu and is a Form Five class teacher said the set standard operating procedures (SOP)had faciliitated the process of delivering the PdPR materials to the students' homes.

"The Sabah State Education Department (JPNS) will send the modules to schools and the schools will print (materials) before distributing them to students with the help of all school teachers and parents," he said.

Ag Alli who is from Membakut, Beaufort and has been a teacher from 1994, said sending PdPR materials in person to each student's home was the best approach to help the families of underprivileged students who cannot afford to provide devices or have not internet access.

However, he said the main challenge when using printed materials was students' delay in completing their school work and as such, a psychological approach should be applied to coax the students to get their work done in time.

"In addition, it is important for teachers to foster a good relationship with parents, as this can make PdPR so much easier," said Ag Alli adding that two of his students managed to score A for Bahasa Melayu in the SPM 2020 examination.

-- BERNAMA